Using an international sample of 222 banks from 41 countries, this study examines whether the fair value option (FVO) affects earnings volatility. Prior empirical studies associate higher levels of ...earnings volatility with fair value accounting (Barth et al. 1995; Hodder et al. 2006). In contrast, I find evidence that banks applying the FVO to reduce accounting mismatches exhibit lower earnings volatility than other banks. I assign this alternative outcome to the optional characteristic of the FVO. Banks can use the flexibility in accounting to reduce artificial earnings volatility. The cross-sectional results are robust against outliers and several model alterations, including controls for endogeneity bias. Furthermore, I predict and find that banks from countries with high regulatory quality are more likely to apply the FVO to reduce accounting mismatches. Overall, the findings confirm the IASB’s initial intention on introducing the FVO. Hence, the study contributes to the current debate on the use of fair values in financial reporting.
The recent expansion of prediction markets provides a great opportunity to test the market efficiency hypothesis and the calibration of trader judgements. Using a large database of observed prices, ...this article studies the calibration of prediction markets prices on sporting events using both nonparametric and parametric methods. While only minor bias can be observed during most of the lifetime of the contracts, the calibration of prices deteriorates very significantly in the last moments of the contracts' lives. Traders tend to overestimate the probability of the losing team to reverse the situation in the last minutes of the game.
The 2006–2007 doublet of Mw > 8 earthquakes in the Kuril subduction zone caused postseismic transient motion in the asthenosphere, which we observed on the Kuril GPS Array in 2007–2011. Here we show ...that the Maxwell asthenospheric viscosity that best fits the geodetic data increased by nearly an order of magnitude over the interval of 4 years, from 2 × 1017 to 1 × 1018 Pa s. These effective values of viscosity can be explained by a power law rheology for which strain rate is proportional to stress raised to a power n > 1. The apparent change in viscosity can also be caused by other factors such as coupling between afterslip and viscoelastic flow. The open and intriguing question in connection with postseismic data after the Kuril earthquake doublet is the magnitude of the long‐term asthenospheric viscosity, which shall be revealed by continued observations. An asthenosphere with viscosity of about 1 × 1019 Pa s is favored by the postseismic deformation still observed several decades after the 1960 Chile and 1964 Alaska Mw ~9 earthquakes. However, postseismic deformation associated with the 1952 southern Kamchatka Mw ~9 earthquake currently is not observed in the northern Kurils, an indication that the long‐term asthenospheric viscosity in the Kurils is lower than that in Chile and Alaska.
Key Points
Peak postseismic GPS speed in the Kurils decreased fourfold in 2007‐2011
Best fit asthenospheric viscosity grows with time after great Kuril earthquakes
Evolution of best fit yearly Maxwell viscosities suggests a power‐law rheology
Making do Duncombe, William D; Yinger, John
International tax and public finance,
06/2011, Letnik:
18, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
California’s unique education finance system combines general state support for school districts, numerous state categorical aid programs, a restricted local property tax, and two unusual small local ...revenue sources: a parcel tax and contributions from educational foundations. This paper explores the incentives this system creates for local voters and school officials and estimates the impact of these incentives on education costs, school district efficiency, and the demand for student performance. The paper finds that voters in California respond to the price incentives in this system even though they work through the hard-to-pass parcel tax instead of the property tax; that educational outcomes are strongly influenced by student characteristics and other factors that influence educational costs; that school district efficiency is undermined by the state’s current emphasis on categorical instead of unrestricted aid; and that, overall, the education finance system is not well designed to meet the state’s educational objectives.
Current mainstream wisdom portrays the young British-Bangladeshi community as underachieving in education. However, this study suggests that young British-Bangladeshi women tend to be high achievers ...in education. This research interrogates the multifaceted experiences of British-Bangladeshi women students to better understand the contested nature of their transition from educational achievement to labor market participation. The analysis draws on a combination of fieldwork done in two colleges in East London and Leeds in 2007 and secondary data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency on students who graduated from British higher education institutions in 2006. Although it focuses on the reality of young British-Bangladeshi women, the study shows that - especially for certain ethnic minorities - the absence of social resources, social networks, and egalitarian class relations can hamper the process of making good on educational achievements.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Australia corporate boards and senior management have been spirited from the Land of Milk and Honey (profit) to the Land of OZ. They are to embark on a journey, following the “yellow-brick road”, a ...proverbial path to a promised land of one’s hopes and dreams, in order to find brains, a heart and courage. The effect of new regulations introduced in Australia to curtail corporate misbehaviour is detailed by storytelling.
