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This paper investigates the impact of firm-level innovation on the skewness of stock returns. Using data on a broad sample of equities from the major US stock exchanges, we find that innovative companies exhibit strong positive skewness. Our results are robust to both input and output measures of innovation as we find that increases in both firm-level research and development expenditure (R&D), as well as the number of patents, are positively associated with future stock return skewness. Our results hold using both systematic and idiosyncratic measures of skewness while controlling for various stock characteristics, time, and industry-fixed effects.

We challenge the view that PIPEs lead to unfavourable outcomes for issuing firms. We show that structured PIPEs do not have significant negative CARs when a matched firm benchmark is used for computing CARs and when sample selection bias is taken into account. Indeed, structured PIPEs have significantly higher positive skewness, indicating superior optionality, consistent with the real option argument. We also show that the 2002 intervention by the Securities and Exchange Corporation (SEC) has led to unintended consequences, with the substitution of ‘mom and pop’ investors for hedge fund investors in the structured PIPE market.

Objectives: Assess computed tomography texture analysis of patients likely to benefit from nivolumab. Materials & methods: Texture analysis was used to quantify heterogeneity within the largest tumor before immunotherapy. Histogram analysis was classified as hyperdense (positive skewness) or hypodense (negative skewness) and subclassified on median standard deviation value or entropy measurement. Results: 47 patients were included. At a median follow-up of 18 months, statistical significant differences in progression-free survival were observed when stratified by positive skewness with low entropy, hazard ratio: 0.43 (0.19–0.95); p = 0.036, and positive skewness with low standard deviation, hazard ratio: 0.42 (0.18–0.96); p = 0.04. Conclusion: Patients who derive a clinical benefit to Nivolumab show a computed tomography texture of a hyperdense yet homogenous tumor.

We develop an online survey to investigate the characteristics of slot/videopoker players and scratchers (individuals buying tickets of scratch-off lotteries). We find evidence of a negative relationship between gambling and financial literacy. More specifically, after controlling for gender, education, income, employment status and area of residence: (1) slot and/or videopoker players have an 8% lower probability of answering correctly to all of the three standard financial education questions; (2) scratch-off players have a 10% lower probability of answering correctly to the (third) mutual fund risk diversification question, (3) a correct answer to all financial education questions raises by 14% the probability of declaring unwillingness to play due to lack of economic convenience. Scratch-off players are as well more impatient and more likely to sacrifice expected value for positive skewness and they overestimate the probability of winning at least the price of the ticket. Our findings suggest that scratchers and slot/videopoker players may be unable to evaluate the overall consequences of gambling on their economic wellbeing due to their lower financial education.

Background Accurate measurement of treatment-related change is a key part of psychotherapy research and the investigation of treatment efficacy. For this reason, the ability to measure change with accurate and valid methods is critical for psychotherapy. Objective The aims of this study were to (1) explore the underlying characteristics of depressive symptom change, measured with the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), following psychotherapy, and (2) compare the suitability of different ways to measure and interpret symptom change. A treatment sample of Web-based psychotherapy participants (n=1098) and a waitlist sample (n=96) were used to (1) explore the statistical characteristics of depressive symptom change, and (2) compare the suitability of two common types of change functions: linear and proportional change. Methods These objectives were explored using hypotheses that tested (1) the relationship between baseline symptoms and the rate of change, (2) the shape of symptom score distribution following treatment, and (3) measurement error associated with linear and proportional measurement models. Results Findings demonstrated that (1) individuals with severe depressive baseline symptoms had greater reductions in symptom scores than individuals with mild baseline symptoms (11.4 vs 3.7); however, as a percentage measurement, change remained similar across individuals with mild, moderate, or severe baseline symptoms (50%-55%); (2) positive skewness was observed in PHQ-9 score distributions following treatment; and (3) models that measured symptom change as a proportional function resulted in greater model fit and reduced measurement error ( Conclusions This study suggests that symptom scales, sharing an implicit feature of score bounding, are associated with a proportional function of change. Selecting statistics that overlook this proportional change (eg, Cohen d) is problematic and leads to (1) artificially increased estimates of change with higher baseline symptoms, (2) increased measurement error, and (3) confounded estimates of treatment efficacy and clinical change. Implications, limitations, and idiosyncrasies from these results are discussed.

