The Efficient Market Theory and Mergers and Acquisitions （M＆As） Puzzle： Evidence From Italy

The efficient market theory is a central point in finance. If the capital market is competitive, the investors cannot expect superior gains from their investment strategies with respect to the risk profile. Event studies are an approach to verify the impact of the information on the stock prices. In an efficient market, stock prices should fully, promptly, and quickly capture all the information. Instead, the market shows phenomena of an under-reaction and over-reaction for both the short and the long run. The mergers and acquisitions （M＆As） are examples of anomalies. Often, the bidder companies record the negative abnormal returns for both the short and the long run. In contrast to the efficient market theory, the empirical evidence shows that this phenomenon is widespread in all （or most of） the countries of the world. This work examines the long-run performance in M＆As. For this purpose, 40 bidders were observed in Italy during the period of 1994-2008 among listed companies. The buy and hold abnormal returns （BHARs） methodology was used, with which it was possible to observe the returns for three years following the deal.

Feminist Perspective on Economic Theory, Policies, and Institutions for Women Workers in the Informal Employment of Indonesian Post-economic Crisis

This paper aims to have a grounded picture regarding the impacts of the economic crises on women workers in the informal employment, identify the economic theory whose application is disadvantageous to the women home-based workers, support recognition of women homeworkers by the policy makers, and empower the workers through exercising their rights. Research methodology for women＇s studies from a feminist perspective is employed covering action-oriented research initiating from the grounded issues, a bottom-up approach, and a participatory method where the researchers act as facilitators. It is necessarily a longitudinal research work with a new paradigm to change the women＇s situation. This methodology is deemed effective to identify impacts of the crises as described in the paper. It can be found that the root cause of women workers＇ exploitation is the economic efficiency theory, while policy development should be specifically designed along with engendering policy makers. Exercising the rights to organize the unorganized women home-based workers is no way repeatable from standard practice of organizing formal workers. All these require action of committed and skilled feminists with adequate praxis resources.