The Wizard of OZ
is the title of a story written by L. Frank Baum and published in 1899. In 1939, Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios made a movie of the story. I have used
The Wizard of Oz
to argue that corporate boards and senior management need to make decisions using a balance of intellect (brains), emotionality (heart), and a sense of purpose (courage). The inspiration for using Baum’s story, as an analogy for the transformation needed in corporate boards and senior management, comes from Biberman and Whitty (Journal of Organisational Change Management 10(2):130–188,
1997
). This research is based on interviews with Board members and non-executive directors from five companies listed in the Business Review Weekly (BRW) Top Twenty-five Companies in Australia (
2007
) and a range of secondary data sources. The financial and reputational success of the organisation and its members is out of balance with the human and social costs and benefits. Respondents confirmed that board members and senior management should willingly provide information about the corporation and its activities to its stakeholders, that information and data should be transparent, the true extent of director remuneration should be revealed and that financial reporting should be true and accurate. Board members and senior management can be assisted to operate in a way that observes socially responsible values and balances the obligation for profit maximisation with corporate social responsibilities (CSR). This study provides steps that organisations can take to achieve a balance of intellect, emotionality and sense of purpose and therefore realise their corporate social responsibility. The results of this empirical and secondary research suggest a method that may be used to make board members and senior managers more aware of their corporate social responsibilities and curtail corporate misbehaviour where the introduction of a range of new regulations has had little effect.
In the past few years, many states have responded to the increasing number of limited service brokers by passing minimum service requirements. Limited service brokers can be viewed as those brokers ...who are offering their marketing and representative services A La Carte as opposed to the more traditional full-services brokers offering of a Table D’hôte (one size fits all) for their services. Supporters claim the legislation is necessary to protect consumers who are otherwise hurt by limited service brokers, but critics assert that this legislation is anti-competitive and not necessary. This study provides empirical evidence that sellers using limited service brokers experience a trade-off between a higher selling price and longer marketing spans with accompanying lower probabilities of finding a buyer during a given marketing period.
In this study, an attempt has been made to estimate gender health differential with a focus on preventive health care. Using the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (PDHS) of 2006-07, the study has ...targeted the children of age 12-23 months and found substantial sex differences in the immunization status of children where boys are more immunized than girls, reflecting gender biasness over preventive health provision. Through bi-variate and multi-variate analysis, the study found that a variety of factors, including individual, socio-demographic and economic factors are causing this dilemma. Mother's characteristics including age, literacy and headship of the household significantly affect the immunization status of the children. Similarly, the socio-economic status of the household including income, household size, structure and gender of the head of the households are also the key determinants of preventive health care differentials. Across the provinces, the variation of coverage and discrimination is also evident with more coverage in Punjab and least in Baluchistan.
Renegade Asset Markets Chinloy, Peter; Wiley, Jonathan A.
The journal of real estate finance and economics,
08/2013, Letnik:
47, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Local markets with tight land use controls result in prices rising relative to wages and affordability. Affordability is eased by unconventional but risky finance. Tight land use and loose financing ...in these renegade markets concentrates the impact of national or international shocks. A positive demand shock raises prices in these tight markets. If ongoing price momentum is expected, households switch to ownership and landlords reduce the rental stock. House prices, rents and occupancy rise and fall together in these markets. A five-equation sequential structure in land use, financial contracts, house prices, rents and vacancy for 17 United States cities confirms geographical concentration. Coastal California and South Florida are fundamentally risky markets. Discount rates there are three percentage points higher than the sample median. Two percentage points are attributable to land use and the other to unconventional finance. National and international financial crises are highly concentrated regionally.
In many countries, in addition to negative credit information such as loan default and arrears, positive credit information is also exchanged on a voluntary and reciprocal basis. Employing optimal ...credit decision models of profit maximizing banks, and utilizing a unique dataset of 2 million consumer loan obligors in Korea, we investigate the economic effects of sharing positive credit information in addition to negative credit information already exchanged. We find that the discriminatory power of the credit scoring model improves significantly. We proceed to investigate the economic effects of the information gap in a competitive credit market by assuming two representative banks that differ only in the level of credit information sharing. The bank that utilizes negative information only suffers from deterioration of the borrower pool and reduced profit, as high credit risk borrowers are more concentrated on this bank due to underpricing of risks. Our finding suggests that banks have incentives to voluntarily participate in the positive information sharing mechanism, since even a small difference in discriminatory power stemming from the information gap may lead to a significant fall in profitability as the distribution of borrower quality changes endogenously due to adverse selection problems.
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