The Adventure of Raising Kids in Spanish and English as Non-Native Anglophone Families in Spain

This chapter focuses on a minority childhood education-related phenomenon that is gaining presence in Spain: that of non-native Anglophone parents who decide to raise their children in both Spanish and English. The authors analyze these families' perceptions as regards the development of such linguistic raising model both before they started to implement it and during the process. Qualitative information gathered through in-depth interviews is analyzed. The narratives of the studied families (combining aspirations, desires and motivating rewards, on the one hand, and uncertainties, fears and obstacles, on the other) denote a profound sense of adventure in the way they live this educational process. Such sense of adventure must be understood in a context of a certain vacuum for these families as regards referents, guides, or models for them.

The Information Asymmetry Effects of Expanded Disclosures About Derivative and Hedging Activities

I study the information asymmetry effects of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards Number 161 (SFAS 161), which requires changes to the content and format of derivative and hedging footnote disclosures. Using a difference-in-differences design, I investigate whether these mandatory disclosure changes affected bid-ask spreads. To capture the extent to which firms were likely impacted by SFAS 161, I employ two complementary measures: (1) actual changes in firms’ derivative and hedging disclosures, and (2) pre-SFAS 161 levels of firms’ derivative and hedging activities. Both measures provide consistent evidence that bid-ask spreads decreased more for firms whose disclosures were more likely affected by SFAS 161. I also find that increased qualitative information and more disaggregated quantitative data (i.e., disclosure content) matter more than disclosure grouping and tabular display (i.e., disclosure format) for the observed decrease in bid-ask spreads. Overall, my findings suggest that the disclosure changes required by SFAS 161 reduced information asymmetry among investors regarding the firm value effects of derivative and hedging activities. These results may prove useful to regulators and standard setters as they consider disclosure requirements in other contexts. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.

Comparative Study of Business Excellence Frameworks and Awards in Southeast Asian Countries

Many countries have initialized and adopted the business excellence framework to encourage high-quality achievements and be recognised internationally, including in Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN as an economic and political organization of 11 countries located in Southeast Asia, established a business excellence framework to promote international organizational excellence and serve as national quality awards, which most of them adopted the Baldrige Excellence Framework (BEF). This study utilizes the accumulation and analysis of qualitative information using several sources and evidence from the business excellence frameworks and awards in ASEAN countries. This paper presents analytical comparisons of various aspects of the framework, such as their goals, award and recognition, categories, and score points (scores). It also discusses the similarities and differences among them.

Price Revelation from Insider Trading: Evidence from Hacked Earnings News

From 2010 to 2015, a group of traders illegally accessed earnings information before their public release by hacking several newswire services. We use this scheme as a natural experiment to investigate how informed investors select among private signals and how efficiently financial markets incorporate private information contained in trades into prices. We construct a measure of qualitative information using machine learning and find that the hackers traded on both qualitative and quantitative signals. The hackers’ trading caused 15% more of the earnings news to be incorporated in prices before their public release. Liquidity providers responded to the hackers’ trades by widening spreads.

Water quality analysis of Ribeirão São João in the Municiply of Porto Nacional – Tocantins / Análise da qualidade da água do Ribeirão São João no Município de Porto Nacional - Tocantins

Water is the source of life and an indispensable element of nature for human survival. Over the centuries, the available water resources have undergone constant crisis processes, especially when it comes to water pollution that affects its effectiveness for consumption. The monitoring of the water quality offers qualitative information about the water based on the parameters adopted in the CONAMA Resolution nº. 357/2005 and the calculation IQA NSF of the National Sanitation Foundation (APHA, 2005). The study about the water quality index aims to obtain information about the quality of the hydric resource available in Ribeirão São João in Porto Nacional - Tocantins, which has multiple uses such as: public supply, fishing, leisure, among others. The analysis undertaken to verify the quality of the water adopted procedures for analyzing the parameters of temperature, oxygen, pH, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, fecal coliforms, total solids and turbidity that occurred between the months of August and September 2021. The collection and analysis of water samples showed that the Ribeirão presents acceptable levels within the parameters established by the literature studied and infer that the water quality is considered average for the purposes of capitation and human consumption.

