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Myopic marketing spending—curtailing marketing and research and development expenses to boost earnings—damages firms' long-term value. Despite this, top management teams are often myopic, and by the time investors or boards detect such short-termism, it is too late to react or intervene. This research introduces a novel prediction method by analyzing the language top management teams use in earnings calls, specifically focusing on marketing and earnings emphasis, to predict future instances of myopic marketing spending. Through linguistic dependency parsing of almost 11 million sentences extracted from nearly 25,000 quarterly earnings call transcripts of 1,197 firms between 2008 and 2019, the authors demonstrate that the proposed approach can predict myopic marketing spending at a quarterly frequency for up to one year in advance. They find that an increase of one standard deviation in earnings emphasis is associated with a 23.68% increase in the likelihood of future myopic marketing spending. Investments based on the proposed approach produce 1.61% additional annual abnormal returns compared with models that exclusively use known predictors of myopic marketing spending, while offering earlier foresight and more frequent opportunities for intervention. This reduces information asymmetry for investors and boards of directors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies tax-minimizing investment, whereby firms tilt capital purchases toward year-end to reduce taxes. We use this pattern to characterize how taxes affect investment behavior. We exploit variation in firm tax positions from administrative data to confirm that tax minimization causes spikes. Spikes increase when firms face financial constraints or higher option values of waiting. Cumulative investment does not completely reverse after spikes. We develop an investment model with tax asymmetries to rationalize these patterns. Both depreciation motives (later investments face lower effective tax rates) and option value motives (tax asymmetry implies time-varying opportunities to minimize taxes) are necessary to fit the data. (JEL G31, G38, H25) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary digital age, continued online learning behaviors have become indispensable for fostering employee development. However, the learning and development literature predominantly focuses on traditional instructor‐led approaches. It remains unclear how organizations can shape employees' learning behaviors, particularly in the context of online learning. The current study clarifies this underexplored research area by investigating how organizational investment in employee developmental climate (IEDC) can promote employees' continued online learning behaviors. Drawing on social influence theory and employing a multilevel research design, we find empirical support for our research model, which specifies that IEDC positively affects employees' continued online learning behaviors through the effect of normative pressure. The findings also reveal the moderating role of online learning facilitating conditions. Specifically, in firms characterized by higher levels of online learning facilitating conditions, the positive relationship between IEDC and normative pressure becomes more pronounced when compared to organizations with lower levels of such facilitating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Funds investing in illiquid assets report returns with spurious autocorrelation. Consequently, investors need to unsmooth these funds' returns when evaluating their risk exposures. We show that funds with similar investments share a common source of spurious autocorrelation not fully resolved by traditional unsmoothing methods and thereby leading to underestimation of systematic risk. Thus, we propose a generalized unsmoothing technique and apply it to hedge funds and private commercial real estate funds. Our method significantly improves the measurement of funds' risk exposures and risk-adjusted performance, especially for highly illiquid funds. Overall, the average illiquid fund alpha is lower than previously thought. (JEL G11, G12, G23) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the psychological effects from stock market returns. Using an FBI database of over 55 million daily reported crime incidents across the United States, crime is proposed as a measure of psychological well-being. The evidence suggests that stock returns affect the well-being of not only investors but also noninvestors. Specifically, a contemporaneous negative (positive) relationship between daily stock market returns and violent crime rates is found for investors (noninvestors). A similar relationship is also found between local earnings surprises and violent crime. The contrasting relationships for investors and noninvestors suggests that relative wealth may influence well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the value of due diligence recommendations on Reddit's Wallstreetbets (WSB) platform. Before the Gamestop (GME) short squeeze, recommendations are significant predictors of returns and cash-flow news. This predictability is eliminated post-GME. Post-GME, the fraction of reports emphasizing price-pressure or attention-grabbing stocks dramatically increases, and the decline in informativeness is concentrated in these reports. Similarly, retail trade informativeness is particularly strong following DD reports in the pre-GME period, but not post-GME. Our findings are consistent with the view that the Gamestop event altered the culture of WSB , leading to a deterioration in investment quality that adversely affected smaller investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial markets reveal information that firm managers can utilize when making equity value-enhancing investment decisions. However, for firms with risky debt, such investments are not necessarily socially efficient. Despite this friction, we show that learning from prices improves investment efficiency. This effect is asymmetric, however, as investors learn less about projects that decrease the riskiness of cash flows: efficiency is lower for diversifying investments than for focusing (risk-increasing) investments. This also implies that