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The purpose of this paper is to describe a generalization of the familiar two‐sample t‐test for equality of means to the case where the sample values are to be given unequal weights. This is a natural situation in financial risk modeling when some samples are considered more reliable than others in predicting a common mean. We also describe an example with real credit data showing that ignoring this modification of the two‐sample test can lead to the wrong statistical conclusion.

We follow the analysis of the classical two‐sample tests in the more general situation of weighted means. We also test our methods against some market data to assess the importance of the findings.

We formulate some explicit test statistics that should be used when the sample values are to be assigned differing known weights. Different cases are presented depending on how much is known about the variances. In the most typical case (the unpooled two‐sample test), we approximate the test statistic with a t‐distribution. Proofs are given where possible.

In the unpooled case, we still only have an approximate t‐distribution. This is related to the classical Behrens‐Fisher problem, which is still not fully solved. We also focus on the case where the sample values are normally distributed. It would be valuable to see how far the discussion can be extended to non‐normal distributions.

Researchers should use the two‐sample test statistics given in this paper instead of the standard ones when testing for equality of weighted means.

Weighted means occur frequently in situations when the credibility or reliability of data vary. However, standard tests for equality of means do not take weights into account. These results will be of value to any researchers studying statistical means of data of varying reliability, such as corporate bond spreads.

This study examines the durations of US stock market cycle expansions and contractions for the presence of seasonality. Specifically, it is determined whether the distributional characteristics (i.e., location and dispersion) of the durations of market expansions and contractions are dependent on the time of the year the market phase begins or ends. The duration data are obtained from a stock market chronology of monthly peak and trough dates for the period May 1835 through July 1998 and nonparametric rank‐based tests are used to test for the presence of seasonality. In order to provide some evidence on robustness with respect to the sample data, results are obtained for the entire sample period as well as for various sub‐periods. When the data are aggregated on a quarterly basis, the evidence suggests that seasonal structures are present in stock market cycle durations. These seasonals are related primarily to shifts in location over the course of the year and to when a market expansion or contraction begins. However, when the duration data are aggregated on a bi‐annual basis, support for seasonality is much more limited.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test legitimacy theory by comparing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures of tax aggressive corporations with those of non‐tax aggressive corporations in Australia.

A unique sample of 20 Australian corporations accused by the Australian Taxation Office of engaging in tax aggressive activities during the 2001‐2006 period was hand‐collected. These 20 tax aggressive corporations were then matched with 20 non‐tax aggressive corporations (based on industry classification, corporation size and time period). This process generated a choice‐based sample of 40 corporations for empirical analysis. Using content analysis techniques, financial accounting data were gathered from the Aspect‐Huntley database and CSR disclosures were individually measured for each corporation in the sample. Various statistical techniques were then used (e.g. paired sample statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and ordinary least squares regression analysis) to test legitimacy theory.

Overall, the empirical results consistently show a positive and statistically significant association between corporate tax aggressiveness and CSR disclosure, thereby confirming legitimacy theory in the context of corporate tax aggressiveness.

The paper provides empirical evidence in support of legitimacy theory as an explanation for why specific corporations disclose more CSR‐related information than others. Additionally, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the paper is one of the first to document an empirical association between corporate tax aggressiveness and CSR in the literature.

We highlight key assumptions implicit in the models used by academics conducting research on market efficiency. Most notably, many academics assume that investors can borrow unlimited amounts and construct long-short portfolios at zero cost. We relax these assumptions and examine the attractiveness of long-short strategies as stand-alone investments and as a part of a diversified portfolio. Our analysis illustrates that the key benefit of long-short investing is adding diversification to a portfolio beyond what the market provides. We show that as stand-alone investments, nontrivial risk remains in the “hedge” strategies and that the returns generally do not beat the market in a head-to-head contest. Our findings raise questions about the degree of inefficiency in anomaly studies because plausible measures of costs generally offset strategy returns. The ability to achieve greater diversification may be, but is not necessarily, due to market inefficiency. We also highlight the key role of the generally ignored but critically important short interest rebate and show that absent this rebate, the long-short strategies we examine generally yield insignificant returns.

This study investigates the factors influencing household financial choices in Malawi. The authors also compare how household financial decisions differ in urban and rural areas.

The authors utilize the logit model to examine the factors that influence household financial decisions using the Malawi Integrated Household Survey 2019–20, while Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition is used to estimate the variations in household financial decisions between urban and rural areas.

