EVA,refined EVA,MVA, or traditional performance measures for the hospitality industry?

Stewart (1991) proposed economic value added (EVA) as a true measurement of a firm's performance and an executive's evaluation tool because EVA reflects only incremental values added to a firm after considering cost of capital. Kim [Kim, W.G., 2006. EVA and traditional accounting measures: which metric is a better predictor of market value of hospitality companies? Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research 30(1), 34–39] examined EVA in the hospitality setting and concluded that EVA is not superior to other available measurements for accounting. However, this study contributes several improvements to Kim's (2006) study and compares the incremental explanatory power of six firm performance measures including EVA, refined EVA (REVA), market value added (MVA), and three traditional accounting performance measures for market adjusted returns. According to the findings, REVA and MVA are, apparently, valuable performance measures for evaluating hospitality firms.     

Niedrige Preis-Dividende-Verhältnisse: Einstiegssignal für den Aktienmarkt?

Zusammenfassung  Die Finanzmarktkrise ging weltweit mit einem Rückgang der Aktienkurse einher. Sind diese niedrigen Aktien-Bewertungen als überreaktion mit der Aussicht auf baldige Korrektur zu bewerten? Oder bringen sie realistische Erwartungen einer schw?cheren Entwicklung b?rsennotierter deutscher Unternehmen zum Ausdruck? K?nnen anhand der aktuellen Entwicklung der Preis-Dividende-Verh?ltnisse Aussagen über die zukünftige Kurs- und Dividendenentwicklung gemacht werden? Prof. Dr. Oliver Holtem?ller, 37, ist Juniorprofessor für Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre an der Fakult?t für Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Rheinisch-Westf?lischen Technischen Hochschule Aachen.     

Women and Globalization: Ethical Dimensions of Knowledge Transfer in Global Organizations

The topic of women and globalization raises fundamental questions on the impact of globalization on women, ethnic minorities and other socio-demographically under-represented actors in global organizations. This article seeks to integrate theories of procedural justice, psychological contracts, motivation and psychological ownership in knowledge transfer in global organizations, and the implications for women, and other under-represented actors. Our analysis concurs with current research on the need for a relativist perspective in business ethics research and one that encompasses the critical processes of exchange from a cognitive perspective. Our contribution is to show that globalization is a complex process, that has different impacts on actors, an impact that can vary widely depending on, whether the actors are in a dominant situation, or as in the case of women and ethnic minorities, in a relatively socio-demographic and geo-politically under represented situation.     

The Financial Performance of Non-farm Microenterprises in Ghana

This paper analyzes the effect of firm and other characteristics on the incidence and intensity of improved financial performance among non-farm microenterprises in Ghana, using data from the 1998/1999 Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 4). The results indicate that firm characteristics, including urban and regional location, significantly affect the incidence and intensity of improved performance, but entrepreneurial characteristics are unimportant. The firm’s capital stock does not affect the propensity and intensity of better performance, reflecting that the value of assets owned is low and insufficient to have a measurable impact on enterprise productivity and performance.     

Capital investment and employment in the information sector

Estimation of the employment effects of changes in capital investment is a standard tool in public policy debates. Typically, such predictions are based on employment multipliers derived from Input–Output analysis. In this paper, we measure the employment effects of changes in capital investment in the U.S. information sector by econometrically estimating an “employment multiplier” from historical data. The estimated multiplier is 10 information sector jobs for each million dollars in expenditure, and perhaps 24 new jobs per million dollars invested across the entire economy. Employment multipliers derived from the Input–Output methodology average about 16 jobs per million, but the multiplier includes jobs outside the information sector. Including employment spillovers, our estimates suggest the multipliers from Input–Output models are plausible. We also note that information sector jobs have substantially higher median earnings than the private sector average, so the economic significance of changes in information sector employment are greater than might first appear. Our findings may be useful in debates over changes in industry regulation that could affect investment.     

Uncertainty and risk premium puzzle

This paper provides a theory and evidence that the risk premium puzzle may be viewed mainly as a phenomenon pertaining to the unstable foreign exchange market. In an unstable market, errors uncompensated by an initial risk premium accrue due to consumer expectation revision about the ex ante uncertainty of the exchange rate. These revision errors are different from the forecasting errors, depending on the frequency of the consumer expectation revision and the degree of risk aversion. A simulation was discussed on how the risk premium actually deviates from an initial premium in the unstable market. Using the monthly data of the U.K., Japan, Australia, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand from January 1994 to December 2008, it is shown that revision errors for risk premium were statistically significant and were non-trivial in magnitude and that the degree of absolute risk aversion went up during the Asian currency crisis as well as the recent financial crisis periods.     

Price discrimination via information provision

We study price discrimination where different prices are offered as a bundle with different levels of information about a product. The seller’s price discrimination induces high valuation buyers to purchase a good without information and low valuation buyers to purchase with information. Our analysis highlights several interesting results about price discrimination: (i) the seller’s choice of information provision is the combination of full information and no information, (ii) products can be cheaper without information provision than with information provision, (iii) as a result of price discrimination, prices can be more dispersed as buyers’ valuations become largely similar, and (iv) the high valuation buyers purchase a damaged good and may earn negative surplus. Furthermore, we investigate under which circumstances price discrimination is more profitable than uniform pricing. We show that a decline in transportation costs which facilitate price discrimination can be welfare reducing.     

Missed Opportunities: The WTO Trade Policy Review for the East African Community

The East African Community (EAC), comprising Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, came into force on 7 July 2000 with a Common External Tariff (CET) established in January 2005. This Trade Policy Review (TPR) of the EAC is timely as all three countries had implemented significant trade liberalisation since the late 1980s while the CET represented an asymmetric change – Kenya and Tanzania essentially reduced tariffs whereas Uganda increased tariffs. The TPR provides considerable information on the CET and on trade and related policies in each of the member countries. However, the EAC and the TPR missed a number of opportunities: the EAC included no coordinated export promotion or investment provisions, while the TPR says little on the potential for intra‐regional trade, and nor does it address the position of the EAC in the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) being negotiated with the EU. This review concentrates on these omissions to explore the implications of the EAC for developments in trade policy in the region.     

Financial sector diversification and MNC valuation

We extend the literature on MNC performance by examining the relationship between market valuation of MNCs and intangibles associated with financial expertise. We identify firms as having financial expertise if they have diversified their business in the financial sector. We argue that financial expertise enhances the ability of MNCs to internalize financial transactions and take advantage of financing and investment opportunities around the world. Therefore, it is a potentially significant source of market power. Our test results demonstrate that as the degree of multinationality increases market valuation is positively related with financial expertise even after we account for several other control factors. Our findings imply that MNCs with financial expertise can be viewed as possessing an additional intangible, which essentially is the financial equivalent of the traditionally examined intangible assets, such as technological “know-how,” goodwill, and managerial expertise.     

后张法预应力施工技术及质量控制研究

随着预应力的发展,后张法预应力体系已经广泛应用于大型桥梁结构上,基于后张法的实际应用,分析了后张法施工存在的相关问题,并从质量控制出发,提出了后张法质量控制措施。