investors' endogenous learning further attenuates risk shifting but amplifies debt overhang. Our model provides a novel channel through which learning from financial markets affects agency frictions between stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a loglinear present-value identity in which investment ("scale"), profitability ("yield"), and discount rates determine a firm's market-to-book ratio. Our identity reconciles existing influential market-to-book decompositions and facilitates novel insights from three empirical applications: (1) Both investment and profitability are important contributors to the value spread and stock return news variance. (2) Any cross-sectional return predictability has a mirror image in cash-flow fundamentals, providing asset pricing theories with additional moments to match. (3) The investment spread significantly improves the predictability of time-series variation in the value premium and justifies the poor performance of value in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature provides conflicting arguments and mixed results regarding whether capital markets punish managerial myopia. Using managers cutting research and development (R&D) investments to meet short-term earnings goals as a research setting, this study reveals that capital markets penalize managerial myopia, especially for firms with high investor sophistication. Moreover, the negative market reactions to managerial myopia are weaker for firms with overinvestment problems than for those without such problems. Overall, the results support the notion that security markets are not shortsighted. In further analysis, we document that compensation, especially earnings-based compensation, may cause managers to behave myopically. Our study contributes to the literature, reconciling previously mixed findings by capturing managers' myopic behavior in a more targeted way and showing that markets punish myopic R&D cutting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit the staggered introduction of liability waivers when investors hold stakes in conflicting business opportunities as a shock to venture capital (VC) investment and director networks. After the law changes, we find increases in within-industry VC investment and common directors serving on startup boards. Despite the potential for rent extraction, same-industry startups inside VC portfolios benefit by raising more capital, failing less, and exiting more successfully. VC directors serving on other startup boards are the primary mechanism associated with positive outcomes, consistent with common VC investment facilitating informational exchanges in VC portfolios. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploiting demand shocks from changes in federal government spending, we examine how the organizational structure of a firm affects its investment behavior. Government spending shocks affect the investment of government-dependent conglomerate segments less than matched stand-alone firms. Investment also increases in lower government-dependent segments when other segments within the same firm experience positive demand shocks, indicating cross-subsidization between segments. We further show that this cross-subsidization leads to worse operating performance and increases the diversification discount. Our findings are robust after addressing the endogeneity of government spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of board governance on investment efficiency. I use the staggered enactment of board reforms in 41 countries as a shock to board structure that exogenously improves the quality of board oversight of managers. I find that investment-Q sensitivity improves by roughly half post-reform. This effect is more pronounced for firms that are more exposed to the reforms or when external governance mechanisms are less likely to discipline managers. These findings suggest that increased board oversight strengthens managers' incentives to make investment decisions that are more in line with their firms' growth opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insiders must disclose indirect trades made through accounts they control, including family, trust, retirement, and foundation accounts. Indirect trades through these accounts are more profitable than direct trades in the insider's own account. They are also more likely to be made by "opportunistic" insiders who make nonroutine trades, or who trade profitably before earnings announcements, or who have a short investment horizon. These trades contain more predictive information about earnings surprises and large price changes, and they tend to be made by insiders at firms with high information asymmetry. Insiders also make fewer indirect trades following periods of intense regulatory scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a sample of non-U.S. regulatory regime shifts, we find that expanded short selling is associated with stock price declines, reductions in capital expenditure, and lower asset growth. In a reversal of results found for U.S. stocks in a study of Regulation SHO by Grullon, Michenaud, and Weston (2015), our results are stronger for large firms than for small firms. We also show that this investment effect is stronger for firms that previously relied on outside financing. Our results suggest that short-sale policies affect corporate investment and that this effect is not driven by capital constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine diseconomies of scale for two different investment approaches: quantitative and fundamental. Using separate account (SA) data where the investment approach is self-identified, we find that fundamental SAs exhibit greater diseconomies of scale than quantitative SAs. Looking at liquidity costs, we find that quantitative SAs hold more diversified portfolios of higher liquidity stocks than fundamental SAs, thereby reducing their expected liquidity costs. We also find that consistent with lower information processing/hierarchy costs, the speed of information diffusion is higher for quant SAs. Accounting for these differences helps to explain the differences in diseconomies of scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a large body of evidence suggests that gender inequality in access to primary education has