In this study, I implement a novel methodology to extract crash risk premia from options and stock markets. I document a dramatic increase in crash risk premia after the 2008/2009 financial crisis, indicating that investors are willing to pay high insurance to hedge against crashes in individual stocks. My results apply to all sectors but are most pronounced for the financial sector. At the same time, crash risk premia on the market index remained at pre-crisis levels. I theoretically explain this puzzling feature in an economy where investors face short-sale constraints. Under short-sale constraints, prices are less informationally efficient which can explain the increase in downside risk in individual stocks. In the data, I document a strong link between proxies of short-sale constraints and crash risk premia.

Most common stocks do not outperform Treasury Bills. Fifty eight percent of common stocks have holding period returns less than those on one-month Treasuries over their full lifetimes on CRSP. When stated in terms of lifetime dollar wealth creation, the entire gain in the U.S. stock market since 1926 is attributable to the best-performing four percent of listed stocks. These results highlight the important role of positive skewness in the cross-sectional distribution of stock returns. The skewness in long-horizon returns reflects both that monthly returns are positively skewed and the fact that compounding returns over multiple periods itself induces positive skewness. The results also help to explain why active strategies, which tend to be poorly diversified, most often underperform.

Selling financial investments with insurance or lottery characteristics should earn positive long-run premiums if investors like positive skewness enough to overpay for these characteristics. The empirical evidence is unambiguous: Selling insurance and selling lottery tickets have delivered positive long-run rewards in a wide range of investment contexts. Conversely, buying financial catastrophe insurance and holding speculative lottery-like investments have delivered poor long-run rewards. Thus, bearing small risks is often well rewarded, bearing large risks not. See comments and response on this article.

The paper compares incomes of Czech rural and non-rural households and identifies households persisting below the poverty line. The data were taken from the statistical research entitled “Statistics on Income and Living Conditions for 2005 and 2008”. Households were classified according to the municipality size (up to 2,000 inhabitants is rural). Household incomes were assessed according to net annual income per consumer unit. Positive skewness and high kurtosis is a typical feature of household incomes; a similarity with log-normal distribution can be presumed. The difference between rural and non-rural household incomes was significant. In 2005, the share of households with incomes below the poverty line did not significantly differ in rural and non-rural areas. The probability of escape from the group with the lowest incomes seems to be higher in the Czech Republic compared to foreign countries.

The paper compares incomes of Czech rural and non-rural households and identifies households persisting below the poverty threshold. The data were taken from the statistic research Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) of 2005 and 2008. Households were classified according to the municipality size (2000 inhabitants). Household incomes were assessed according to net annual income per consumption unit, living minimum and subjective minimum income. Positive skewness and high kurtosis is a typical feature of household incomes; a similarity with log-normal distribution can be presumed. The difference between rural and non-rural household incomes was significant (p < 0.05 in 2005; p < 0.001 in 2008). The development of incomes in both areas is assessed with the shift-share analysis regarding the national, industry mix and regional component.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate a novel fiber-optic photometer for its ability to monitor physical instabilities occurring in concentrated emulsions during storage. For this, the fiber-optic photometer was used to measure transmission of oil-in-water emulsions stabilized with hypromellose (HPMC) as a function of oil volume fraction and droplet size distribution (DSD). To detect physical instabilities like creaming and coalescence, the transmissivity of the samples was studied at 2 different height levels over a certain period of time. The corresponding droplet size distributions were determined by laser diffraction with PIDS. Transmissivity was found to depend on the number of dispersed droplets and thus is sensitive to both the variation of phase volume fraction as well as the emulsions droplet size distribution. At constant DSD, light transmission decreased linearly with increasing oil content within a large interval of phase volume fractions from 0.01 to 0.3. At constant phase volume fraction, an increase in droplet size increased light transmission. Investigation of creaming on emulsions with different droplet size distributions showed changes in the initial delay times and creaming velocities. In contrast to creaming phenomenon coalescence can be identified by height independent changes of the transmissivity. In conclusion, transmissivity of oil-in-water emulsions observed by the novel fiber-optic photometer is sensitive to phase volume fraction, droplet size distribution, and thus can be used as a tool for stability studies on concentrated emulsions.

