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This paper examines the price and volatility behaviour of two similar commodities (Brent Crude Oil and West Texas Intermediate) and attempts to identify the variables that aOE ect their relative price diOE erential. Price spreads and convenience yields are estimated in an eOE ort to test a number of hypotheses relating to market segmentation, seasonality and maturity eOE ect. Cash and futures price data covering the period 1991± 1995 reveal that: convenience yields are signi® cant and about 2.5% of cash prices on the average; convenience yields exhibit strong yearly and monthly seasonalities due to supply/demand imbalances; convenience yield is a negative function of the level of stocks and behaves like a call option; as maturity of futures contracts nears, their convenience yields get smaller, an indication that the maturity eOE ect exists in futures prices, and crude oil price spreads are aOE ected by convenience yields which act as surrogates for demand/supply conditions and market price behaviour.

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This article examines managerial ownership structure and return premia on corporate bonds. It is argued that when managerial ownership is low, an increase in managerial ownership increases management's incentives to increase stockholder wealth at the expense of bondholder wealth. When ownership increases more, however, it is argued that management becomes more risk averse, with incentives more closely aligned with bondholders. This study finds a positive relation between managerial ownership and bond return premia in the low to medium (5 to 25 percent) ownership range. There is also weak evidence for a nonpositive relation in the large (over 25 percent) ownership range.

This paper explores the role of Chinese financial institutions in the corporate governance of listed companies through interviews with both senior managers of financial institutions and board directors of listed companies. Our results show that, while most securities companies are passive investors, a good proportion of the active mutual funds help their portfolio companies prepare financial forecasts, standardize their operations, raise external funds, strengthen their company image in the capital markets, and sometimes intervene in corporate issues. This limited role can be attributed to a number of factors specific to the Chinese context including highly concentrated state ownership, an immature regulatory environment, inadequate transparency and disclosure of financial information, and weak corporate governance within financial institutions themselves. It could also be affected by several other factors that are considered to cause institutional passivity in developed countries such as conflicts of interest, monitoring costs and lack of expertise.