reduced significantly in India, there has been relatively little research on gender gap in learning outcomes, particularly math scores. Using a nationally representative household dataset, this study examines the role of parental resources in explaining gender gap in math scores for primary school-going children in India. We find that male children have significantly higher math scores than their female counterparts. However, this difference decreases with the increase in parental education and household assets. We also find that family investment in education explains a large part of gender gap in math. Overall, our findings provide a new understanding of gender gap in math scores in India. It has important policy implications for minimising gender gap in academic achievement to make school education more gender-inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: We examine how geopolitical volatility—the instability of bilateral political affinity between countries—affects foreign subsidiary investments. Building on prior work that shows that the level of political affinity between countries facilitates foreign investments, we argue that the volatility of political affinity impedes firms' ability to form expectations about stakeholder behavior and reduces subsequent investments in subsidiaries. We further argue that the effect of volatility of political affinity on foreign subsidiary investments is less pronounced when the level of political affinity between countries is high and when the firm has strong political connections at home. Our analyses examine 1054 US firms and their subsidiary investments in 106 countries from 2000 to 2015. Managerial Summary: Geopolitical risk has emerged as an important factor in foreign investment decisions in recent years. The rise of geopolitical tensions worldwide and the fragmentation of relationships between countries have introduced new dimensions to foreign investment risks. We study the propensity for sudden and unpredictable shifts in the political relationship between countries—that is, volatility of political affinity in their bilateral political relations—and its effect on firms' foreign subsidiary investments. We show that volatility of political affinity negatively affects the number of subsidiaries, employees, and local sales in the host country because when bilateral relations change suddenly, it is more difficult for multinational firms to predict how stakeholder behavior will impact the performance of their investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Investment growth in family firms is constrained by family preferences to retain corporate control, which limits outside equity issuance and increases the expropriation risk perceived by external minority shareholders. Tenure‐based voting rights (TVRs) weaken the link between voting rights and cash flow rights, facilitating new equity capital issuance without loss of control. We find that publicly listed family firms in Italy adopt TVRs to facilitate the continuation of investment growth while retaining family control. We also find that in family firms with fragile control, investment increases after TVR adoption. Our results indicate that control‐enhancing mechanisms such as TVRs can help resolve the control–growth dilemma in family firms. Managerial Summary: Family firms tend to invest less than other firms because funding new investment can lead to loss of family control. Tenure‐based voting rights (TVRs) reinforce the control of qualifying family shareholders, giving them extra shareholder voting power. Deviation from the one‐share‐one‐vote principle is generally regarded as detrimental to outside shareholders' interests. However, we find that TVR‐adopting Italian family firms invest more, pay higher dividends, are more profitable and have more outside shareholders on the board of directors. In other words, violation of the one‐share‐one‐vote rule using TVRs can benefit both family owners and outside shareholders. Policymakers could consider whether TVRs can help in promoting economic growth, especially in countries where family firms are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Government involvement plays a significant role in fostering entrepreneurship. We examine how government involvement in venture capital (VC) investments shapes the decoupling between risk‐taking and investment returns. We distinguish government involvement through state ownership (GVC) and personal political connections (connected VC). We theorize that government involvement through GVC is associated with the downside risk–return paradox, that is, concurrent higher risk‐taking and lower‐than‐expected returns. In contrast, government involvement through connected VCs is linked to the upside risk–return paradox, that is, concurrent lower risk‐taking and higher‐than‐expected returns. Our theoretical predictions receive general support from analyses using longitudinal data from VC firms in China. Our study sheds light on the heterogeneity in the decoupling between risk and return and the underlying mechanisms through which governments influence entrepreneurship. Managerial Summary: Governments often seek to promote entrepreneurship; yet, their involvement in start‐ups tends to deviate from the conventional wisdom of a positive risk–return association. Government‐owned venture capital (VC) firms tend to take greater risks and invest in earlier‐stage start‐ups, but yield lower returns from their investments. Conversely, VC firms that have personal ties to government officials tend to take lower risks and prefer later‐stage start‐ups, yet achieve higher returns. These intriguing findings reveal the complexities of government participation in entrepreneurial activities and offer valuable insights for policy formulation. In addition, our findings highlight the importance for entrepreneurs to recognize diverse goals and resources in government involvement. Considering this when seeking external financing is helpful in positioning start‐ups for growth and success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk aversion is one of the investment theories in which the price-performance ratio reacts to the investor’s risk tolerance and is guided with due attention to its changes. These settings allude to changes in the investor’s