I review the state of empirical asset pricing devoted to understanding crosssectional differences in average rates of return. Both methodologies and empirical evidence are surveyed. Tremendous progress has been made in understanding return patterns. At the same time, there is a need to synthesize the huge amount of collected evidence.

Research into the changes in the frequency of sexual intercourse is (with few exceptions) limited to cross-sectional analyses of marital duration. We investigate the frequency of intercourse while taking into account relationship duration as well as the duration of cohabitation and marriage, effects of parenthood, and relationship quality. For the analysis we apply fixed effects regression mode...

Evidence relating to dietary change is contradictory, as some studies document a lack of dietary change while other studies report a degree of success in the implementation and maintenance of long-term dietary change. The present cross-sectional survey aimed to establish the prevalence of dietary change in a community sample, with a focus on four mechanisms of dietary change: two mechanisms wit...

We empirically examine whether firms increase financial leverage following mergers. Firms could increase financial leverage either because of an increase in debt capacity or because of unused debt capacity from pre-merger years. We find that financial leverage of combined firms increases significantly following mergers. A cross-sectional analysis shows that the change in financial leverage arou...

In Senegal, only 60% of mothers in rural areas deliver in health facilities. Mothers' satisfaction with their facility-based childbirth experience is one of the factors in their choosing to deliver in such facilities in subsequent pregnancies. The objective of this study was to assess whether compliance with childbirth care based on the mothers' perception of facility-based childbirth care cont...

Suppose that S is given a generic Riemannian metric with sectional curvatures which satisfy a suitable pinching condition formulated in terms of complex sectional curvatures. This pinching condition is satisfied by manifolds whose real sectional curvatures Kr(σ) satisfy 1/2 < Kr(σ) ≤ 1. Then the number of minimal two spheres of Morse index λ, for n − 2 ≤ λ ≤ 2n− 6, is at least p3(λ− n+ 2), wher...

The contribution of both inclusive and exclusive cross-section data from HERA to our knowledge of parton distribution functions is reviewed and future prospects are outlined.