South Africa’s adult educators in the community college sector: Who they are and how they view their training, their work and their position

This article examines the work context of South Africa’s state-employed adult educators. It is based largely on a recent cross-sectional study of adult educators commissioned by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), which draws on the DHET’s database of adult educators and qualitative information gained from visits to adult education and training centres in all nine provinces. The study enquired into adult educators’ working lives, their qualifications, their sense of whether their training was adequate, the issue of further training, their understanding of their work, their conditions of service and the support they believe they need. The study showed that the number of adult educators employed by the DHET is declining steadily and that the working conditions of adult educators are uneven: a few work in fairly well-resourced urban centres, but many work in poor conditions, with little support. Nevertheless, the study indicated that almost all the adult educators view their role in a positive light. Confident of support from one another, they have a definite shared identity as a social group and express a strong commitment to their learners and the communities in which they work. Overall, they constitute a group with strong, yet poorly tapped, potential to contribute to positive community development.

EXPRESS: Preference Reversals Between Digital and Physical Goods

The proliferation of digital goods has led to an increased interest in how the digitization of products and services affects consumer behavior. In this paper, the authors show that although consumers are willing to pay more for physical than digital goods, this difference attenuates—and even reverses—when consumers are asked to make a choice between the two product formats. This effect is explained by a contingent weighting principle: In willingness to pay, a quantitative task, consumers anchor on quantitative information (e.g., market beliefs). On the other hand, in choice, a qualitative task, consumers anchor on qualitative information (e.g., which good dominates on the most important attribute). These differences in contingent weighting result in physical goods being preferred in willingness to pay, but their digital equivalent being preferred relatively more in choice. The authors draw conclusions from ten pre-registered experiments and six supplemental studies using a variety of goods in hypothetical and incentive-compatible contexts, as well as within- and between-subjects designs. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for the marketing of digital goods.

Can textual analysis solve the underpricing puzzle? A US REIT study

PurposeAlthough many theories aim to explain initial public offering (IPO) underpricing, initial-day returns of US Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) IPOs remain a “puzzle”. The literature on REIT IPOs has focused on indirect quantitative proxies for information asymmetries between REITs and investors to determine IPO underpricing. This study, however, proposes textual analysis to exploit the qualitative information, revealed through one of the most important documents during the IPO process – Form S-11 – as a direct measure of information asymmetries.Design/methodology/approachThis study determines the level of uncertain language in the prospectus, as well as its similarity to recently filed registration statements, to assess whether textual features can solve the underpricing puzzle. It assumes that uncertain language makes it more difficult for potential investors to price the issue and thus increases underpricing. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that a higher similarity to previous filings indicates that the prospectus provides little useful information and thus does not resolve existing information asymmetries, leading to increased underpricing.FindingsContrary to expectations, this research does not find a statistically significant association between uncertain language in Form S-11 and initial-day returns. This result is interpreted as suggesting that uncertain language in the prospectus does not reflect the issuer's expectations about the company's future prospects, but rather is necessary because of forecasting difficulties and litigation risk. Analyzing disclosure similarity instead, this study finds a statistically and economically significant impact of qualitative information on initial-day returns. Thus, REIT managers may reduce underpricing by voluntarily providing more information to potential investors in Form S-11.Practical implicationsThe results demonstrate that textual analysis can in fact help to explain underpricing of US REIT IPOs, as qualitative information in Forms S-11 decreases information asymmetries between US REIT managers and investors, thus reducing underpricing. Consequently, REIT managers are incentivized to provide as much information as possible to reduce underpricing, while investors could use textual analysis to identify offerings that promise the highest returns.Originality/valueThis is the first study which applies textual analysis to corporate disclosures of US REITs in order to explain IPO underpricing.