Do Goodwill Impairments by European Firms Provide Useful Information to Investors?

In 2004 International Accounting Standards Board. (2004). International Accounting Standard (IAS) N°36: Impairment of assets. London: Author. [Google Scholar], the IASB adopted the mandatory annual impairment-test-only of goodwill (IAS 36) instead of amortization of goodwill. We present and discuss the academic literature regarding the association between the goodwill impairment, under this new standard, and the revision of investors’ expectations about a company’s future cash flows. The academic literature highlights that, in some specific cases, IAS 36 may help investors to revise their expectations. More precisely, goodwill impairment seems relevant when: (a) there is strong asymmetry of information between managers and investors, (b) managers disclose detailed information in the notes regarding their own assumptions about future cash flows, and (c) managers do not manage earnings and provide reliable information to investors. In many cases, goodwill impairment is probably useless for investors because they are able to revise their expectations based on public information, or because they cannot trust the accounting numbers and additional information in the notes about the impairment test, which are provided by (undisciplined) managers. More research is, however, needed to understand in which circumstances impairment-test-only is more useful, as well in which cases it is less adequate. Our analysis relates to the current post-implementation review and should be useful to standard-setters. Before any modification, we argue that standard-setters should carefully consider the economic and the institutional contexts when issuing a new accounting standard.     

Pricing multiasset equity options: How relevant is the dependence function?

In this paper we test how different choices for the dependence function can affect the prices of a set of multiasset equity options. We conduct the analysis for various 5-dimensional baskets of UK shares, and a wide range of payoffs for the multiasset options, consistent with the instruments traded on the market. We also test the relevance of the dependence specification over both volatile and quiet market scenarios. Interestingly, we find that, in most circumstances, the choice of a dependence structure richer than the standard linear correlation does not seem to affect option prices substantially. However, the dependence function becomes more relevant in particularly volatile market conditions.     

Failure Risks in the Insurance Industry: A Quantitative Systems Analysis

We present in this article the findings from a study on insolvency in the property–casualty insurance industry that was commissioned by the Risk Foundation. The Risk Foundation contacted us for this work to draw from our experience in risk analysis based on systems analysis and probability. Therefore, we provide a different perspective on failure in the insurance industry by opening the "black box" to assess the contribution of different factors to the overall risk. Besides the development of a quantitative model for insolvency risk, our study for the Risk Foundation included insights from (1) unstructured interviews with 15 insurance industry experts and with six insurance regulators in different states, and (2) a statistical analysis of insolvency data (A.M. Best) covering the 1970 through 2005 period. Our focus here is centered on the practical insights that came out of the study, rather than on the technical details that led us to those insights.     

The importance of equity finance for R&;D activity

This article analyzes the importance of equity finance for the R&D activity of small- and medium-sized enterprises. We use information on almost 6,000 German SMEs from a company survey. Using the intensity of banking competition at the district level as an instrument to control for endogeneity, we find that a higher equity ratio is conducive to a higher R&D intensity. Owners may only start R&D activities if they have the financial resources to sustain them until successful completion. We find a larger influence of the equity ratio for young companies. Equity may be more important for young companies which have to rely on the original equity investment of their owners since they have not yet accumulated retained earnings and can rely less on bank financing.     

The exploratory analysis of trade-offs in strategic planning: Lessons from Regional Infrastructure Foresight

The sustainable transformation of infrastructure sectors represents a challenge of prime importance worldwide. Due to long life times of infrastructures, strategic decision making has to explicitly consider uncertainties in context conditions, value considerations and available technological alternatives. However currently, strategic infrastructure planning is often carried out in a very narrow perspective. The present paper argues that foresight informed strategic planning, allows addressing trade-offs related to context uncertainties, value conflicts and sustainability deficits in a structured way. The paper introduces a specific procedural proposal, the Regional Infrastructure Foresight method (RIF) and illustrates its potential virtues through an application to urban water management planning in a Swiss region (Kiesental).     

