Search results

In the discussion that follows we provide an overview of the operation of informal justice and ‘punishment violence’ in Northern Ireland which has been a deep-seated a semi-permanent aspect of the violent political conflict and which has persisted well into the transition to peace. Eschewing a mono-causal framework we argue that ‘punishment violence’ can only be explained and hence understood in terms of the organizational dynamics of the various armed groupings; the economic and social deprivation caused by Northern Ireland's declining economic base and the economic costs of the conflict and finally by the deficiencies in the provision and nature of public policing. We then turn our attention to restorative justice as a panacea to the problem of ‘punishment violence’ and examine the effectiveness of a number of schemes and initiatives that currently operate in Northern Ireland. Finally, we suggest that the capacity of armed groups to demobilize and demilitarize and embrace non-violent means of dealing with conflict depends to a significant extent on the leadership skills of ex-combatants themselves.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the implications of managerial herding for investors’ wealth and capital allocation across funds, and the critical role played by fund governance in monitoring herding incentives.

The author adopt the fund herding measure first proposed by Grinblatt et al. (1995) over the long sample period 1992-2007. Univariate and multivariate tests are then constructed to examine the relationship between managerial herding, performance, and investors’ sensitivities. OLS, fixed-effect panel data models are utilized to conduct the tests.

The author show that managers that do not herd have above-average managerial skills, trade less on noise, and significantly outperform herding managers. The author also illustrate that although fund herding could be used as a signal of managerial quality, underperforming herding funds manage to survive in equilibrium, indicating that investor flows do not adequately respond to the information content of a persistent herding behavior. Finally, the author demonstrate that better governance in the form of stronger managerial incentive schemes constitutes a significant deterrent against detrimental herding strategies, representing an effective monitoring device of the response of fund managers to poor flow-performance sensitivity.

The paper provides original evidence on the efficacy of external and internal governance in deterring wealth-reducing herding strategies. The author document that where more effective managerial incentives schemes are put in place by the management companies, fund managers are more likely to be better informed, resulting in fewer incentives to mimic the trading decisions of their peers.

How we become a part of group, identify with the group, and acquire a “we” feeling is both simple and complex. We may absorb groupness either because we were born into the group, or because we have made a decision to choose membership into the group. In this subsection the former will be our focus, and since we have already broached the African American theme we will explain collective identity matters from this perspective.

The idea of biculturalism or multiculturalism has come into sharper focus due to changing intra-national and international demographic shifts, expanding global economic markets, and persistent ethnic and religious warfare across many continents. These global political, cultural, and economic dynamics have forced us to deal with two intensely reverberating, and conflicting, cultural themes and tradition that threaten to unravel many social and political units deemed heretofore strong and unbreakable. One tradition supports and justifies a monocultural view of the world. This perspective asserts that a nation-state functions best when it is defined and controlled by one dominate cultural framework. The logic and justification for such a view is mirrored in the history and philosophy of societies and nation states which have waged relentless wars of conquest; in such wars, victors have attained and often maintained both political power and cultural hegemony over the defeated. Whether the initial causes of warfare were grounded in disputes over religious differences, land disputes, control of the seas, or overseas colonies, the reality is the victory of one nation or society over another would result in the submergence and subservience of one culture over another, as reflected in the victor's religion, language, political system, etc. The laws and rules of conquest and defeat reverberate throughout human history and whether in Africa, Asia, Europe, or North and South America and are deeply rooted in human, tribal, and clan differences. The various religions have historically justified the conquest by their zealots over non-believers, but it is only in recent history that a new and devastating logic was proffered to justify the domination of one group over another. The combination of European colonialism and imperialism, aided by the scientism of Social Darwinism and the nationalistic ideas of Manifest Destiny gave support to the ideals of White supremacy. Despite subtle political and religious differences between Western nations what they held in common was the belief that they represented the destiny of world civilization, and thus had an obligation to conquer the “uncivilized” world in order to save and perpetuate Western values and ideals. Thus, the growth and evolution of European and American social, political, economic and religious history and thought was not one in which conquering countries and groups sought to “understand” the conquered, nor would it be predicated on any cultural equality, or cultural equivalency between the victors and the vanquished. For example, in the United States the colonial government and the young republic fought Native Americans, the French, Spain (twice), the British (twice), then Mexico, for cultural, political, economic, and social hegemony over what is currently the landmass of the United States.

