Evolving Market Efficiency with an Application to Some Bulgarian Shares

With new technically advanced methods and computers at our disposal, the efficient market hypothesis is once again being debated. At the same time, we are witnessing an unprecedented growth in both existing and new financial markets. These new markets are often in economies which have just recently embraced free market economics; we term these stock markets infant markets. Such stock markets are obviously not efficient in allocating the supply of savings to productive capital. We do not test whether or not these infant markets are informationally efficient, but instead examine whether and how they are becoming more efficient. We propose modelling the excess returns of individual securities using a multi-factor model with time-varying coefficients and generalised auto-regressive conditional heteroskedastic (GARCH) errors. If the markets are becoming more informationally efficient or the agents are learning, we would expect this to manifest itself as the time-varying coefficients becoming more stable as time increases. We test our model using data on four Bulgarian shares. First, we estimate an AR(2) model and a GARCH-M(1,1) model for the shares. Then, we estimated our AR(2) model with time varying coefficients and GARCH type errors. We find varying levels of efficiency and varying speeds of movement towards efficiency within our sample of four shares.     

The effects of the cognitive interview and other methods of context reinstatement on identification

Abstract

Can reinstatement of encoding context aid eyewitness identification? Two experiments are reported in which participants were asked to identify, from both a Blank and a Filled lineup, a target seen 1-week (Experiment 1) or 3-months (Experiment 2) earlier in a staged live interaction. Identifications were made following either a no context reinstatement (NCR), a CI-type reinstate context (CI-CR), a mental and physical (M&PCR) context reinstatement or a multiple reinstatement of context (Multi-CR) manipulation. In Experiment 1 in the Blank lineup condition, correct rejection (CR) and false identification (FID) rates did not differ between the four context manipulation conditions. However, within the different conditions only Multi-CR showed a significant difference between CR and FID. In the Filled lineup condition, neither correct identification (CID), FID, nor non-identification (NID) rates differed between context conditions. Within the four context conditions only Multi-CR produced significantly more CID than FID. However, the difference between CID and NID in this condition did not differ reliably. In Experiment 2, with the Blank lineup, while the rate of CR did not differ between the three context conditions, the rate of FID did, with Multi-CR producing reliably fewer than the other two conditions. In the Filled lineup condition, no differences between the three conditions for NID or FID were observed but a difference did appear for CID, with CI-CR producing the greatest number of hits. These variable results are discussed in terms of the need to consider other factors in explaining supposed context effects on recognition.     

Rehumanizing Birth and Death in America

THESIS: Despite spending more on medical care than any other country in the world, the United States still boasts some of the worst patient outcomes of any developed nation. This disparity is especially true of how Americans give birth and die.  These natural human transitions have become catastrophically expensive and leave patients and their families traumatized from unnecessary interventions. This article examines the costs and outcomes associated with the medicalization of birth and death and argues that alternatives exist that improve patient outcomes while lowering costs. Access to these alternatives will require changing current regulatory and reimbursement structures and providing trained support staff to help families navigate beginning- and end-of life decisions.     

Trouble Brewing?

<正>Washington hawks must not be allowed to disrupt China--U.S.relations Will Washington unleash a trade war against China?President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that triggers an extensive Section 301investigation of intellectual property(IP)issues between China and the U.S.The Section 301 process goes back to1974,when the U.S.was having trade issues with several countries.It is a unilateral process undertaken internally by the U.S.Government’s executive branch and can