Non-local Counterparts Research Articles

Local Market Makers, Liquidity and Market Quality

We examine the role of geographically proximate (local) market makers in providing liquidity and improving the quality of a dealer market. Firms with active participation of local dealers enjoy lower quoted and effective spreads, as well as more informative prices. The beneficial effects from local market makers cannot be attributed to their participation in the firm's IPO syndicate or industry specialization, and this local effect is mostly evidenced in firms with information problems such as small firms, non-urban firms and firms with high PIN values. Further, we find that days with aggressive bidding from local market makers relative to their non-local counterparts are associated with significant positive abnormal returns, consistent with local market makers possessing information advantages. In summary, our results suggest that the information advantages of local market makers may be a contributing factor to the reduction in the cost of trading.

Distance Still Matters: Evidence from Municipal Bond Underwriting

Using a sample of municipal bond offerings, I find that “local” investment banks have substantial comparative and absolute advantages over nonlocal counterparts--locals charge lower fees and sell bonds at lower yields. Local investment banks’ strongest comparative advantage is at underwriting bonds with higher credit risk and bonds not rated by rating agencies. These findings suggest that high-risk bonds and nonrated bonds are more difficult to evaluate and market, and that investment banks with a local presence are better able to assess “soft” information and place difficult bond issues.

Eco‐evolutionary vs. habitat contributions to invasion in salmon: experimental evaluation in the wild

Although trait evolution over contemporary timescales is well documented, its influence on ecological dynamics in the wild has received much less attention particularly compared to traditional ecological and environmental factors. For example, evolution over ecologically relevant timescales is expected in populations that colonize new habitats, where it should theoretically enhance fitness, associated vital rates of survival and reproduction, and population growth potential. Nonetheless, success of exotic species is much more commonly attributed to ecological aspects of habitat quality and 'escape from enemies' in the invaded range. Here, we consider contemporary evolution of vital rates in introduced Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) that quickly colonized New Zealand and diverged over c. 26 generations. By using experimental translocations, we partitioned the roles of evolution and habitat quality in modifying geographical patterns of vital rates. Variation in habitat quality within the new range had the greatest influence on broad geographical patterns of vital rates, but locally adapted salmon still exhibited more than double the vital rate performance, and hence fitness, of nonlocal counterparts. The scope of this fitness evolution far exceeds the scale of divergence in trait values for these populations, or even the expected fitness effects of particular traits. These results suggest that contemporary evolution can be an important part of the eco-evolutionary dynamics of invasions and highlight the need for studies of the emergent fitness and ecological consequences of such evolution, rather than just changes in trait values.

Distance Still Matters: Evidence from Municipal Bond Underwriting

Using a sample of municipal bond offerings, I find that investment banks have substantial comparative and absolute advantages over non-local counterparts - locals charge lower fees and sell bonds at lower yields. Local investment banks' strongest comparative advantage is at underwriting bonds with higher credit risk and bonds not rated by rating agencies. These findings suggest that high risk bonds and non-rated bonds are more difficult to evaluate and market, and that investment banks with a local presence are better able to assess soft information and place difficult bond issues.

Investigation of a localised second-order Brueckner correlation method

Local second-order Brueckner correlation potentials have been derived from their non-local counterparts by starting from the assumption that the orbitals generated by these potentials are the same. The structure of the local correlation potentials and its components have been analysed for the neon atom and a range of small molecules, namely HF, HCl, H(2)O, CO and ethyne. The orbitals from the local Brueckner correlation potentials yield first-order electric molecular properties which are close to those inferred from second-order Møller-Plesset theory and Brueckner coupled cluster doubles with perturbative triples.

Construction of local hybrid exchange-correlation potentials and their evaluation for nuclear shielding constants

The optimized effective potential (OEP) method has been applied to convert ‘traditional’ non-local and non-multiplicative hybrid exchange-correlation potentials into local and multiplicative Kohn–Sham potentials. The latter have been evaluated in calculations of nuclear shielding constants for 22 small main-group molecules. The results obtained with local potentials are in much better agreement with experiment than those from their non-local counterparts. Exact-exchange admixture between 0.4 and 0.7 provides the best agreement with the experimental shielding constants. This should be contrasted to much lower exact-exchange admixture in a recent multiplicative Kohn–Sham procedure. With local hybrid potentials no coupling terms due to exact-exchange admixture have to be evaluated in the perturbational treatment.

Nonlocal elasticity and related variational principles

Abstract The Eringen model of nonlocal elasticity is considered and its implications in solid mechanics studied. The model is refined by assuming an attenuation function depending on the `geodetical distance' between material particles, such that in the diffusion processes of the nonlocality effects certain obstacles as holes or cracks existing in the domain can be circumvented. A suitable thermodynamic framework with nonlocality is also envisaged as a firm basis of the model. The nonlocal elasticity boundary-value problem for infinitesimal displacements and quasi-static loads is addressed and the conditions for the solution uniqueness are established. Three variational principles, nonlocal counterparts of classical ones, i.e. the total potential energy, the complementary energy, and the mixed Hu–Washizu principles, are provided. The former is used to derive a nonlocal-type FEM (NL-FEM) in which the (symmetric) global stiffness matrix reflects the nonlocality features of the problem. An alternative standard-FEM-based solution method is also provided, which consists in an iterative procedure of the type local prediction/nonlocal correction, in which the nonlocality is simulated by an imposed-like correction strain. The potentialities of these analysis methods are pointed out, their numerical implementations being the object of an ongoing research work.

Wildflower Seed Source Affects Performance of Six Wildflower Species

Field plantings of six native wildflower species were established at five sites in 1997 from seeds derived from local native populations (local ecotype) and from seeds purchased from commercial sources outside of Florida (nonlocal ecotype). The species were Cassia fasciculata (partridge-pea), Coreopsis lanceolata (lance-leaf coreopsis), Gaillardia pulchella (blanketflower), Ipomopsis rubra (standing cypress), Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed susan), and Salvia lyrata (lyre-leaf sage; cancer weed). They were evaluated once per month from June to Oct. 1997. Plantings were maintained as follows: no supplemental fertilization; irrigation as needed up until early April to ensure germination; no pesticides except to control fireants and weeds on the perimeter of the plantings; plots were handweeded as necessary. It was clearly evident from these evaluations that the local ecotypes generally were better adapted to north Florida conditions than were the nonlocal ecotypes. The most noteworthy differences were as follows: 1) the local ecotypes of Rudbeckia and Gaillardia had longer flowering periods than their nonlocal counterparts, 2) the local ecotype of Coreopsis flowered profusely while flowering of the nonlocal ecotype was sparse, and 3) the local ecotypes of Coreopsis and Salvia had less disease incidence than their nonlocal counterparts.