Local loop unbundling has been widely promulgated by policy-makers as a significant factor stimulating broadband uptake and therefore an essential component of a developing 'information economy'. Whilst empirical evidence is sparse and at best equivocal in respect of a consistent positive and...

We document describe and interpret changes in New Zealand corporate board characteristics between 1995 and 2010 a period centred around the 2003 introduction of the NZX Corporate Governance Best Practice Code. Unsurprisingly the representation of non-executive independent and female directors on...

New Zealand has introduced legislation to implement the world's first 'all sectors all gases' emissions trading scheme (ETS) as a way of reducing the country's greenhouse gas emissions. The Scheme is to retrospectively introduce a price for carbon emissions in forestry from 1 January 2008 and...

In 1988 the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission gave permission for the University of Iowa to begin operating the Iowa Electronic Market (IEM) thus ushering in the world's first information market (sometimes called a prediction market). Similar markets have subsequently appeared at the...

Data constraints mean that relatively little is known about the relationship between pay levels and worker quality but the recently introduced Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) system makes the NZ tertiary sector a natural setting for examining this issue. In NZ universities academics...

Does the quality of performance by experts respond to financial incentives? Or as some psychologists argue are experts primarily motivated by more intrinsic consideration such as professional pride? I provide some evidence on this question by examining the relationship between horse race...

In applying the CAPM to cost of capital calculations practitioners treat the market risk premium as a free parameter to be estimated from data. However this process ignores equilibrium in the cash market and therefore the implications of the CAPM for the premium itself. Full equilibrium relates...

Executive Summary1. In integrated capital markets assets are priced according to a common set of risks. By contrast prices reflect country-specific factors in segmented markets.2. Capital market integration offers the possibility of better capital allocation and greater economic growth improved...

Slides presented by Glenn Boyle as part of the Treasury Guest Lecture Series are available for download here.

We analyze the optimal hedging policy of a firm that has flexibility in the timing of investment. Conventional wisdom suggests that hedging adds value by alleviating the underinvestment problem associated with capital market frictions. However our model shows that hedging also adds value by...