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The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship between the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and their operational efficiency and performance.

The authors use S&P Global (formerly SNL Real Estate) for the study analyses and examine all publicly traded REITs based in the United States over the 2019–2020 sample period. The authors regress the measures of REIT operational efficiency and operational performance on REIT ESG scores while controlling for REIT characteristics and use an ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation model with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors. The authors also run additional regressions to examine the implications of operational efficiency on the relationship between ESG and operational performance.

The authors find that REITs that perform well on the ESG scale have higher operational efficiency. In addition, the authors find that REITs with better ESG scores are associated with better operational performance. Finally, the authors find that the positive association between ESG scores and operational performance is stronger in REITs with higher operational efficiency.

First, the adoption of ESG adds value to the REIT in terms of increased operational performance and efficiency. Second, the value addition of ESG to an REIT is driven by the better operational efficiency of some REITs over the others. Therefore, the authors’ findings suggest that REITs that currently score poorly on ESG performance would first need to focus on all the possible avenues to improve economies of scale and hence operational efficiency. This approach would help ensure that when those REITs adopt ESG initiatives, they get the most bang for their buck.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that relates operational efficiency and operational performance of REITs to their ESG scores.

The paper seeks to show that marketing and psychology literature can shed light on why investors exhibit preferences for certain price ends. The perspective adopted is that the stock market is a marketplace in which investors, as consumers, buy and sell (i.e. exchange) financial products such as stocks.

The paper analyzes trading data from the stock exchanges to empirically test propositions about investor behavior vis‐à‐vis certain price ends of interest derived from the marketing and psychology literature.

Investors, as consumers, favor price‐ends of 0 and 5 more than price‐ends of 9, in that they trade more frequently and more aggressively at these price ends. Further, even price ends of 0 are favored more than odd price ends of 5.

The results of the study shed light on how the cognitive bias of the consumer thwarts the otherwise efficient functioning of the financial market.

The paper uses market‐level data to gain insights into the cognitive process of the individual investor, in addition to teasing out specific biases that have not been identified earlier in the literature. It extends the study of consumer behavior to non‐traditional, but consequential, marketplaces such as the stock market.

This study examines whether dividend payout, an internal corporate governance mechanism, is a substitute for or an outcome of product market competition, an external corporate governance mechanism. The sample includes firms in six of the world’s most prominent economies. We find that firms in more competitive industries pay less in the way of dividends to their shareholders, which is consistent with the notion that dividends and competition are substitutes. We also determine that the above negative relationship is weaker in countries with stronger regulation protecting minority shareholders against corporate self-dealing. Furthermore, the relationship has attenuated following the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that increased regulation and enhanced governance standards. Collectively, our findings provide consistent evidence across countries that the two corporate governance mechanisms examined in the study are substitutes, and greater regulation weakens the substitution effect. Our empirical findings are robust to alternative measures of dividend payout, industry definition, and shareholder protection.

To determine what role overconfidence plays in the forced removal of CEOs internationally.

The study makes use of the Fortune Global 500 list.

We find that overconfident CEOs face significantly greater hazards of forced turnovers than their non-overconfident peers. Regardless of important differences in culture, law, and corporate governance across countries, overconfidence has a separate and distinct effect on CEO turnover. Overconfident CEOs appear to be at greater risk of dismissal regardless of where in the world they are located. We also discover that overconfident CEOs are disproportionately succeeded by other overconfident CEOs, regardless of whether they are forcibly removed or voluntarily leave office. Finally, we determine that the dismissal of overconfident CEOs is associated with improved market performance, but only limited enhancement in accounting returns.

This study is unique with its examination of overconfidence among global CEOs rather than being limited to U.S. chief executives. It also provides insight into how overconfidence is related to national cultures, legal systems and corporate governance mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine stocks that are most actively discussed by online posters and see if the messages posted about these stocks have information or if they are just noise.

This study uses messages posted on TheLion.com, which reports a real time list of the ten most actively discussed stocks. The stocks in this list at the daily market close during 2005‐2006 are examined. An event study is performed to estimate the daily abnormal returns on these stocks. Contemporaneous and lead–lag regressions of abnormal returns against message posting activities are performed.

Online posters prefer thinly traded micro‐cap stocks. On average, there is an abnormal return of 19.4 per cent on a stock the day it is one of the ten most talked about stocks. The number of messages posted about a stock on a given day is not only positively related with the stock's abnormal return on that day but it also positively predicts the next day's abnormal return.

It may be interesting to examine if the investor sentiment expressed in online messages has predictive power for micro‐cap stocks.

The results provide evidence to regulators that online talk affects stock prices. They show investors that there are inefficiencies in the stock market. They also suggest that corporate managers, especially of small firms, should monitor the stock message boards.

This study focuses on the micro‐cap stocks favored by online posters and finds that online talk has the power to predict the next‐day returns.

The authors provide a general framework of behavior under asymmetric information and develop indices of diligence, objectivity and quality by an analyst and analyst firm about a studied firm, and relate them to the accuracy of its forecasts. The authors test the associations of these indices with time.

The test of Public Information versus Non-Public Information Models provides the index of diligence, which equals one minus the p-value of the Hausman Specification Test of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) versus Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS). The test of Objectivity versus Non-Objectivity Models provides the index of objectivity, which equals the p-value of the Wald Test of zero coefficients versus non-zero coefficients in 2SLS regression of the earnings forecast residual. The exponent of the negative of the standard deviation of the residuals of the analyst forecast regression equation provides the index of analytical quality. Each index asymptotically equals the Bayesian ex post probability, by the analyst and analyst firm about the studied firm, of the relevant behavior.

The authors find that ex post accuracy is a statistically and economically significant increasing function of the product of the indices of diligence, objectivity and quality by the analyst and analyst firm about the studied firm, which asymptotically equals the Bayesian ex post joint probability of diligence, objectivity and quality. The authors find that diligence, objectivity, quality and accuracy did not improve with time.

There has been no previous work done on the systematic and objective characterization and joint analysis of diligence, objectivity and quality of analyst forecasts by an analyst and analyst firm for a studied firm, and their relation with accuracy. This paper puts together the frontiers of various disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of preventive health management for high-risk employees, who are the 1-3 percent with a propensity to become dangerous.

The paper reviews the literature and design a prevention model for high-risk employees that relies on primary, secondary, and tertiary surveillance indicators as well as prevention methods. The behaviors of these employees are often not accidental, even if not always intentional.

Primary prevention through organizational socialization and supervision can reduce emergence of high-risk employees. Early identification through secondary surveillance then prevention of incivility and deviance can deter escalation to violent behavior. When high-risk employees become dangerous and violent, tertiary prevention calls for containment, caregiving, forgiveness, and resilience.

The paper suggests that HR professionals can advance health, well-being, and performance while averting danger and violence by identifying and managing high-risk employees, anticipating their needs, and providing supportive resources and advising.

The paper applies public health prevention to deviant and violent employees.