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In business research, firm size is both ubiquitous and readily measured. Complexity, another firm-related construct, is also relevant, but difficult to measure and not well-defined. As a result, complexity is less frequently incorporated in empirical designs. We argue that most extant measures of complexity are one-dimensional, have limited availability, and/or are frequently misspecified. Using both machine learning and an application-specific lexicon, we develop a text solution that uses widely available data and provides an omnibus measure of complexity. Our proposed measure, used in tandem with 10-K file size, provides a useful proxy that dominates traditional measures.
Wild radish is a major weed of field crops in southern Australia. The effects of various densities of wild radish and wheat on the growth and reproductive output of each other were investigated in field studies in 2003 and 2004. The experiments were established as a factorial combination of wheat (0, 100, 200, and 400 plants m−2) and wild radish (0, 15, 30, and 60 plants m−2) densities. The effect of wild radish density on wheat yield loss and wild radish seed production were described with a rectangular hyperbola model. The presence of wild radish in wheat reduced aboveground dry matter, leaf-area index (LAI), and grain yield of wheat, and the magnitude of this reduction was dependent on weed density. Increasing the density of wheat substantially reduced the adverse effects of wild radish on wheat. As crop density increased, wild radish dry matter, LAI, and seed production per unit area decreased. The maximum seed production of wild radish was achieved at its highest density (60 plants m−2), and was 43,300 and 61,200 seeds m−2 for the first and second year, respectively. The results indicated that higher densities of wheat were able to suppress seed production of this weed species. From a practical viewpoint, this study shows that increased wheat density in the range of 200 to 400 wheat plants m−2 can reduce wild radish seed production and also give some reduction in crop yield loss, and could be an important component of an integrated weed management program.
Measuring the extent to which a firm is financially constrained is critical in assessing capital structure. Extant measures of financial constraints focus on macro firm characteristics such as age and size, variables highly correlated with other firm attributes. We parse 10-K disclosures filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) using a unique lexicon based on constraining words. We find that the frequency of constraining words exhibits very low correlation with traditional measures of financial constraints and predicts subsequent liquidity events, such as dividend omissions or increases, equity recycling, and underfunded pensions, better than widely used financial constraint indexes.
Ever since it was first published in 1999, Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee's novel 'Disgrace' has provoked controversy. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, it follows Prof. David Lurie as he encounters disgrace through his sexual exploitation of a student and then through the shocking gang-rape of his only daughter. The novel's uncompromising portrayal of the 'new' South Africa outraged many, who found the book regressive, even racist. It also challenged readers worldwide to confront its hard questions. This first book of essays devoted to the novel ambitiously brings together criticism and pedagogy. The ten critical essays and eight essays on teaching 'Disgrace' grapple with the ethical issues the novel so provocatively raises: rape, gender, race, animal rights. 'Disgrace' is widely taught in colleges and universities and read in book clubs; the debates it has given rise to will take on fresh life with the release of the upcoming film starring John Malkovich. Unusually, the eighteen contributors to the collection are all faculty members or graduates of the same institution, the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands, and have worked together closely in crafting their essays over the past two years. The volume will be exceptionally useful to teachers of literature, philosophy, and South African culture, to book club leaders, and to all readers of Coetzee. Contributors: Nancy Best, James Boobar, Bradley Butterfield, Jane Creighton, Matthew Gray, Pat Harrigan, Gary Hawkins, Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Daniel Kiefer, Bill McDonald, Michael G. McDunnah, Kim Middleton, Kevin O'Neill, Raymond Obstfeld, Kathy Ogren, Kenneth Reinhard, Sandra D. Shattuck, Patricia Casey Sutcliffe, Julie Townsend. Bill McDonald is emeritus professor of English at the University of Redlands, Redlands, California.
In your own Bosom you bear your Heaven And earth, & all that you behold, tho' it appears Without, it is Within In your Imagination, of which this world of Mortality is but Shadow.
— Blake, Jerusalem
David lurie's past is largely a blank slate to readers of Disgrace. We know only a few things about his academic career, and even less about his upbringing, marriages, politics, and religion. We do learn, in a fast-moving paragraph, that David was raised “in a family of women. As mother, aunts, sisters fell away, they were replaced in due course by mistresses, wives, a daughter. The company of women made him a lover of women and, to an extent, a womanizer…. That was how he lived for years, for decades, that was the backbone of his life” (7). Mothers and sisters, aunts and wives, then a little later “tourists” and “wives of colleagues” (7) appear, then immediately “fall away” from our view, with only Rosalind, wife number two, surviving the sentences that created her. We are left largely with surmises: that he received some musical education, went somewhere to graduate school, has taught for something like a quarter of a century, and thought a photograph of his mother as a young woman worth displaying (15). It's hard to imagine him with sisters.
We also know that David wrote and published three books in earlier phases of his academic career. None of them “caused a stir or even a ripple” (4). Though he is “tired of criticism” now, these books that he wrote about “dead people” once commanded his “heart” (162).
Since it first appeared in 1999, Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace has provoked wide readership, political controversy, and strong critical performances. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, the novel follows Prof. David Lurie as he encounters disgrace, first through his sexual exploitation of one of his students, and then through the gang-rape of his only daughter. Lurie's refusal to negotiate his public confession of guilt over his abusive affair leads to his dismissal, and his daughter's refusal to pursue her black rapists' capture baffles and angers him. These parallel events force him to radically re-evaluate his life, with harrowing results. The novel's stark portrayal of the “new” South Africa outraged many in that country, who found the book regressive, even racist. It also challenged audiences worldwide to look past easy personal and political solutions to the dilemmas of race and gender. It earned Coetzee a second Booker Prize, and has already provoked a great deal of critical attention in the academy, and well beyond. This is the first full-length book devoted to interpreting and teaching this important and disturbing novel.
In many ways our book closely resembles other academic essay collections on individual texts. We are eager to contribute to the critical conversation burgeoning around Coetzee's great novel, and to enrich its teaching in college classrooms. But in other ways our book is significantly different from its companions in this genre, and in ways that will shape, we hope, how readers approach it. To make these differences clear and useful, we need first to say a few things about how our project began, and about its participants.
This paper examines estimation issues associated with multivariate tests of asset pricing. Two issues are considered: (1) the constraint that the sample size (N) must be less than the time series (T), and (2) the relative effect on power of using the multivariate statistic versus a univariate counterpart. We find that an alternative statistic that allows for large N does not dominate the usual portfolio tests. More notably, we find that the power of a simple diagonal statistic usually dominates the multivariate statistic for cases considered in this study.
This paper extends a recent study by Malatesta [14] on measuring abnormal performance using joint generalized least squares. For monthly data and a random sample of securities, Malatesta finds that there is little benefit in using more sophisticated econometric techniques to identify abnormal returns. The current study extends these results using a design that is more amenable to the benefits of the generalized methods and is consistent with actual event studies. Most notably, the study uses a sample of securities experiencing an actual event and tests both monthly and daily data. In addition, iterative techniques are compared to the ordinary least squares and estimated generalized least squares methods. The results of this study support the original conclusions of Malatesta, indicating no measurable gain in using any of the systems methods for event study applications.
The traditional Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) provides a foundation for the estimation of systematic risk that has been applied extensively in studies of investment performance, market efficiency, predictive models, and capital budgeting, to name only a few. Lee [10] considered a special case of nonlinearities occurring in the estimation of systematic risk within the context of the investment horizon problem. His findings, based on a limited sample, provided significant methodological implications for the estimation process and have received wide readership through republication of the study in a readings text [6].
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