The effects of pre-IPO corporate activity on newly-public firms' growth

We investigate firms' pre-IPO corporate activity. We find that firms involved in extraordinary – i.e., beyond momentum – amounts of acquisitions, JVs, and alliances in the year leading up to their IPOs (1) are more likely to engage in post-IPO corporate activity; and (2) enter into their first post-IPO transaction twice as fast as other firms. Our results indicate that signaling via extraordinary corporate activity can have a significant effect on entrepreneurial firms’ growth. The implications are discussed.     

Micro‐Level Determinants of Remittances from Recent Migrants to Canada

Despite considerable interest in remittances to developing countries, the limited availability of large sample data has constrained aspects of our understanding of remitter behaviour. This paper utilizes data from Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) to investigate how the demographic characteristics of recent immigrants influence their remittance levels shortly after their arrival in Canada. We identify several hypotheses and use a Tobit model to estimate the impact of individual characteristics on remittance choices. As expected, remittances rise with incomes, age and falls with the size of the migrating family, housing costs and education. We also estimate how remittances are affected by other characteristics, such as gender, marital status, religion, region of origin, region of settlement and attitudes towards home and host communities.     

Ethnic appeal: A self-defense tool for Kenyan politicians

So far, analyses of apologetic rhetoric strategies as used by individuals or organizations to respond to accusations of wrongdoing have been concentrated in the West. An analysis of political apologia in an African setting – in this case Kenya – reveals that while Kenyan politicians have used denial, victimization, mortification, and counterattacking among other self-defense strategies, one particular strategy emerges as the most commonly used by Kenyan politicians – ethnic appeal.     

Models for the analysis of C-reactive protein in statin trials

Elevation in C-reactive protein (CRP) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease progression and levels are reduced by treatment with statins. However, on-treatment CRP, given baseline CRP and treatment, is not normally distributed and outliers exist even when transformations are applied. Although classical non-parametric tests address some of these issues, they do not enable straightforward inclusion of covariate information. The aims of this study were to produce a model that improved efficiency and accuracy of analysis of CRP data. Estimation of treatment effects and identification of outliers were addressed using controlled trials of rosuvastatin. The robust statistical technique of MM-estimation was used to fit models to data in the presence of outliers and was compared with least-squares estimation. To develop the model, appropriate transformations of the response and baseline variables were selected. The model was used to investigate how on-treatment CRP related to baseline CRP and estimated treatment effects with rosuvastatin. On comparing least-squares and MM-estimation, MM-estimation was superior to least-squares estimation in that parameter estimates were more efficient and outliers were clearly identified. Relative reductions in CRP were higher at higher baseline CRP levels. There was also evidence of a dose-response relationship between CRP reductions from baseline and rosuvastatin. Several large outliers were identified, although there did not appear to be any relationships between the incidence of outliers and treatments. In conclusion, using robust estimation to model CRP data is superior to least-squares estimation and non-parametric tests in terms of efficiency, outlier identification and the ability to include covariate information.     

A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All∗

Much has been written recently about the supposed decline in the sovereign power of nation-states due to global economic processes and the emergence of supranational governing institutions like the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, NAFTA, the EU, etc. This has posed what some consider a problem for still largely nation-state-centric social theory in terms of making sense of what appears to be a major transformation in global governance patterns and institutions. This article argues that the apparent transformation in global governance is less historically revolutionary than evolutionary with the key being a shift in power relations among capitalist class factions at all levels of governance. Toward substantiating this claim, the article focuses on what some argue to be the (re)-emerging global political-economic significance of subnational city-regions as a result of the apparent geographic rescaling of global governance downward from dominant inter-nation-state relations. Of importance is that this apparent (re)emergence of sovereign actors at the subnational city-region scale is largely the result of this contemporary new regionalist discourse essentially rendering itself a reality. It is therefore a highly contested, and contestable, phenomenon, even in the overwhelmingly neoliberal context of the United States.

Recientemente se ha escrito mucho sobre la supuesta decadencia en el poder soberano de los estados-naciones, debido a los procesos económicos globales y el surgimiento de instituciones de gobierno supranacionales como la Organización Mundial del Comercio, el Banco Mundial, el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, (NAFTA, por su sigla en inglés), la Unión Europea, etc. Esto ha planteado lo que algunos consideran un problema para una teoría social todavía en gran parte estado-nación-céntrica en términos de tener sentido lo que parece ser una transformación mayor en las tendencias de gobierno e instituciones globales. Este artículo sostiene que la transformación aparente en la gobernanza global es menos revolucionaria históricamente que evolutiva, siendo la clave un cambio en el poder de las relaciones entre las fracciones de la clase capitalista y todos los niveles de gobierno. Para corroborar este argumento, el artículo se enfoca en lo que algunos sostienen que es el (re)surgimiento del significado económico-político global de las regiones-ciudades subnacionales, como resultado de un aparente redimensionamiento geográfico de gobierno global descendiente de las relaciones inter-naciones-estado dominantes. Es de importancia que el (re)surgimiento de los actores soberanos en la escala de región –ciudad subnacional, se debe mayormente a este planteamiento regionalista nuevo contemporáneo, básicamente presentándose a sí mismo como una realidad. Es por eso un fenómeno altamente controvertido y discutible, incluso en el contexto abrumadoramente neoliberal de los Estados Unidos.

由于全球经济进程以及诸如世界贸易组织、世界银行、北美自贸区和欧盟等超国家治理机构的兴起而导致人们认为民族国家的主权权力受到削弱，近来已广为述及。这对在很大程度上仍以民族国家为中心的社会理论提出了一个亟需考虑的问题，如何理解全球治理模式和制度中的重大变迁。本文认为，全球治理中的显著变化与其说是历史革命性的，不如说是渐进性的，关键是各治理层次上资本家阶级各派系的权力关系的变化。为了证明这一主张，本文聚焦于一些人士所认为的（重新）兴起的次国家城市-地区的全球政治经济意义， 认为它是支配性的民族国家间关系下降为明显的全球治理地理再调整的结果。重要的是，在次国家城市-地区层次上主权行为体的明显（重新）兴起，很大程度上是当代新地区主义话语实际上使自身成为现实的结果。因此它是一个高度争论的和可争论的现象，即使是在美国压倒性的新自由主义语境下。

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Reliability models for categorical data

As assumed hypothetical consensus category corresponding to a case being classified provides a basis for assessment of reliability of judges. Equivalent judges are characterised by the joint probability distribution of the judge assignment and the consensus category. Estimates of the conditional probabilities of judge assignment given consensus category and of consensus category given judge assignments are indices of reliability. All parameters can be estimated if data include classifications of a number of cases by 3 or more judges. Restrictive assumptions are imposed to obtain models for data from classifications by two judges. Maximum likelihood estimation is discussed and illustrated by example for the 3 or more judges case.