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The focus of this paper is to identify factors determining willingness to pay, preferences for geographic areas, and preferred times for study abroad and semester abroad programs.

A unique survey instrument is utilized, which was administered to a section in the college of business of a regional university in Florida. The survey itself contains a variety of demographic questions. The survey also includes questions to assess students' financial conditions, interest in study abroad, parents' influence on study abroad, international experience, international program awareness, and willingness to pay for study abroad.

Results reported here reveal that students consider various factors in their decision to participate in such a program, including not only the cost of the program, but also the academic and cultural components and the popularity of the professor. Factors determining the willingness to pay, preferences for geographic areas, and preferred times for study abroad and semester abroad programs also play a role.

There are biases in the sample limiting the generalizability of the results. Also, extra credit was offered as a reward for completing the survey, which may result in some students providing unreliable answers.

The results of the study should be useful for any university that is currently developing a study abroad plan from both a marketing perspective and an attendance‐maximization viewpoint.

This study is intended to be a first step in synthesizing and summarizing factors important to students as they make decisions regarding study abroad programs.

Outlines previous research on the impact of US Federal Reserve policies on market interest rates and returns; and the relationship between interest rates and market returns. Investigates these effects over three time periods: Sept 1974‐Oct 1979 (interest rate targeting through the federal funds rate), Oct 1979‐Aug 1987 (reserves targeting using the discount rate) and Aug 1987‐Jan 1996 (interest rate targeting again); using four mathematical models. Discusses the results, which suggest that changes in the relevant federal policy tool have a significant negative effect on equity returns, especially during the first two periods and when the change reverses previous change. Concludes that announcements of changes in policy contain valuable information not already included in share prices.

We investigate institutional investors’ trading behavior of acquiring firm stocks surrounding merger activities for the period 1992–2001. We label investment companies and independent investment advisors as active institutions and banks, nonbank trusts, and insurance companies as passive institutions. We analyze the trading behavior of active and passive institutions surrounding merger announcements and their eventual resolution. Our results indicate that active institutions significantly increase their holdings of acquiring firm stocks for mergers with higher announcement period abnormal return and this increase is more pronounced for stock mergers than cash mergers. Active institutions display preference for stock proposals at the merger announcement on the basis of their prior beliefs and this is explained by the “overreaction phenomenon.” However, they update their beliefs between announcement and final resolution as more information arrives into the market. Finally, active institutions appear to correct their overreaction behavior by displaying their greater preference for cash proposals as compared to stock proposals at the quarter of eventual outcome. The trading behavior of passive institutions suggests that these institutions disregard the market response of merger announcement in trading acquiring firm stocks at the announcement quarter. The passive institutions gradually update their beliefs and utilize the information released at the announcement in rebalancing their portfolios at the final resolution.