activity in response to global economic patterns. According to this theory, investors tend to have higher-risk investments when the market risk is low. However, investors tend to invest in a safe asset when a high market risk is felt. The investor’s tendency to avoid risk increases and decreases over time. Occasionally, investors invest more in higher-risk instruments than in other periods, such as economic prosperity in 2009. The primary purpose of this research study is to present a model for identifying the risk aversion of shareholders depending on the influence and role of the government’s monetary and fiscal policies and the mass behavior of shareholders. This is applied research in terms of purpose and descriptive survey research in terms of method. The statistical population of the research is the country of Iran. The study’s participants include managers, shareholders, and investors with associated scientific backgrounds and experience in the stock exchange. Thus, the managers, shareholders, and investors active in the stock exchange were selected as the participants of the present study. Besides, the purposeful sampling method and theoretical sampling strategy with maximum variation were used. The researcher reached theoretical saturation by interviewing nine people, and the interviews continued with 11 people to become confident about the results. Data analysis was done using MAXQDA OLS, pls software. The research results have been to identify the role of the government’s monetary and fiscal policies and the shareholders’ mass behavior in presenting the model of identifying the risk aversion of the shareholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aimed to present a model for the competitiveness of selected Iranian knowledge-based companies in the fourth industrial revolution. Therefore, in terms of the goal, it is applied research because, in addition to the awareness and scientific aspect, it will also have a practical element for the relevant organizations. According to the purpose and nature of this research, in terms of method, it was qualitative research conducted by interviewing research experts. The statistical population of the study included Iran’s knowledge-based companies, which, according to the classification of the working group for evaluating and recognizing the competence of knowledge-based companies and institutions, the field of electricity and electronics, laser and photonics, were chosen due to their greater dependence on the components of the fourth industrial revolution. The approach of the qualitative part has been grounded in theory. The results showed that the competitiveness model of selected Iranian knowledge-based companies in the fourth industrial revolution includes internal organizational factors, Extra-organizational factors, agility, capable intellectual resources, value chain, innovative services and products, environmental factors, organizational factors, international drivers of the fourth industrial revolution, data challenges in the implementation of technology 04, governance factors in the fourth industrial revolution, industry’s relationship with University, increasing information literacy, continuous research and development, identification of technological advantage, capability building, laws appropriate to the characteristics of the fourth industrial revolution, attention to the environment, attention to the market and the needs created by the fourth industrial revolution, determining strategy, investment in technology, survival, and value creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling and predicting fluctuations are important for many financial applications, including asset allocation, risk measurement and option pricing. This paper identifies and ranks the factors affecting market ambiguity and equity investment in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. This paper reviews the literature to identify the factors affecting market ambiguity and equity investment while conducting semi-structured interviews using the qualitative method of theme analysis. The experts interviewed were eighteen university professors and capital market activists and experts. A literature review, research, and interview results revealed six main themes, categorizing the factors influencing market ambiguity and equity investment in companies. This paper identified and ranked the main factors by the identified key factors and the fuzzy Delphi method. The results showed that the factors of financial performance, market, liquidity, financial analysis, environment, ambiguity and corporate governance are effective in market ambiguity and equity investment of companies, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health care industry is experiencing a transformative shift from traditional fee-for-service models to value-based care (VBC), emphasizing improved patient outcomes, enhanced quality, and reduced costs. While Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center models focus on financial and quality outcomes, a critical opportunity for reform lies in organizational culture. VBC signifies a cultural and systemic evolution aligned with the quintuple aim of enhancing equitable patient outcomes, improving quality, reducing costs, and prioritizing provider well-being. Cultural impacts play a pivotal role in this transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a historical case study analysis of a press system in transition and the role of ownership therein. More specifically, the article looks at early battles over press ownership fought by West German publishing houses in socialist East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. By means of early joint-venture agreements and financial investments, these publishers entered alliances with newspapers long before the latter were officially privatized by the Treuhandanstalt —a semi-public institution responsible for privatizing the entire economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). To make this point, the article first sketches some relevant theoretical concepts, then introduces the GDR press system, and finally shows how pre-emptive joint-venture deals became the key to privatizing an entire press system. By uncovering the underlying dynamics of media in