HEC Paris

About: HEC Paris is a education organization based out in Jouy-en-Josas, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Market liquidity & Entrepreneurship. The organization has 584 authors who have published 2756 publications receiving 104467 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales & HEC School of Management Paris.

Individual Investors and Volatility

Abstract: We show that retail trading activity has a positive effect on the volatility of stock returns. To identify this effect, we use a reform of the French stock market that triggers a drop in retail trading activity by raising the relative cost of speculative trading for retail investors. The daily return volatility of the stocks affected by the reform falls by twenty basis points (a quarter of the sample standard deviation of the return volatility) relative to other stocks. For affected stocks, we also find a significant decrease in the magnitude of return reversals and the price impact of trades. We argue that these findings are consistent with the view that some retail investors behave as noise traders.

Is luxury compatible with sustainability? Luxury consumers' viewpoint

Abstract: The luxury sector thus far has received scant attention from sustainable development activists and watchgroups. Yet, this focus is changing. Even if other sectors may be more relevant to the cause of sustainability, luxury brands that have gained intact reputations for sustainability must take care to maintain it. Therefore, the present research investigates the level of sensitivity of actual luxury buyers to the cause of sustainable development, insofar as it concerns the luxury sector, luxury brands and their purchases. Do consumers' attitudes towards sustainability spill over to their opinions about the sustainability of luxury itself, or is luxury a world apart? The findings show that luxury buyers have ambivalent attitudes, such that they consider luxury and sustainability somewhat contradictory, especially with regard to the social and economic harmony facet of sustainable development.

PLS regression, PLS path modeling and generalized Procrustean analysis: a combined approach for multiblock analysis

Abstract: A situation where J blocks of variables are observed on the same set of individuals is considered in this paper. A factor analysis logic is applied to tables instead of variables. The latent variables of each block should well explain their own block and, at the same time, the latent variables of same order should be as positively correlated as possible to improve interpretation. The paper first (1) reviews the main methods for multiblock analysis based on a criterion to be optimized, (2) describes the hierarchical PLS path modeling algorithm and (3) recalls that it allows one to recover some usual multiblock analysis methods. It is then supposed that the number of latent variables can be different from one block to another and that these latent variables are orthogonal. PLS regression and PLS path modeling are used for this situation. The relation between Horst's generalized canonical correlation analysis and generalized Procrustean analysis for this specific application is also studied. The approach is illustrated by an example from sensory analysis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Limit Order Book as a Market for Liquidity

Abstract: We devel op a dynamic modelof anorder-drivenmarket populated bydiscretionary liquidity traders. These tradersmust trade, yet canchoose the type oforder and are fully strategic in their decision. Traders differ by their impatience: less patient traders are likely to demand liquidity, more patient traders are more likely to provide it. Three equilibrium patterns are obtained - the pattern is determined by three parameters: the degree of impatience of the patient traders, which we model as the cost of execution delay in providing liquidity; their proportion in the population, which determines the degree of competition among the liquidity providers; and the tick size, which is the cost of the minimal price improvement. Despite its simplicity, the model generates a rich set of empirical predictions on the relation between market parameters, time to execution, and spreads. We argue that the economic intuition of this model is robust, thus its main results will remain in more general models.

CEO Ambivalence and Responses to Strategic Issues

Abstract: We examine how executives' ambivalent evaluation of a strategic issue relates to organizational actions taken in response. Ambivalence occurs when a decision maker evaluates an issue as simultaneously positive and negative, a state that has received scant attention in organizational research. We integrate findings in social psychology with the behavioral theory of the firm to suggest how executives' ambivalence prompts wider and more vigorous search for action responses and enables broader participation. Data from a two-wave survey of 104 German CEOs who evaluated the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and reported their organizations' responses show that organizations whose CEOs evaluated the event as both positive and negative were more likely to take action when both evaluations were also strongly held. The reported actions were also of greater scope, novelty, and riskiness. The study contributes to research on organizational decision making by theorizing the role of top executives' ambivalence and by providing a first systematic test of how ambivalence affects responses to strategic issues.