Designing credit agent incentives to prevent mission drift in pro-poor microfinance institutions

Credit agents in microfinance institutions (MFIs) must be given incentives to acquire information on potential borrowers and select them in accordance with the MFI's objectives. We show that while giving incentives has no cost in for-profit MFIs, it is costly in pro-poor MFIs: When repayment and wealth are positively correlated, a pro-poor MFI cannot obtain the selection of poor clients in the proportion it wishes with incentives based solely on repayment. It then becomes necessary to audit the share of very poor borrowers selected by an agent in order to provide the latter with adequate incentives. When audit costs are large, pro-poor MFIs may have to forego selection on wealth — and use other targeting devices such as working in impoverished geographical locations. Driven by donor concerns with ‘mission drift’ away from the poor, audits on the wealth status of clients have been introduced at the level of MFIs. We show that introducing pro-poor incentives requires extending such audits to the level of credit agents.     

Decomposing service exports adjustments along the intensive and extensive margin at the firm‐level

Using a panel data set of Austrian service exporting firms this paper examines the determinants of service exports at the firm/destination country level. We implement a random effects Heckman sample selection firm‐level gravity model as well as a fixed effects Poisson model. Expected firm‐level service exports are decomposed into the intensive and extensive margins of adjustment as a response to counterfactual changes. We find market demand to be a key determinant. Results also suggest high service export potentials due to regulatory reform in partner countries within the EU. Adjustments at the extensive margin only play a marginal role. Increases in firm size as well as changes in distance related costs are most effective in developing new export relationships in services.     

Understanding Preferences for Dietary Supplements and Fortified Food during Pregnancy: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Using a discrete choice experiment, we examine pregnant women’s preferences to determine the relative importance they place on product attributes when choosing between nutritionally fortified food and beverage products, and supplement tablets. The choice experiment was included in a cross-sectional web-based questionnaire completed by 857 pregnant Australian women. Latent class analysis identified four distinct consumer segments: ‘Nulliparous information seekers’ (42% of sample), ‘Lower-income milk-lovers’ (22%), ‘Older multiparous tablet users’ (16%), and ‘Young juice-lovers’ (20%). While nutrient levels were a strong driver of choice in the largest segment, over one-third of pregnant women were not influenced by levels of recommended nutrients (folate or iodine) in supplement products. Pregnancy supplements endorsed by a reputable government science agency were most appealing in three of the segments. The information gained regarding product preferences of different consumer segments can aid in targeting pregnant women and those planning pregnancy with more appropriate nutrition information, advice, and products.     

Absorbing partner knowledge in R&D collaborations – the influence of founders on potential and realized absorptive capacity

We investigate whether founder participation in research and development collaborations enhances the two dimensions of absorptive capacity (ACAP): potential ACAP and realized ACAP. Based on a longitudinal firm-patent dataset of over 700 collaborations, and using a novel measure of ACAP, we find that founder involvement enhances potential ACAP provided the knowledge bases of focal firm and partner are related. Once knowledge has been absorbed, founder involvement increases realized ACAP irrespective of relatedness. Thus, we highlight the merit of treating the dimensions of ACAP separately by showing differing effects of founder involvement. Our paper emphasizes the outstanding role founders play in the R&D process of their firms. Firms should consider carefully the allocation of team members to R&D projects because team members differ with respect to their ACAP.     

The dimensions of rural tourism experience: impacts on arousal,memory, and satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Rural tourism is driven by the search for unique and memorable experiences in particular settings, but knowledge on visitors’ experiences in rural destinations is still scarce. This paper analyzes the rural tourism experience of Portuguese tourists who answered an online survey (N = 252). The paper aims at validating, in the rural tourism context, a previously proposed tourist experience scale, and analyzing the relationships between the experience, arousal, memory, and satisfaction. Results reveal that the rural tourism experience dimensions of education and esthetics positively predict rural tourists’ arousal, whereas escapism and esthetics determine memorability. Finally, implications for rural tourism marketing are discussed.