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From the Editor

Karen Eilers Lahey

This last issue of Volume 7 for 1998 includes a formal thank-you to the 65 individuals who
are specially listed on the reviewers pages and those associate editors who graciously give
of their time by reviewing several manuscripts a year. Each manuscript is reviewed by at
least two reviewers and sometimes three for the initial version of the paper and all subsequent
revisions until the final acceptance of the article.

Kenneth S. Bigel’s article entitled, “The Correlations of Professionalization and Com-
pensation Sources with the Ethical Development of Personal Investment Planners” is taken
from Dr. Bigel’s dissertation. He begins by explaining the current state of the investment
planning industry and then discusses the psychology of ethical development. The results of
his research indicate that there are differences in ethical development between individuals
who hold the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) mark and those who do not hold it. He also
finds differences based on age and gender. I would certainly like to encourage you to read
his article and consider submitting manuscripts that add to our knowledge about ethics in
individual financial management.

Robert P. Goss, President of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, provides
comments on Bigel’s paper. A copy of the the CFP Licensee Standards, Section I—Code of
Ethics and Professional Responsibility and Section III—Financial Planning Practice Stan-
dards, is published as part of the comment to inform readers of the specify standards that
CFPs are required to adhere to in their professional activities. The full text can be found on
the CFP website at (www.cfp-board.org/Licensee/eadtoc-frame.set.html).

A topic of interest to academics, financial planners, and parents is how to have sufficient
funds available for college tuition when children are ready to attend school. Judson W.
Russell and Robert Brooks categorize the prepaid state college tuition plans that have been
developed since 1987 into three group that they call contract, tuition credit, and certificate
plans. They apply a surplus framework model to managing the tuition risk faced by these
state plans and suggest that it can be used by individuals in allocating their assets that are
designated for college costs.

Andy Saporoschenko tests the impact of dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) on the

Karen Eilers Lahey, The University of Akron, College of Business Administration, Department of Finance,
Akron, OH 44325-4803.

Financial Services Review 7 (1998) vii–viii

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firm’s value and efficiency. He is concerned with the issue of the cheap source of outside
financing that reinvested dividends provide to firms that have this type of plan. A description
of DRIPs is provided with an analysis of the industry distribution of this type of individual
investor benefit and previous research. His results indicate that there is no statistical
difference in the value of firms that have DRIPs versus those that do not have the plans.
Larger firms are more likely to have DRIPs, which supports his bookkeeping rationale to
explain the existence of these plans.

As the population in the United States increases in age, planning for retirement housing
becomes a more critical issue for all investors. Karen M. Gibler, George P. Mochis and
Euehun Lee provide the results of a survey of individuals who are 55 years of age or older
to determine their interest in retirement community housing. They provide readers with a
review of seniors housing options that are currently available and their associated costs. Their
survey provides insight into the thoughts of those near retirement or already retired in terms
of desired characteristics of retirement communities and why they would move to that type
of housing.

The last article by Gordon J. Alexander, Jonathan D. Jones, and Peter J. Nigro reports on
a survey of 2,000 randomly selected mutual fund investors conducted for the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The results
strongly suggest that efforts at improving the financial literacy of mutual fund investors are
needed. This is particularly important in light of the ever increasing number of individual
investors who trade in financial markets today.

viii K. Eilers Lahey / Financial Services Review 7 (1998) vii–viii