The authors find that the likelihood of saving increases with income, secondary and tertiary education, and age. The likelihood of saving also decreases with household size and remittances. Additionally, the authors report that marriage reduces the likelihood of loans, whereas sex, age, and income raise the likelihood of loans. According to this study’s findings, income discrepancies between urban and rural samples account for most observed household financial variations. The authors also find that most of the observed variations in household financial decision-making between urban and rural households are reduced when income equality, participation in agriculture, university education, and household size are considered.

Using data from the Malawi Integrated Household Survey 2019–20, this research analyzes the components that affect household financial decisions. While most studies only look at one component of household finances, this study concurrently addresses debt and savings. The study also evaluates whether changes in the variables between urban and rural households impact those households' financing choices.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the most important genes generated by the gene expression arrays, responsible for the recognition of particular types of cancer.

The paper presents the analysis of different techniques of gene selection, including correlation, statistical hypothesis, clusterization and linear support vector machine (SVM).

The correctness of the gene selection is proved by mapping the distribution of selected genes on the two‐coordinate system formed by two most important principal components of the PCA transformation. Final confirmation of this approach are the classification results of recognition of several types of cancer, performed using Gaussian kernel SVM.

The results of selection of the most significant genes used for the SVM recognition of seven types of cancer have confirmed good accuracy of results. The presented methodology is of potential use in practical application in bioinformatics.

This paper studies the empirical application of an asset pricing model derived from the irrational individual behavior of loss aversion. Previous research using loss aversion asset pricing finds conclusive evidence that estimations match market equity premium and volatility using simulation data. We find that within its empirical application, the estimated errors are comparable to errors estimated from the capital asset pricing model. This study of the correlations between rational and irrational asset pricing model from the empirical results finds validity for both estimated values. Finally, we see the importance of cultures, economic development and financial development on asset pricing through an empirical examination of five pacific-basin countries in the estimation of asset pricing models.

We develop theoretical arguments from the efficiency wage model (Shapiro & Stiglitz, 1984) to provide better understanding of Fama’s (1980) seminal notion that executive labor markets contribute to the alignment of executive and shareholder interests. We show how the efficiency wage model can be integrated with several other theories of executive turnover. Furthermore, the model allows for predictions that have received very little analysis to date, such as the effect of firm risk and executive salaries on turnover. We test predictions from the model on a sample of executives from 280 manufacturing firms observed annually from 1986 to 1992. Our sample includes data on over 12,000 observations and nearly 1,700 employment terminations. The results are consistent with the main predictions of the efficiency wage model. Holding performance constant, boards of directors are less patient with (more likely to dismiss) executives who have lower salaries and those in higher risk firms.

This study aims to explore the impact of blockchain announcements on enterprises' stock market value.

Based on resource-based theory, this study constructs a complete framework of the impact mechanism of blockchain announcements on the stock price of the announcing firm using the data of 143 blockchain announcements. An event study methodology is used in this research, and the market model, market-adjusted model and Carhart four-factor model are used to estimate stock abnormal returns after the blockchain announcement; and the cross-sectional regression model is used to test the influencing factors.

Blockchain announcements elicit a significantly positive market reaction on the release day. Compared to announcements not pertaining to technical innovation, blockchain technical innovation announcements exhibit a more positive market reaction towards the announcing companies. Strategic-level announcements exhibit a more positive market reaction than operational-level announcements. Enterprise characteristics, such as enterprise-scale and enterprise innovation ability, do not affect stock market reactions to blockchain announcements.

The findings reveal the economic value of conducting blockchain activities in the Chinese stock market. Findings of this study can help managers understand the value of implementing blockchain activities in a different market environment and guide them on how to improve the market value of their enterprises through the active implementation of blockchain activities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first event study to focus solely on the value of pure blockchain announcements in an emerging market. This study considers multiple resource and capability factors that would influence blockchain technology adoption, improve the current understanding of how blockchain announcements affect corporate stock prices and provide directions for future comparative studies of market reactions to blockchain announcements in different stock markets.

Effective use of human resources is important for the profitability and governance of family firms. In a study of the human resource management (HRM) practices of US Hispanic family firms, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the implications of agency and stewardship governance.

To better understand HRM practices in US Hispanic family firms, the authors present findings from 169 US firms to hypothesize the extent of HRM development in Hispanic family firms (n=70) vs non-Hispanic family firms (n=99).

Results indicated that HRM practices in Hispanic family firms are less structured than those of non-Hispanic family firms; however, when Hispanic family firms effectively use HRM practices, they will have greater financial success.

Therefore, the results suggest that Hispanic family firm leaders display relatively low agency governance and high stewardship governance.