2 Of the many frustrations of any editor, surely, avoidable delay is the greatest. And this frustration is almost infinitely compounded when in the interim an unexpected death occurs. Professor Ferguson sent this manuscript as a draft; certain questions which he raised in the accompanying letter would normally have been resolved in the exchange of two or three letters or 'phone calls. I placed one call to learn he was ill; rather than press the query, I delayed. When next I 'phoned, I was shocked to learn of his completely unexpected and therefore all the more untimely death. Because the draft he sent contains so much of his own style and vigor, I have elected to print it in this incomplete form. The points he raised in his letter remain unclarified. In the face of this series of events, I have asked Professor Nell to undertake the task initially given to Ferguson. The two rarely saw things in the same way. Thus, the choice of Nell was not intended to finish Ferguson's incomplete assessment. I mention the foregoing simply to explain the unique treatment in these review essays. Of Charles Ferguson's death so little can be said-he was an ebullient souil, and a man of significant originality. -M. P.

The characteristics of the mean-variance, efficient portfolio frontier have been discussed at length in the literature. However, for more than three assets, the general approach has been to display qualitative results in terms of graphs. In this paper, the efficient portfolio frontiers are derived explicitly, and the characteristics claimed for these frontiers are verified. The most important implication derived from these characteristics, the separation theorem, is stated and proved in the context of a mutual fund theorem. It is shown that under certain conditions, the classic graphical technique for deriving the efficient portfolio frontier is incorrect.

Robert C. Higgins, The Corporate Dividend-Saving Decision, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 7, No. 2, Supplement: Outlook for the Securities Industry (Mar., 1972), pp. 1527-1541

The facts of increased institutional trading on the nation's securities markets are by now well known. On the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the six major institutional groups—insurance companies, investment companies, noninsured pension funds, nonprofit institutions, common trusts, and mutual savings banks, now own more than one-fourth of the market value of listed shares compared with less than 16 percent at the end of 1956. But, ownership is merely the tip of the perennial iceberg, since institutional trading of stock has become much more significant than institutional ownership. This fact is pointed up in the recent SEC Study of Institutional Investors. It shows that there has been a relatively slow increase in the share of outstanding stock owned by institutions in all markets, but the institutional share of trading has mushroomed.

For almost a decade, Myron Gordon has argued repeatedly that an enterprise's dividend policy can affect its share price [2, 3, and 4]. The essence of his argument is that risk-averse investors are likely to perceive current dividends as less risky than future ones. Consequently, a corporate decision to reduce current, in favor of increased future, dividends will reduce share prices, even when the funds are invested to yield the firm's cost of capital.

William C. Pyle, Nabil Elias, Summary of Discussion by William C. Pyle of "The Effects of Human Asset Statements on the Investment Decision" and a Reply, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 10, Empirical Research in Accounting: Selected Studies 1972 (1972), pp. 234-240

A mail questionnaire was sent to random samples of members of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the American Accounting Association. The questionnaire asked the respondent to rank the three alternatives in their order of preference. The results of the study show that a majority of the respondents in each group preferred the Arthur Andersen & Co. proposal3

Financial ratios, Descriptive power, Industry level, Macro outcomes

Journal Article Deposit Demand and the Pricing of Demand Deposits: Reply Get access Bruce C. Cohen Bruce C. Cohen Northeastern University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 86, Issue 1, February 1972, Pages 140–142, https://doi.org/10.2307/1880500 Published: 01 February 1972

Journal Article Deposit Demand and the Pricing of Demand Deposits: Comment Get access C. Clifford Tuck C. Clifford Tuck Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 86, Issue 1, February 1972, Pages 135–139, https://doi.org/10.2307/1880499 Published: 01 February 1972