Skewness preference across countries

Lotteries: Skewness and the Tax Preference for Corporate Debt

The tax preference for interest payments by corporations as compared to dividend payments is a long surviving feature of many tax systems. Many have argued that there is no reason for this preference and so it distorts the capital structure of corporations needlessly. This article argues that because the returns to equity are more positively skewed as compared to debt, individual investors will...

Ipos as Lotteries: Skewness Preference and First-day Returns

We find that IPOs with high expected skewness experience significantly greater first-day returns. The skewness effect is stronger during periods of high investor sentiment and is related to differences in skewness across industries as well as time-series variation in the level of skewness in the market. IPOs with high expected skewness earn more negative abnormal returns in the following one to...

Evaluating preference weights for the Asthma Symptom Utility Index (ASUI) across countries

BACKGROUND The Asthma Symptom Utility Index (ASUI) is a preference-based outcome measure used in US clinical trials and cost-effectiveness studies for asthma. This study evaluated ASUI preference weights in Europe to determine whether the multi-attribute utility function, based on preferences from a US population, is generalizable across countries. METHODS Data were collected from ninety asth...

Do Increases in Preference Similarity (across Countries) Induce Increases in Trade?

Traditional theory considers dissimilarity of preferences, endowments and technologies the major reason for (international) trade. Clearly in pure exchange between individuals of the same preferences and endowments trade can not be beneficial. A similar result is true in production economies with the same convex technologies where all products are produced in all countries. However, when we ent...

Prevalence of hepatitis A across various countries in the Middle East, African and Eastern European countries