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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of broad cultural dimensions, as well as those of religion and legal origin, on countries’ economic freedom, i.e., trade freedom, investment freedom, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, as well as a composite measure of economic freedom.

Linear regression of publicly available data regarding economic freedom (Miller et al., 2018) on cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2009), legal origin and religion (LaPorta et al., 1999) for 52 countries was performed to determine the impact of these factors on economic freedom.

Results indicated femininity was the cultural dimension associated with the most measures of economic freedom. Short-term-oriented cultures were predictive of greater business freedom, while more restrained cultures were associated with greater business and monetary freedoms. Higher individualism was predictive of greater monetary freedom. Catholicism positively predicted investment freedom and negatively predicted business freedom. French civil law negatively predicted labor freedom, while socialist legal origins positively predicted trade freedom, but negatively predicted business freedom.

This is the first study to examine the impacts of culture, law and religion on economic freedom. One practical implication of this research is that countries would be wise to emphasize more feminine aspects in their cultures, as these are associated with greater economic freedom. Even minor adjustments that move in the direction of cooperation and fair processes might help increase economic freedoms and the many benefits that stem from such freedoms.

This study provides insight into the proportion of the variation across countries in the desirable outcomes of freedom and peace that can be accounted for using a set of national characteristics which are difficult, if not impossible, to change. The majority of prior studies in this area have utilized bivariate (correlational) analysis. While these studies have made important contributions to the field, they have not been able to disentangle the effects of other important national characteristics from the effect of culture on freedom and peace. Through our multivariate framework, we are able to shed light on the relative importance of these national characteristics in explaining the variation in freedom and peace across countries.

We proposed a model in which culture plays a dominant role, along with religion and legal origin, in determining the quality of governance in a country. We examined four dimensions of culture and four measurements of governance quality across 71 countries. Our empirical results demonstrated the dominant role played by culture, over and above religion and legal origin, in explaining governance quality. As culture is persistent and unlikely to be easily changed, efforts to improve governance quality might be doomed to failure in nations with cultural values that are hostile to good governance.

Prior studies of the role of risk in executive compensation focus on market risk and firm risk, neglecting the role of industry risk in explaining executive compensation. We include industry risk and find that the portion of CEO compensation for bearing industry risk is greater than the portion of CEO compensation for bearing market risk. Consistent with the human capital of a CEO being non-diversifiable, CEOs also receive compensation for bearing firm-specific risk, in contrast to investors, who can diversify their risk over many assets. CEOs are compensated for bearing firm-specific risks through all the compensation tools we examine; salary, bonus, option grants and option exercises. CEOs are compensated for bearing market and industry risk primarily through stock option grants.

We examined stock market reactions to announcements of CEO appointments as a proxy for the perceived value created by these appointments. We examined differences in market reactions to the appointments of minority and women CEOs compared to white males. Our results indicate additional value creation through the appointment of African- American CEOs, but not through the appointment of female or Hispanic CEOs. We provide a potential explanation for this differential valuation of differing types of diversity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of culture, legal origin and religion on four measures of the ease of starting a new business; the number of procedures required, the number days required, the ease of getting credit and the cost to start a business.

The authors use linear regression to test the hypotheses using publicly available data on legal origin and religion from La Porta et al. (1999), cultural dimension information from Hofstede (2009) and measures of the ease of starting a business from the World Bank’s (2017) Doing Business Initiative. The final sample consists of 71 countries for which information was available on all the variables of interest.

Legal origin affects the number of procedures and the length of time needed to start a business, as well as the ease of getting credit. Culture (power distance) and religion are important for explaining gender differences in the ease of starting a business. The cost of starting a business is unrelated to culture, legal origin or religion.

Economic development is an important determinant of a country’s political stability and standard of living. Although politicians play a significant role in how a friendly a country is toward business, the study demonstrates that other longer-term and less dynamic factors have a material influence on economic development.

Conventional wisdom says that the price reduction stocks experience at expiration of the initial public offering (IPO) lockup period is due to relaxation of selling constraints. Findings from more recent literature question this explanation. The purpose of this paper is to examine a different cause for this price drop, IPO overvaluation.

Using the IPO overvaluation measures of Purnanandam and Swaminathan (2004), the authors examine IPO lockup period stock return differences between stocks in the highest and lowest overvaluation quintiles.

The authors show that the IPO lockup period price reduction is strongly related to overvaluation. Zero-investment portfolios long in the lowest overvaluation quintile and short in the highest overvaluation quintile of IPO firms have positive significant returns.

IPO investors can use the technique to identify firms likely to underperform in the IPO lockup period, potentially avoiding bad investments.

This is the first study to link IPO lockup period stock returns to IPO overvaluation, providing evidence on the impact of both overvaluation and short-selling constraints on stock returns in the IPO lockup period.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which outliers have persisted in augmenting the Halloween effect over time and to offer an econometric test of seasonality in return skewness that might provide a partial explanation for the Halloween effect.

The authors split the Morgan Stanley Capital International data for 37 countries into two subperiods and, using median regression and influence vectors, examine these periods for a possible change in the interplay between outliers and the Halloween effect. The authors perform a statistical assessment of whether outliers are a significant contributor to the overall Halloween effect using a bootstrap test of seasonal differences in return skewness.

Large returns (positive and negative) persist in being generally favorable to the Halloween effect in most countries. The authors find seasonality in return skewness to be statistically significant in many countries. Returns over the May through October timeframe are negatively skewed relative to returns over the November through April period.

This paper offers the first statistical test of seasonality in return skewness in the context of the Halloween effect. The authors show the Halloween effect to be a more complex phenomenon than the simple seasonality in mean returns documented in prior research.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a superior method for assessing mean stationarity of asset pricing effects.

The authors suggest the use of an F‐test to examine mean stationarity of asset pricing effects across subperiods. The superiority of this test is demonstrated through examination of the Halloween Effect using simulated data and the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) data for 18 developed economies.

It is found that the suggested F‐test provides results superior to a simple examination of the magnitude and statistical significance of estimated regression coefficients across subperiods when attempting to determine mean stationarity.

This paper sheds light on an analytical oversight in the asset pricing anomalies literature and suggests an appropriate test to address this oversight.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the stock return impact of “lucky” numbered days in markets dominated by Chinese participants. The existence of such patterns might present arbitrage opportunities for investors who do not share a belief in the Chinese system of “lucky” numbers.

In univariate and multivariate analyses, the author examines the statistical significance of return differences between “lucky” numbered days and other days. The author examines samples which only consider single digit days and months, and the author also considers samples based on the last digit of the day or month. Based on the findings in these tests, the author designs and tests a trading strategy on the Shenzhen Exchange that produces significant risk-adjusted returns in excess of the buy-and-hold return on the Shenzhen Composite Index.

The author shows that “lucky” numbered dates impact stock returns in Chinese markets and demonstrate a “lucky” number date trading strategy for the Shenzhen market that produces risk-adjusted returns in excess of the market return.

Prior research on home address numbers and stock trading codes shows that, in markets dominated by Chinese participants, assets with identifiers containing numbers defined by Feng Shui as “lucky” sell at a premium and assets with identifiers containing “unlucky” numbers sell at a discount. In such markets, prices are more likely to end in a “lucky” number than an “unlucky” number. Chinese firms also tend to price their shares at IPO using “lucky” numbers and avoiding “unlucky” numbers. The author extends this literature to examine whether dates containing “lucky” and “unlucky” numbers experience stock returns significantly different than other days on Chinese stock exchanges.