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In this paper I offer a fairly complete account of the idea of social discount rates as applied to public policy analysis. I show that those rates are neither ethical primitives nor observables as market rates of return on investment, but that they ought instead to be derived from economic forecasts and society's conception of distributive justice concerning the allocation of goods and services across personal identities, time, and events. However, I also show that if future uncertainties are large, the formulation of intergenerational well-being we economists have grown used to could lead to ethical paradoxes even if the uncertainties are thin-tailed. Various modelling avenues that offer a way out of the dilemma are discussed. None is entirely satisfactory.

We provide evidence for the importance of information asymmetry in asset pricing by using three natural experiments. Consistent with rational expectations models with multiple assets and multiple signals, we find that prices and uninformed demand fall as asymmetry increases. These falls are larger when more investors are uninformed, turnover is larger and more variable, payoffs are more uncertain, and the lost signal is more precise. Prices fall partly because expected returns become more sensitive to liquidity risk. Our results confirm that information asymmetry is priced and imply that a primary channel that links asymmetry to prices is liquidity.

Despite extensive disclosure requirements, mutual fund investors do not observe all actions of fund managers. We estimate the impact of unobserved actions on fund returns using the return gap--the difference between the reported fund return and the return on a portfolio that invests in the previously disclosed fund holdings. We document that unobserved actions of some funds persistently create value, while such actions of other funds destroy value. Our main result shows that the return gap predicts fund performance.

This paper proposes a portfolio choice model in which investors are subject to liquidation risk and (endogenously) face higher costs in the event of joint liquidation (as was observed during the crisis of 2008 to 2009). The risk of joint liquidation creates an incentive for investors to choose heterogeneous portfolios and to rationally forgo diversification benefits. Joint liquidation risk is also reflected in asset prices, resulting in (1) assets with high idiosyneratic risk having low expected returns, and (2) assets that display high correlation with the portfolios of (liquidation-prone) investors having high expected returns.

Effective conservation management interventions must combat threats and deliver benefits at costs that can be achieved within limited budgets. Considerable effort has focused on measuring the potential benefits of conservation interventions, but explicit quantification of the financial costs of implementation is rare. Even when costs have been quantified, haphazard and inconsistent reporting means published values are difficult to interpret. This reporting deficiency hinders progress toward a collective understanding of the financial costs of management interventions across projects and thus limits the ability to identify efficient solutions to conservation problems or attract adequate funding. We devised a standardized approach to describing financial costs reported for conservation interventions. The standards call for researchers and practitioners to describe the objective and outcome, context and methods, and scale of costed interventions, and to state which categories of costs are included and the currency and date for reported costs. These standards aim to provide enough contextual information that readers and future users can interpret the cost data appropriately. We suggest these standards be adopted by major conservation organizations, conservation science institutions, and journals so that cost reporting is comparable among studies. This would support shared learning and enhance the ability to identify and perform cost-effective conservation. Las intervenciones efectivas de manejo para la conservación deben combatir amenazas y proporcionar beneficios con costos que se pueden obtener con presupuestos limitados. Se han enfocado esfuerzos considerables para medir los beneficios potenciales de las intervenciones de conservación, pero es rara la cuantificación explícita de los costos financieros de la implementación. Aun cuando se han cuantificado los costos, los informes aleatorios e inconsistentes significa que los valores publicados son difíciles de entender. Esta deficiencia en los informes limita el progreso hacia un entendimiento colectivo de los costos financieros de las intervenciones de manejo y por lo tanto limita la habilidad de identificar soluciones eficientes a los problemas de conservación o de atraer financiamiento adecuado. Diseñamos un método estandarizado para describir los costos financieros reportados para las intervenciones para la conservación. Los estándares requieren que los investigadores y practicantes describan el objetivo y resultados, el contexto y los métodos y la escala de las intervenciones presupuestadas y que citen las categorías de costos incluidas y la divisa y fecha de los costos reportados. Estos estándares tratan de proporcionar suficiente información contextual para que los lectores y futuros usuarios puedan interpretar los datos de costos apropiadamente. Sugerimos que estos estándares sean adoptados por las principales organizaciones de conservación, las instituciones científicas y las revistas para que los informes de costos sean comparables entre estudios. Esto daría soporte al aprendizaje compartido y incrementar la habilidad para identificar y realizar conservación rentable. 有效的保护管理干预必须与其所受到的威胁作斗争，并且在有限预算内获得收益。现在有许多工作用于 衡量保护干预的潜在收益，却少有对措施实施的成本进行明确地量化。即使存在这样的量化，这些缺少规划、 前后不一致的分析报告也使得这些量化的结果难以被解释。这类报告的缺陷阻碍了进ー步对跨项目管理干预的 財政成本的综合认识，因此也限制了确定解决保护问题的有效措施和吸引到充足经费的能力。这里,我们册了 一种标准化的方法来描述保护干预的财政成本报告, 这套标准要求研究者和实践者描述目标和结果、背景和方 法、干预的规摸, 并说明包括了哪些类别的成本、报告成本所用的货币及日期。我们提出的标准旨在提供足够 的背景信息，以便读者和将来的使用者可以合理地解读这些成本数据。我们建议重要的保护组织、保护科学机 构和期刊采用这些标准，使得这些成本报告在不同研究中具有可比较性。这还有助于共同学习，提高认识和实施 高效益的保护管理的能力。