transition, this article adds a historical current to the understanding of more recent transformations in media and communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse surrounding China's influence in the Middle East and North Africa tends to oscillate between extremes, in some instances portraying China as a burgeoning hegemon poised to displace America's regional primacy, while in others describing its influence as insufficient to effect meaningful change. China has made significant inroads in the region through diplomacy, trade, investment and infrastructure projects, enhancing its economic presence and raising Beijing's profile in regional geopolitics. However, examining the nature of interdependence between China and Middle Eastern nations reveals that China's capabilities, while increasingly formidable, are tempered by equally formidable constraints. Mutual dependencies, regional dynamics, limited hard power, domestic priorities, geography and the agency of regional states all modulate the extent to which China can exercise influence and impose its will. While Beijing's strategy of gradually shifting asymmetries in China's favour certainly warrants scrutiny, undue alarmism and complacency alike could increase the likelihood of faulty assessments and misguided policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite revolutions, ongoing student protests, and long-standing transformational efforts, African higher education remains steeped in a colonial model, with current structures, approaches, and purposes paralleling Western universities. The doctorate, the highest level of formal education one can attain, reflects this commitment to Western domination, relying upon European conceptions of knowledge to shape the entire research process. Thus, knowledge construction in higher education, and particularly in the African doctorate, has remained fixed to Eurocentrism. This conceptual article presents a critical race theory model to transform the African doctorate towards a social justice orientation, arguing for investments in race-conscious, Black affirming approaches that recognise doctoral researcher positionalities and African languages as ways to disrupt socio-political and racialised contexts. This transformation requires re-alignment of the entire research endeavour through an Ubuntu lens, with doctoral recipients engaging in training and support that embody antiracist, decolonial, and African Indigenous-affirming approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been increasing emphasis on firms’ investment in happiness and the associated benefits of doing so. In this paper, we discuss the agency problem regarding investments in happiness. The agency problem occurs when managers’ motivations for investing in happiness differ from shareholders’ motivations, leading to a conflict of interests that affects every key corporate decision. To investigate this problem, we propose a theoretical framework that integrates financial incentives with behavioral aspects, and use it to analyze the decision-making process of managers and shareholders. We also provide a detailed account of their anticipated benefits and utilities arising from investing in happiness. We explain the financial implications of the value gap that results from the inherent conflict of interests and provide appropriate solutions for reducing the gap in a variety of circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To describe how an innovative, community-engaged survey illuminated previously unmeasured pandemic inequities and informed health equity investments. Methods. The methodological approach of Massachusetts' COVID-19 Community Impact Survey, a cross-sectional online survey, was driven by key health equity principles: prioritizing community engagement, gathering granular and intersectional data, capturing root causes, elevating community voices, expediting analysis for timeliness, and creating data-to-action pathways. Data collection was deployed statewide in 11 languages from 2020 to 2021. Results. The embedded equity principles resulted in a rich data set and enabled analyses of populations previously undescribed. The final sample included 33 800 respondents including unprecedented numbers of populations underrepresented in traditional data sources. Analyses indicated that pandemic impacts related to basic needs, discrimination, health care access, workplace protections, employment, and mental health disproportionately affected these priority populations, which included Asian American/Pacific Islanders and parents. Conclusions. Equity-centered data approaches allow for analyses of populations previously invisible in surveillance data, enable more equitable public health action, and are both possible and necessary to deploy in state health departments. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S7):S599–S609. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307800) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated health inequities in New York City (NYC) given the disproportionate risk, morbidity, and mortality related to COVID-19 experienced by communities of color with lower household income. To facilitate long-term community recovery from COVID-19, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene established the Public Health Corp, a partnership with community-based organizations staffed by community health workers in neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S7):S566–S569. