Alan Ziobrowski
Contact info:
Phone:
404-413-7729
E-Mail:
aziobrowski@gsu.edu

Senators have knack for knowing how to buy low, sell high
A new study by Alan Ziobrowski (Real Estate department) which has found that U.S. Senators profit significantly in their personal investments by using information not available to investors in the general public has stirred things up innside the beltway and among the media. "The results clearly support the notion that members of the Senate trade with a substantial informational advantage over ordinary investors," says Ziobrowski in the Financial Times. "The results suggest senators knew when to buy their common stock and when to sell.  
---Read more about Ziobrowski's study

Jason Greene
Contact info:
E-Mail:
jgreene7@gsu.edu

Finance prof: 'Market timers' abuse financial-market system
Allegations of abuses by major mutual-fund companies could have severe repercussions on investor confidence, says Jason Greene, an associate professor of finance at Georgia State University. New York Attorney General Mark Spitzer recently claimed that these companies had engaged in fraudulent after-market trading practices with privileged institutional investors. "The most troubling issue is that mutual fund companies appear to have been active participants in allowing large hedge funds to profit at the expense of individuals," Greene says. Greene recently published a study showing that small investors have been losing money to "market timers" for several years. In many cases, these individuals have been private investors who have taken advantage of predictability in mutual fund share prices. "Based on our study, we estimate that profits to these 'market timers' come at the expense of buy-and-hold shareholders in the fund to the tune of more than $1 billion a year," Greene says.  
---Read more about Greene's study 

David Richardson
Contact info:
Phone:
404-413-7420 
E-mail:
dprichardson@gsu.edu

Social insecurity?
Federal proposals to partially privatize the U.S. Social Security system, allowing people the option of allocating some of their money into individual accounts, lost a lot of appeal after the stock-market collapse of recent years ruined many people financially. But the need for reforming the system hasn't gone away, says David Richardson, assistant professor of risk management and insurance at Georgia State University. "I think the general consensus is that it's unsustainable in its current form," says Richardson, who studied Social Security reform closely during his six years working at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He is available to provide in-depth discussion on administrative hurdles to partial privatization and other reform options, such as decreasing future benefits.   

Naveen Donthu
Contact info:
Phone:
404-413-7662 
E-mail:
ndonthu@gsu.edu

Single shoppers 'brand' together
Single adults might not want to snuggle with "Mr. Clean" or "Mrs. Butterworth," but identifying with such brands may help satisfy the need for intimacy lacking in their lives, according to a Georgia State University researcher. "Singles seek to overcome their feelings of loneliness by developing coping strategies," says marketing professor Naveen Donthu. "Identifying with brands may provide singles, who sometimes have low self-esteem, with another level of support - that of the other users of the product brand." In addition to finding that single adults are more brand-conscious than married people, Donthu's research shows that singles are more willing to try new products, more impulsive in their purchases, more tuned-in to television and less price-conscious.