PurposeSocial return on investment (SROI) has received increasing attention, both academically and professionally, since it was initially developed by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund in the USA in the mid-1990s. Based on a systematic review of the literature that highlights the potential and limitations related to the academic and professional development of the SROI model, the purpose of this study is to systematize the academic debate and contribute to the future research agenda of blended value accounting.Design/methodology/approachRelying on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses approach, this study endeavors to provide reliable academic insights into the factors driving the usage of the SROI model and its further development.FindingsA systematic literature review produced a final data set of 284 studies. The results reveal that despite the procedural accuracy characterizing the description of the model, bias-driven methodological implications, availability of resources and sector specificities can influence the type of approach taken by scholars and practitioners.Research limitations/implicationsTo dispel the conceptual and practical haze, this study discusses the results found, especially regarding the potential solutions offered to overcome the SROI limitations presented, as well as offers suggestions for future research.Originality/valueThis study aims to fill a gap in the literature and enhance a conceptual debate on the future of accounting when it concerns a blended value proposition.

This work was developed to present a conceptual and preliminary analysis of the concepts and criteria for estimating the Energy Return on Investment (EROI). In this work, methods based on monetary studies, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) were discussed and a dynamical systems modeling was proposed. In this respect, we made a mathematical development, defining the state and auxiliary variables and the adjustment parameters necessary to study the problem. Some criteria and influencing factors were defined, in the medium and long term, the sustainability of the energy system and seek to incorporate them into relevant areas of discussion and education, encouraging their dissemination and reviews. It is sought to discuss the issues and considerations for a standardized methodology that allows comparisons and decision-making, in order to minimize environmental impact.

Although there are a handful of studies on business angel investment returns, the business angel literature has given little or no attention to exits and the exit strategy. This is surprising given that a primary objective of investing is to achieve a capital gain through some form of liquidity event. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as an interpretative heuristic, we examine how exits happen: specifically, what are the motivations to seek an exit and to what extent are they planned or opportunistic? Based on multiple case studies in which business angels were invited to tell the story of their most recent exit(s), the evidence suggests that the majority of liquidity events are the outcome of planned behaviour. We propose a typology of angel-backed investment exits as the basis for identifying future directions for research and developing practical advice to angels on effective business practices.

The choice of an overall discount rate for climate change investments depends critically on how different components of investment payoffs are discounted at differing rates reflecting their underlying risk characteristics. Such underlying rates can vary enormously, from ≈ 1 percent for idiosyncratic diversifiable risk to ≈ 7 percent for systematic nondiversifiable risk. Which risk-adjusted rate is chosen can have a huge impact on cost-benefit analysis. In this expository paper, I attempt to set forth in accessible language with a simple linear model what I think are some of the basic issues involved in discounting climate risks. The paper introduces a new concept that may be relevant for climate-change discounting: the degree to which an investment hedges against the bad tail of catastrophic damages by insuring positive expected payoffs even under the worst circumstances. The prototype application is calculating the social cost of carbon.

This article analyzes the relationship between the risk-adjusted performance of hedge funds and their proximity to investments using data on Asia-focused hedge funds. I find, relative to an augmented Fung and Hsieh (2004) factor model, that hedge funds with a physical presence (head or research office) in their investment region outperform other hedge funds by 3.72% per year. The local information advantage is pervasive across all major geographical regions, but is strongest for emerging market funds and funds holding illiquid securities. These results are robust to adjustments for fund fees, serial correlation, backfill bias, and incubation bias. I show also that distant funds, especially those based in the United States and the United Kingdom, are able to raise more capital, charge higher fees, and set longer redemption periods, despite their underperformance relative to nearby funds. It appears that distant funds trade investment performance for better access to capital.