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307766) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the potential mediating roles of relationship satisfaction and dual-career lifestyle satisfaction in the association between investments and commitment to a relationship. The participants comprise 213 Turkish dual-career married couples (N = 426) between the ages of 19–60, who have been married for at least seven months. Two models were proposed, and the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model (APIMeM) was conducted to test these models. The results revealed that the associations of both past and planned intangible investments to commitment were partially mediated through relationship satisfaction for both wives and husbands. This study provided support for the dyadic nature of the association between intangible investments and commitment via relationship satisfaction in Turkish dual-career married couples and discussed the findings in relation to the relevant literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Country comparisons, often suffering from unobserved heterogeneity and obscuring subnational variation, dominate the social policy literature. However, the subnational level is better suited to reduce the omitted variable bias. This article distinguishes between social consumption and social investment policies and investigates their determinants at the subnational level. Following the literature across countries, we test the role of incumbent parties' ideology, but for within-country variation in social policy. Austria is a case in point because states have discretion in social policy (e.g., regarding public childcare and social assistance). Panel regressions covering all nine states in Austria for the years 1991 to 2019 reveal that the cabinet share of Social-Democrats increases social investment spending, while the Christian-Democratic party decreases it, and the populist radical right party reduces expenses for social consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom suggests that sectors/industries provide systematic performance and that business cycle rotation strategies generate excess market performance. However, we find no evidence of systematic sector performance where popular belief anticipates it will occur. At best, conventional sector rotation generates modest outperformance, which quickly diminishes after allowing for transaction costs and incorrectly timing the business cycle. The results are robust to alternative sector and business cycle definitions. We find that relaxing sector rotation assumptions and letting any industry excess return predict future returns of other industries results in predictability not significantly different than what would be expected by random chance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: There are inadequate resources available to support lesbian, gay, bi + , trans and gender diverse, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people experiencing family violence in Australia. Government funding agencies and mainstream family violence service providers regularly state that there is insufficient evidence to justify investment in more inclusive services. This article explores practitioner perceptions of such claims. Method: 21 practitioners from mainstream and specialist LGBTIQ family violence services were interviewed about structural challenges associated with implementing LGBTIQ-inclusive family violence services. Participants' accounts highlight the political tensions and material repercussions of epistemic definitions of 'evidence' as they pertain to LGBTIQ individuals' experiences of violence within policy environments. Utilizing Carol Bacchi's feminist policy analysis framework, we ask 'what is the problem represented to be?', examining participant perceptions about how evidence is currently positioned in policy and resourcing decisions pertaining to LGBTIQ family violence, and discuss its implications. Results: Participants overwhelmingly called for more investment in research and data gathering about family violence against LGBTIQ people and provision of effective supports. Even allowing for this, participants indicated that there is also already enough existing knowledge to justify urgent expansion of LGBTIQ-inclusive services. Conclusions: Expanded provision of services and generating a more robust evidence base about LGBTIQ family violence service needs are critically important and intertwined issues. However, the way that they are currently sequenced in policy and broader sector conversations, where 'enough' evidence is required in order to justify increased services, is inhibiting progress on both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China ("P.R.C.") is in selective default for refusing to pay back private investors from the Hukuang Railway Bond default of 1911. The P.R.C. is the successor government to the Republic of China ("R.O.C.") and Qing Dynasty. This Comment argues that though it is the successor government, the P.R.C. retains the legal rights and obligations of the former government and is the legal inheritor of these debts. This Comment takes this syllogism one step further and argues that the successor government doctrine is customary international law--applying the lessons from the Russian bond default of 1918. Finally, this comment argues that because the successor government doctrine is customary international law, the P.R.C. is in violation of the 1980 U.S.-Sino investment treaty. This Comment recommends that the U.S. government purchase the debt from private investors and force the P.R.C. to arbitration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a quantitative framework for assessing the financial impact of any form of impact investing, including socially responsible investing; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives; and other nonfinancial investment criteria. We derive conditions under which impact investing detracts from, improves on, or is neutral to the performance of traditional mean-variance optimal portfolios, which depends on whether the correlations between the impact factor and unobserved excess returns are negative, positive, or zero, respectively. Using Treynor–Black portfolios to maximize the risk-adjusted returns of impact portfolios, we derive an explicit and easily computable measure of the financial reward or cost of impact investing as compared with passive index benchmarks. We illustrate our approach with applications to biotech venture philanthropy, a semiconductor research and development consortium, divesting from "sin" stocks, ESG investments, and "meme" stock rallies such as GameStop in 2021. This paper was accepted by Agostino Capponi, finance. Funding: Research funding from the National Key Research and Development Program of China [Grant 2022YFA1007900], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 12271013], Peking University's Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Financial Engineering is acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.01168. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]