This paper models the interrelationship among a variety of macroeconomic variables representing the financial, as well as the energy, sectors of the Nigerian economy from 1975 through 1994. The attempt is to investigate the impact of the energy sector on the functioning of the Nigerian economy, including the financial markets. The investigation is explored within a vector autoregressive (VAR) system. The results reveal that the energy sector exerts a significant influence on the Nigerian economy by acting as a prime mover. More importantly, Nigeria seems to find itself in a vicious circle, because of its inability to exercise control over the price of its main export and its imports. Thus, the strength and autonomy exhibited by Nigerias macroeconomic managers during the oil boom era appears to have been barren.

<span>This paper examines the distributional properties of stock returns in the Nigerian stock market. Because emerging stock markets present several institutional, political and economic barriers, we hypothesize that the structural adjustment program begun in 1986 resulted in a sustained increase in the variability of stock returns. Conventional variance homogeneity tests could not reject the hypothesis of changing volatility in the security returns process. However, the Lagrange multiplier test reveals the presence of autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) effect in the stock returns.</span>

This study identified four performance measures often employed in corporate analysis and examined their relationship with the firm's expenditures in research and development over different periods. These measures reflect both the profitability of the firm and the market value of the firm's total capitalization. This inquiry is motivated by numerous attempts made in the literature to define an ideal measure of corporate financial performance. Repeated surveys and several financial studies [Mechlin and Berg (1980), Watts (1986), Dubofsky and Varadarajan (1987), and Obi (1994)] have revealed that in spite of their empirical shortcomings, the most frequently employed measures are those based on the firm's profitability, essentially, return on equity (ROE), profit margin on sales and return on total capitalization. These measures are handicapped by the fact that they reflect only the historical pattern of the accounting data generating them. In this study, we contend that a reliable measure of performance should reflect the market's perception of the riskiness and timing of the expected returns on the firm's current investments.

This study provides evidence regarding the performance of bank holding companies (BHC) following a series of deregulatory measures by the United States Congress. To compare performance of commercial banks before and after expanding their operations to nonbank functions, a set of hypotheses addressing BHC risk and return characteristics are proposed. Empirical results are mixed. Total risk dropped after expansion. Market risk, on the other hand, rose substantially in post-expansion time. When returns are adjusted for risk, a marginal improvement in performance is achieved.This study determines whether the product and geographical diversification of BHCs into nonbank activities exposed them to a disproportionate amount of business

<p class="MsoBodyText" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">This study presents preliminary evidence on the long-term relationship between the euro and major international financial and non-financial assets. A secular relationship, if it exists, should provide the impetus for the new European currency to not only sustain itself over the long haul but also become a commanding international currency just like the U.S. dollar. Empirical results show that the pricing of crude oil is inversely related to the value of the euro, priced in U.S. dollars. Unit root tests show that series are stationary after first differencing, and cointegrated. However, Granger causality tests reveal that the euro does not Granger-cause crude oil price.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>Also, there is no reverse causality from oil to euro. Nonetheless, a two-way causality exists between the euro and the U.S. stock market. Contrary to the findings in earlier studies, there is no evidence of causality from the U.S. stock market to leading European financial market series.</span></span></p>