We use a stated preference instrument to elicit producer preferences for the attributes of risk-shifting hog marketing contracts and express acceptable producer trade-offs between contract attributes in a convenient dollar metric. Respondents value an increase in a window contract's price ceiling three to five times more than the same increase in the price floor, which suggests that hog producers dislike contracts that limit up-side price potential (limit positive skewness). The contractor's organizational form is also important. Cooperative forms are preferred by many respondents, particularly those who state that trust in the contractor is an important antecedent for any contractual relationship. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

We simulated the self-thinning of Rhizophora mangle mangrove forests with the spatially explicit simulation model KiWi. This model is an application of the field-of-neighbourhood (FON) approach, which describes an individual tree by a competition function defined on the zone of influence (ZOI) around the stem. The FON causes growth depression of the trees involved. Sustained growth depression results in tree death. We propose a subdivision of the biomass density trajectories (bdt), obtained during the thinning process, into four segments related to characteristic shapes of the stem diameter distribution of the cohort. A positive skewness of the stem diameter distribution, indicating that the majority of the individuals are small and hindered in growth, is necessary for the occurrence of a linear segment within the bdt, the so-called 'self-thinning line'. This segment is the third bdt segment according to our classification. It is reached when the positive skewness of the stem diameter distribution is maximal and ends when the skewness reaches its second zero transition. The thinning line is therefore linked to the homogenisation process, which forces the symmetry of the stem distribution. We show that the ongoing search for a universal slope for the linear segment of the biomass-density trajectory (bdt) cannot succeed, since it is species-specific and may also be site-dependent. The slope increases with increasing competition strength of the individuals. Nevertheless, the lower limit of the slope is pre-defined by geometrical constraints and modified by the actual strength of the neighbourhood competition. Although the simulations were all carried out with growth parameters of the mangrove species Rhizophora mangle, our results should be qualitatively valid and form a plausible theoretical framework to account for different biomass-density trajectories.

Studies on the importance of skewness for investors find a negative relation between the risk premium and skewness, implying preference for positive skewness. Hedge funds (or money managers in general), however, acting as agents, may have preference for negative skewness as it would mean frequent returns and thus bonuses and more importantly survival at the job. I study skewness preferences of hedge funds and small, retail investors. I find a negative relation between the risk premium and a robust skewness measure for an index of small-cap stocks and one of the oldest closed-end funds, both of which tend to have a higher proportion of retail ownership, suggesting preference for positive skewness. For a hedge fund index, on the other hand, I find a positive relation, suggesting preference for negative skewness. In time periods when skewness is positive, hedge funds have a stronger preference for negative skewness, indicative of their strong aversion to skewness. These results suggest that skewness preference in financial markets need not always be for positive skewness, which seems to be the general consensus in the literature, once the agency problem and survival and compensation motives of money managers are recognized.

Employing a unique sample of individual and institutional investors, we conduct experiments to determine investors’ preference for (or indifference to) financial skewness. We present investors with a series of stocks with varying levels of skewness. Using Instant Response Devices, we then collect the investors’ choice to hold or sell each stock. Among stocks with equal expected returns, we find strong evidence that the sample investors use a prospect theory utility function rather than a mean-variance expected utility function to decide to sell or hold stocks. In the loss domain, we find that investors are ambivalent about the choice between positively and negatively skewed stocks. However, in the gain domain, we find that both individual and institutional investors prefer negatively skewed stocks – a contrast from previous research suggesting that individuals (and not institutional investors) prefer positive skewness. We also find evidence suggesting that reference points are important in financial decision-making.

Cytological specimens from 21 patients were examined using digital video microscopy. The staining characteristics of cells incubated with hydroquinone and the tetrazolium stain MTT were analysed using a novel procedure that is independent of morphological features and relies on characteristics of the frequency distribution of the localised (pixel) absorbances of the cellular images. The properties of the distribution of absorbances were assessed by a number of procedures. Comparisons were made of nine malignant and 12 non-malignant cytological samples, obtained mainly from pleural and peritoneal fluid. The data showed significant differences between the sets of samples which may be of value in cytological diagnosis. In the material examined all the malignant samples exhibited a positive skewness with the alpha-3 test (the mean alpha-3 value being greater than 0.5); this was true in only two of 12 non-malignant samples. This analytical technique, which is largely independent of morphology, magnification, and absolute absorbance values, seems to hold promise for the simplification and automation of cytological screening procedures.