The purpose of this paper is to identify elements of intentional herd behavior (HB), differentiating it from spurious, or unintentional HB.

Using a panel of 50 stocks belonging to 18 Chilean equity mutual funds between December 2002 and October 2009, with manually collected data regarding physical positions of monthly purchases and sales, the authors calculate the level of HB and, by applying panel regressions with fixed and random effects, analyze the factors that determine this behavior, classifying them as agency, information, efficiency and behavioral problems.

The research establishes that among Chilean equity mutual funds, there is a herding of 2.8 percent, implying that for 100 funds trading a certain stock, 53 go in the same direction and 47 in another. This effect increases during widespread market dips and when stocks become fashionable, attracting market attention. This behavior is not merely spurious, associated with variables that predict returns, but also has an intentional component, related to agency problems and information, and a behavioral component, related to investors’ biases and beliefs.

The paper is original because, despite existing evidence of herding in international markets, it has been little quantified or studied in emerging markets. In addition, the literature does not distinguish between spurious and intentional HB, nor does it test different hypotheses jointly to explain the phenomenon.

This volume, “Restorative Justice: From Theory to Practice”, pays homage to the sociological foundations of the movement and explores the practical side of theoretical application. Contributions are from a range of leading theorists and methodologists whose primary interests lie in the development and advancement of restorative justice. These scholars offer diverse, cross-cultural perspectives which are particularly important given the major contributions to this area from outside of the United States. The popularity and implementation of restorative justice practices abroad necessitates the participation of such scholars and adds to the diversity and quality of the volume. The following chapters focus on theoretical advancement, methodological refinements, practical issues, or combinations of such.

This paper aims to examine herding behaviour among investors and traders in UK-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) within three market regimes (low, high and extreme volatility periods) from the period June 2004 to April 2016.

Observations of investors in 36 REITs that trade on the London Stock Exchange as at April 2016 were used to analyse herding behaviour among investors and traders of shares of UK REITs, using a Markov regime-switching model.

Although a static herding model rejects the existence of herding in REITs markets, estimates from the regime-switching model reveal substantial evidence of herding behaviour within the low volatility regime. Most interestingly, the authors observed a shift from anti-herding behaviour within the high volatility regime to herding behaviour within the low volatility regime, with this having been caused by the FTSE 100 Volatility Index (UK VIX).

The results have various implications for decisions regarding asset allocation, diversification and value management within UK REITs. Market participants and analysts may consider that collective movements and market sentiment/psychology are determinative factors of risk-return in UK REITs. In addition, general uncertainty in the equity market, proxied by the impact of the UK VIX, may also provide a signal for increasing herding-related risks among UK REITs.

The significant economic weight of the Eurozone in the globe caused the contagion of the Eurozone debt crisis on the emerging markets. The Eurozone debt crisis caused the sudden plummeting of the cross-border bank credit (BC) to India causing a significant impact on bank lending in India. Essentially, the purpose of this study is to find an answer to the question: Did the decline in cross-border cross-credit from Eurozone had an impact on domestic BC in India?

Using the data for the period from 2000 to 2013 sourced from Bank for International Settlements international banking statistics consolidated data sets, the novel specification of the study captures the impact of Eurozone cross-border credit on India by developing two regression frameworks that capture the pre-Euro debt crisis period scenario and post-Euro debt crisis period scenario.

The results offer a very interesting analogy of the behavior of BC and cross-border credit during the pre and post-Eurozone crisis scenarios of analysis. During the pre-Eurozone crisis period, cross-border credit displayed a significant negative relationship with BC indicating that cross-border credit to the Indian firms indirectly benefitted the banks by creating increased demand for domestic BC. The post-Eurozone crisis period witnessed a nexus between cross-border credit and BC during the pre-Eurozone crisis period, which gradually disappeared largely because of the onset of the Eurozone crisis.

This study is a first of its kind in investigating the impact of the Eurozone crisis on an emerging economy like India. This study supports the hypothesis of the existence of the transmission of financial shocks through the balance sheets of international banks. The findings conform to the policy concerns of most of the emerging economies that international banks transmit financial shocks from their home countries. The implication for India and other emerging economies is that international credit growth deserves careful monitoring.