Board Committee Meetings and Firm Financial Performance: An Investigation of Australian Companies

This article examines how the frequency of board committee meetings impacts on Australian firms' financial performance. Data were collected from 118 Australian listed companies – including 26 financial firms and 92 nonfinancial firms – for the period 1999–2007. Analysis of that data shows that the frequencies of audit committee meetings and remuneration committee meetings are positively and significantly associated with return on equity and return on assets. The frequencies of risk committee meetings do not show any significant effects on the financial performance of Australian firms. Estimated results are found to be robust after controlling for internal as well as external governance mechanisms that might affect Australian firm performance.     

Attitude and consciousness of Japanese men and women towards career commitment and continuity: the role of expected change in HRM policies

A survey was conducted on 302 working men and women in Japanese private firms and local government organization anrl 51 non-working Japanese women to examine the attitude and consciousness towards career commitment and continuity if organizations adopt some policy formulations in more relaxed ways to accommodate, particularly, Japanese women in the workplace. Many studies have well documented that women’s passive attitude towards career commitment and continuity, as compared to that of men, is the outcome of discriminatory HRM policies and practices in the internal labour market. The ANOVA results show that the attitude on the policy relating to work–home harmonization differs significantly between men and women. As compared to working women, non-working women would have a more positive attitude to career commitment and continuity if a work-home harmonization policy wcre adopted. The ANOVA results also reveal that men and women have shown an almost similar attitude to pay structure and, thus, the integrated corporate pay structure can help in developing women’s attitude and consciousness towards career commitment and continuity, but women cannot share equally with their male counterparts as regards the policy of career development; rather, they are demanding job security, distributive justice and career counselling in the workplace.     

Role of TFP in China's Growth*

This paper uses the dual approach to growth accounting to examine the role of total factor productivity (TFP) in recent Chinese growth. Most previous growth accounting studies on China have followed the primal approach, which depends heavily on the national income accounts. Unfortunately, despite efforts to rectify them, Chinese national income accounts data continue to have problems that affect primal approach growth accounting results. The dual approach, in contrast, allows independent price information to play a role. Recent research has focused on the following two questions: (i) How significant has TFP's role been in post‐reform Chinese growth? (ii) Has TFP growth rate slowed down in more recent years? This paper finds that: (i) the TFP growth rate for mainland China computed using the dual approach also proves high; and (ii) there has been some slowdown in TFP growth rate in recent years.     

Structural Change in Pakistan's Interindustry Relationships

This paper examines and discusses the structural change in Pakistan's interindustrial relationships by comparing the direction of change in the input–output coefficients of the direct input requirements matrix, the total requirements matrix and the business multipliers over the periods 1975–76 and 1984–85.     

The relation between real cash balances and physical inputs in South Korea's manufacturing sector

This study investigates the role of real cash balances and primary inputs in the production process of an average firm in a newly industrializing country, South Korea, for 1968–1983. It is hypothesized that real balances and capital in the modern sector of industrializing countries are substitutes akin to those of the developed countries; whereas in the traditional sector the two inputs are complements similar to those of the less developed countries. Using the translog cost function approach the hypothesis is verified for South Korea. The results also shed some light on the “Korean miracle” of growth along with implications for income redistribution.     

Equity and efficiency considerations in area versus individual yield insurance

Equity and efficiency considerations in area versus individual crop insurance are investigated for 609 Ontario cash crop farms. Results show that the relationship between individual and area premiums and risk reduction are explained by systematic and non-systematic yield risk relationships. On average, area insurance premiums are much lower than individual yield insurance premiums, and in terms of efficiency in risk-reduction individual plans are superior to area plans. As it turns out arguments of asymmetric information which has lead some researchers to investigate area vs. individual yield insurance is not totally resolved. Inequities in the benefits of area plans across farmers are not equitably distributed, favouring high-risk producers. Adverse selection causes instability in the pooled contracts which will ultimately cause area insurance plans to fail.     

Corporate ownership concentration and audit fees: The case of an emerging economy

The paper investigates the effects of corporate ownership concentration on audit fees in emerging economies, using Bangladesh as a case. Prior studies have indicated that audit fees in Bangladesh are significantly low. Also, the Bangladeshi private sector is dominated by high ownership concentration. Agency theory predicts that in an efficient market, managers in a highly concentrated ownership situation will have sufficient incentives to have more rigorous audits performed. However, managers in emerging economies, where the markets are not as strong, may not have similar incentives. We test whether audit fees in Bangladesh are related to corporate ownership concentration. Our results indicate that audit fees have a significant negative relationship with sponsor and institutional ownership concentrations. This indicates that in Bangladesh, companies actually pay lower audit fees when these are dominated by sponsor and institutional shareholders. For the public shareholders, we find a negative, but statistically insignificant relationship. The results seem to suggest that corporate ownership pattern may be a major factor in explaining the low audit fees in Bangladesh.     

A review of the extensions of a modified EOQ model for imperfect quality items

Imperfect items in the raw material and production stages of a supply chain directly impact the coordination of the product flow within a supply chain. In response to this concern, production and inventory lot sizing models, which incorporate imperfect items into their formulation have become an important and growing area of research. The contribution of Salameh and Jaber (2000) is one of the fundamental models on lot sizing when procured items are of imperfect quality. Over the past decade, there has been a noticeable amount of interest in the EOQ model for imperfect items that was set forth in Salameh and Jaber (2000). Several researchers have published adaptations and extensions of this original model that address supply chain coordination, quality improvement and yield management, and the impact of human error on production and inventory systems. In this paper, we summarize the current body of research that has extended the Salameh and Jaber (2000) EOQ model for imperfect items. Some possible future research directions are identified at the end of the paper.     

The relevance of personal characteristics in health care rationing: what the Australian public thinks and why

This article examines the preferences of the general public in Australia regarding health care resource allocation. While previous studies have revealed that the public is willing to give priority to particular groups of patients based on their personal characteristics, the present article goes beyond previous efforts in attempting to explain these results. In the present study, there was strong support among respondents for giving “equal priority” to people regardless of their personal characteristics. However, respondents did reveal a preference for married patients over single, for children over adults, for carers of children and the elderly, sole breadwinners, and good community contributors. Further, they would give a lower priority to those perceived as “self-harmers”—smokers, individuals with unhealthy diets, and those who rarely exercise. Variation in the answers according to broad economic and social beliefs across seven different categories (“factors”) influenced the pattern of the public's attitudes towards rationing. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) indicated that most of the items in our survey are associated with seven factors that explain or capture much of the variation. These relate to a patient's avoidance of self-harm behaviors (Safe Living), their Life Style (diet, exercise, etc.), their contribution to the community through caring for others (Caring), their talents (Gifted), their sexual behavior (Sexuality), their age and marital status (Family), and whether they are an Australian citizen or employed (Citizen). The strength of social preferences—e.g., how strongly respondents would “discriminate” against a recreational drug user or preference a person with a healthy diet—is related to the particular class of preferences.