On grounds of theory, anecdote and intuition, it is argued that crop varieties that are well adapted to local conditions will tend to have negatively skewed yield distributions. Conversely, when varieties are widely adopted that do not feature close local adaptation, and varietal diversity is substantially reduced, yields may tend to be other than negatively skewed. These arguments are supported by data on yields of different crops in different environments around the world. Analogous arguments concerning the degree of optimality of the crop-growng environment and the state of technological achievements of an agriculture are also similarly addressed. As the degree of control in an environment increases, yields again tend to be negatively skewed in contrast to those environments which are regulated but sub-optimal, where positive skewness tends to be encountered.

Currently in-training evaluation in Kuwait depends on the use of the global rating scale at the end of clinical rotation clerkships. Such a scale is inconsistent, subjective, and suffers from deficiencies such as positive skewness of the distribution of ratings and poor reliability. The aim of the study was to assess the inter-rater variation and the reliability of the recently introduced Interaction Card (IC) method for evaluating clinical performance and to measure the agreement between trainees' overall performance evaluation by the currently used global rating scale and the IC summative evaluation. In the study, 370 evaluators encountered 50 trainees during their basic clinical training rotations (internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, and pediatrics) at six hospitals. A total of 9146 encounters were conducted focusing on six clinical performance domains: clinical skills (taking history, case sheet, and physical examination), professional behaviour, case presentation, diagnosis, therapy and handling of emergencies. The method demonstrated significant inter-rater variation in the overall IC ratings according to specialty, rank of evaluator and hospital (p0.001). The Interaction Card was found to be reliable, as shown by the internal consistency between the six domains (Cronbach's alpha = 0.914). There was low correlation (Spearman rank correlation coefficient, rs = 0.337), and low agreement (Kappa = 0.131) between the global rating scale and Interaction Cards summative evaluations. The IC method provided instantaneous formative feedback and summative evaluation for clinical performance to trainees. The method can be generalized to encompass training and examinations programmes for all categories of trainees in most clinical specialties.

We investigate why emerging stock market returns tend to be more positively skewed than developed stock market returns. We argue that differences in the quality of corporate governance matter for return skewness. There are two reasons. First, poorly governed economies facilitate risk sharing among affiliated firms. Second, lack of mechanisms to govern managerial discretion in poorly governed economies allows managers to have a wider scope to hide bad news. Using data from 38 countries around the world, we find that positive skewness is most profound in stock markets with poor corporate governance. Further analysis of the firm-level data from the Korean equity market corroborates the evidence from the cross-country analysis.

It has been suggested that an increase in serum alanine transaminase (ALT) activity in blood donors may identify infection with non-A, non-B hepatitis. To facilitate identification of such donors, the reference range for ALT was measured on a Technicon SMAC 1 Analyser, using serum from 364 blood donors and 567 plasmapheresis donors. The distribution of ALT activities displayed a positive skewness, and so both logarithmic transformation and subsequent calculation of mean and standard deviation as well as non-parametric analysis were used to obtain best estimates of reference ranges for men and women, 5-65 IU/1 and 5-35 IU/1, respectively. ALT activities were found to be higher in plasmapheresis donors than in normal blood donors of both sexes, and it is postulated that this difference may be related to the increased frequency of donation in the former group.

This study describes the influence of accounting identities on the statistical distribution of financial ratios. It is supported by evidence on cross-section distributions of raw numbers and ratios extracted from accounting reports of UK industrial firms for the period 1983–1987. First, this study recalls that where raw numbers are lognormally distributed, then ratios are expected to be positively skewed. Accordingly, the fact requiring an explanation is why some ratios are symmetrical or even negatively skewed, not why the distribution of ratios is positively skewed. This study then shows that apparently symmetrical ratios occur because accounting identities act as external boundaries, constraining the long tail of their otherwise skewed distribution to become much smaller. Ratios that are symmetrical or negatively skewed simply reflect the existence of these boundaries. They revert to positive skewness after being inverted, thus making it difficult to accept the hypothesis that the skewness of ratios stems from non-proportionality. Since bounded ratios may induce misleading results when used for calculating confidence intervals orPvalues, a procedure is suggested to avoid constraints where necessary. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

