Bryan R. Johnson

Interracial Friendship and African American Attitudes about Interracial Marriage

For a variety of reasons, there is little systematic evidence about African American attitudes about interracial marriage. National data are often sparse or not available, and they are often dated. Using a Year 2000 nationally representative poll from The New York Times, we analyze African American approval of interracial marriage. The sample comprised 934 African Americans. Eighty-five percent say they approve of interracial marriage. Education, sex, age, and region are significantly related to approval in the bivariate analyses. Analysis of the amount of contact or friendship African Americans have with Whites appears to be a critical variable affecting attitudes about intergroup marriage; the effects of most of the other variables become nonsignificant when friendship is included in the analysis.

The Investment Value of Contrarian Buy-Side Recommendations

We examine a comprehensive set of investment recommendations paired with analyst-specific information from over 1,000 buy-side analysts (predominantly analysts from hedge funds) from the private website SumZero.com. Recommendations from these analysts generate significant returns when the reports are posted to the website. Returns are the most dramatic for contrarian recommendations (i.e., those issued contrary to the sell-side consensus), particularly for buy recommendations. Furthermore, the returns to both buy and sell recommendations drift in the direction of the recommendation. We also explore institutional ownership changes and document a wealth transfer between the broader institutional market and buy-side firms in the sample. Collectively, the evidence suggests buy-side recommendations have investment value. The results also document the importance of new technologies in disseminating information to market participants.

What Motivates Buy-Side Analysts to Share Recommendations Online?

We examine why buy-side analysts share investment ideas on SumZero.com, a private social networking website designed to facilitate interaction and information sharing among buy-side professionals. We explore labor market motivations for information sharing and document that analysts with strong incentives to build a reputation (i.e., those who did not attend a top 10 university and those employed at small funds) are significantly more likely to share recommendations. Our findings indicate that analysts who share ideas are more likely to change jobs and that the likelihood of employment change is positively related to the ratings provided by peers. We also document that analyst recommendations generate significant returns when they are posted on SumZero and that prices drift in the direction of the recommendation. Long-window returns are particularly strong for contrarian buy recommendations and for most sell recommendations. Overall, we show that buy-side analysts share valuable private information in an ...

The Consequences of Consumers’ Use of Pre-Existing Social Relationships to Make Purchases

In this article, we extend and refine previous research on marketing relationships by specifically examining consumers’ use of pre-existing social relationships (i.e., friendships) with firm representatives to make purchases. This study identifies the various consequences of using pre-existing social relationships and integrates these new outcomes with existing research to develop a cohesive theoretical framework. Doing so highlights the unique advantages of developing stronger relationships between firms and customers, while also extending marketing scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of relationship marketing. Finally, this study links the outcomes of using these relationships to important marketing constructs, such as satisfaction and loyalty.

The impact of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) events on firm value

To date, no research has examined the impact of events related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on the value of firms with publicly traded equity, despite the importance of this legislation to the economic and legal environments of business. To examine the impact of the ADA on firm valuation, we analyse ADA-related media events associated with publicly traded firms. We find that the effects of ADA-related events are concentrated in the retail industry, where firms interact more frequently with the public. We find some evidence that positive events result in positive cumulative abnormal returns, but we do not find corresponding returns for negative events. Furthermore, we show that returns accrue to firms with positive ADA events, irrespective of firm size.