The effect of oral administration of iron on haematological, biochemical and immunological parameters in neonatal calves was studied. Ten calves from a private farm in Gharbia Governorate were used. Calves were separated from their dams immediately after birth and received colostrum during the first hours after calving and twice daily for 48 h. Thereafter, they received whole milk. Calves were divided into two equal groups. The first group was kept as controls. Calves of the second group were given ferrous sulphate at a dose of 250 mg/calf daily, beginning at one day of age; this was continued for 28 days. Three blood samples were collected from each calf in all groups at 14, 21, 28 and 35 days of age. Iron administration produced a significant increase in red blood cell count, haemoglobin, packed cell volume and blood indices, in addition to non-significant changes in total and differential leukocyte counts. The administration of iron resulted in a significant increase in serum iron, total proteins, globulins, thyroid hormones, lymphocyte stimulation index, phagocytosis, body weight and body gain. The administration of iron is suggested as routine practice in calf-producing farms due to its advantageous effects on the parameters tested.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the choice between adopting a monetary base or an interest rate setting instrument to maintain financial stability. Our results suggest that the interest rate instrument is preferable, since during times of a panic or financial crisis the Central Bank automatically satisfies the increased demand for money. Thus, it prevents sharp losses in asset values and enhanced asset volatility.

An important theoretical literature motivates collateral as a mechanism that mitigates adverse selection, credit rationing, and other inefficiencies that arise when borrowers have ex ante private information. There is no clear empirical evidence regarding the central implication of this literature – that a reduction in asymmetric information reduces the incidence of collateral. We exploit exogenous variation in lender information related to the adoption of an information technology that reduces ex ante private information, and compare collateral outcomes before and after adoption. Our results are consistent with this central implication of the private-information models and support the economic importance of this theory.

I review evidence produced by prior literature on CEO horizon problems and show that prior empirical findings are correlated with the research design employed. I find that evidence of R&D curtailment by CEOs as they approach retirement stems predominantly from cross-sectional correlations between CEO age or tenure and R&D spending. Using a broad sample of CEOs of S&P 1500 firms, I identify two factors that confound the cross-sectional relationship of firm R&D spending on CEO age or tenure which can lead to spurious inferences regarding the CEO horizon problem. I find that tracking R&D spending by the same CEOs over time produces no evidence of R&D curtailment. These results have research design implications for future researchers investigating the impact of shortened CEO career horizons on investment myopia.

This article analyzes corporate responses to the liability risk arising from workers' exposure to newly identified carcinogens. We find that firms, especially those with weak balance sheets, tend to respond to such risks by acquiring large, unrelated businesses with relatively high operating cash flows. The diversifying growth appears to be primarily motivated by managers' personal exposure to their firms' risk in that the growth has negative announcement returns and is related to firms' external governance, managerial stockholdings, and institutional ownership. The results suggest that corporate governance is particularly important when firms are exposed to the risk of large, adverse shocks.

[The massive losses that banks incurred with the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market have raised concerns about their ability to continue lending to corporations. We investigate these concerns. We find that firms paid higher loan spreads during the subprime crisis. Importantly, the increase in loan spreads was higher for firms that borrowed from banks that incurred larger losses. These results hold after we control for firm-, bank-, and loan-specific factors, and account for endogeneity of bank losses. These findings, together with our evidence that borrowers took out smaller loans during the crisis when they borrowed from banks that incurred larger losses, lend support to the concerns about bank lending following their subprime losses.]

We present a tractable general equilibrium model with multiple sectors in which firms offer workers incentive contracts and simultaneously raise capital in stock markets. Workers optimally invest in the stock market and at the same time hedge labour income risk. Firms rationally take agents' portfolio decisions into account. In equilibrium, the cost of capital of each sector is endogenous. The distortion induced by moral hazard generates counterintuitive effects on the real economy. For example, the value of labour market participation may be higher under moral hazard than under first best, further a positive productivity shock may decrease welfare in the moral hazard economy. In addition, our model generates predictions on the effects of moral hazard on asset markets. For example, in the presence of moral hazard, the capital asset pricing model fails because firms, by choosing optimal incentive contracts, transfer risk both through wages and through the stock market. This leads to several cross-sectional asset pricing “anomalies”, such as size and value effects. As we characterize optimal contracts, we can also present empirical predictions relating workers' compensation, firm productivity, firm size, and financial market abnormal returns.