Two hundred ninety-two nailed joints in seven species of Amazonian hardwoods were tested to evaluate their load-slip (P-Δ) behavior when subjected to lateral loading. The seven species commonly used in Brazilian light-frame construction had a range of specific gravities from 0.36 to 0.85 (based on an oven-dry volume) Four sizes of common wire nails were used to construct joints with main and side members of the same species. From these tests, embedding strength values associated with a 5% offset load were obtained from the experimental (P-Δ) curves and equations derived from the European Yield Theory. The results suggest that the behavior of nailed joints made with tropical hardwoods is similar to that found in temperate zone species. Wood moisture content, in the range studied, did not meaningfully affect joint P-Δ behavior. In addition, embedding strength was influenced by the specific gravity of the connected material. However, no species effect was observable between species of similar specific gravity. Finally, an effect of nail diameter on embedding strength was seen; however, the lack of homogeneity of test materials precluded the accurate prediction of this effect. Since the embedding strength data demonstrated some degree of positive skewness, three commonly used statistical distributions (log-normal, three-parameter Weibull, and Johnson's SB) were evaluated to quantify the variability of this parameter. All three distributions were excellent descriptors of behavior. Therefore any of these mathematical models would be a rational choice for representing embedding strength.

In 80 subjects (28 women), a factor-analytic investigation of the relationship between the reasons for drinking and customary drinking behavior revealed that solitary drinking is associated with drinking in order to forget personal shortcomings, drinking to forget problems and disappointments, and drinking to be less concerned with what others think. Positive skewness proved to be a valid index of deviant drinking practices and motives. Some incidental findings indicated that heavy beer consumption occurs most among young men.

The velocity frequency distributions for various pedestrian crowds have been measured. Those for pedestrians on a crossing showed significant positive skewness. This was thought to be due to the challenge of traffic. Further measurements were made taking account of the number of challenges experienced by each pedestrian. This revealed that the skewness was not directly associated with the number of challenges, but that average speed fell with increasing challenge. Women experienced more challenges than men, and slowed down more than men for each successive challenge. If groups are isolated by sex and number of challenges, the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution for a two dimensional gas is an adequate description for the pedestrians.

This letter describes the effect of skewness and kurtosis of the log-income distribution on two measures of income inequality. Positive skewness and leptokurtosis affect inequality positively.

Summary1) A study has been made of the blood pressure in 2,998 males and 2,759 females, 65 to 106 years of age, who were apparently healthy and without known heart disease. 2. The mean blood pressure was 145 82 for men and 156 84 for women. 3. The mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures do not show a continuous rise with age after 65. In men the peak systolic is 145-146 mm Hg, in women, 159 mm Hg. After the age of 74, the systolic pressure declines slowly in women, but remains essentially constant in men. 4. The mean diastolic pressure shows little variation from ages 65 to 80, and tends to decline thereafter. 5. Frequency distribution curves of systolic and diastolic pressures, at all ages, have the basic pattern of a bell-shaped curve. In both sexes, the curves have a positive skewness larger and more consistent in the systolic than in the diastolic pressures. 6. A single set of blood pressure standards has been computed for each sex, applicable to the entire apparently healthy population from age 6...

This chapter discusses a few numerical characteristics of frequency distributions. It presents data on the weekly earnings of the workers employed in heavy and medium heavy industries. It presents a table with the earnings of the workers employed in the wood, construction, and printing industries highlighting that the earnings of construction workers are on average higher than those of workers in the wood industry. This is shown by a shift to the right of the broken-line curve in comparison with the solid-line curve. The earnings of the wood industry workers are more markedly centered around a most frequent level than are those of the construction workers. This is shown by a more distinctly marked maximum and a more rapid drop on both sides of the maximum for the solid-line curve than for the broken-line curve. Both curves are asymmetric. The right arms of both curves are longer than the left, so that there is a case of positive skewness.

It is commonly accepted that Pareto's law holds well for the middle range of income distribution but not for smaller and larger income classes. Although it is comparatively easy to analyze the larger incomes statistically, the econometric approach is essential for analyzing the distribution of smaller incomes. Data are presented for income distribution in 108 of the 274 communes (villages, towns, and cities) in Hokkaido, Japan, including data for the smaller incomes below the tax limit. Using these data and Pareto's curve, the author attempts to estimate income distribution as a whole in Japan. The extreme positive skewness of the income distribution is noted, and appropriate methods of curve fitting are explored.