Does XBRL adoption reduce information asymmetry?

This paper examines whether or not XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) adoption reduces information asymmetry in a stock market context. Student t-tests and multiple regression analysis were employed to examine the effect of XBRL adoption on information asymmetry in the capital market. A significant and negative association exists between XBRL adoption and information asymmetry, which implies that the adoption of XBRL may lead to the reduction of the information asymmetry in the Korean stock market. In addition, the effect of XBRL adoption on reducing information asymmetry is stronger for large-sized companies than for medium-sized and small-sized companies. Based on these findings, the demand for XBRL-enabled applications and services in the capital market is expected to grow while governments should promote XBRL adoption for business reporting.     

On subset selection from logistic populations

Some distributional results are derived for subset selection from logistic populations, differing only in their location parameter. The probability of correct selection is given. Exact and numerical results concerning the expected subset size are presented.     

Warranty markets and public policy

Search equilibrium models in the Economics of Information concern themselves exclusively with consumer ignorance of the prices that different firms charge. Legal regulation dealing with information, on the other hand, concerns itself primarily with contact terms. In particular, firms are often required to warrant against product related defects on the supposed ground that firms respond to consumer ignorance only by degrading contract quality. This paper is the beginning of an attempt to make the Economics of Information useful to policymakers. It models a market for warranties under imperfect information and shows that firms are more likely to respond to consumer ignorance by raising prices for the warranties that consumers prefer rather than deleting warranties from consumer contracts. Hence, policymakers should be concerned more with reducing supracompetitive prices than with “improving” contract quality.     

Farm tourism in Europe

Farm tourism in Europe is long established, but recently its importance has increased, both as a tourism resource and as a source of revenue for the farming community. In 1982 the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the FAO held a symposium to study the effects of tourism on agriculture and the possibilities for integrating the two for the development of rural areas. This article, based on the papers given at the symposium, provides an international overview of farm tourism in Europe.     

动物福利认知与居民食品安全

农场动物福利不仅是伦理问题,还关乎食品安全。文章将农场动物福利纳入食品安全议题之内,考察了消费者的农场动物福利认知对其支付意愿及政策诉求的影响。研究表明,尽管当前我国消费者对农场动物福利认知还不充分,但仍有81.42%的消费者对农场动物福利存在一定的支付意愿,平均支付溢价达19.24%,消费者关于农场动物福利的认知对其农场动物福利支付意愿及政策诉求存在显著影响。这一结论表明,我国已存在通过市场激励手段或是政府规制手段改善农场动物福利,进而提升居民食品安全的基础条件。     

D‐optimal designs for a continuous predictor in longitudinal trials with discrete‐time survival endpoints

In designing an experiment with one single, continuous predictor, the questions are composed of what is the optimal number of the predictor's values, what are these values, and how many subjects should be assigned to each of these values. In this study, locally D‐optimal designs for such experiments with discrete‐time event occurrence data are studied by using a sequential construction algorithm. Using the Weibull survival function for modeling the underlying time to event function, it is shown that the optimal designs for a linear effect of the predictor have two points that coincide with the design region's boundaries, but the design weights highly depend on the predictor effect size and its direction, the survival pattern, and the number of time points. For a quadratic effect of the predictor, three or four design points are needed.     

Firm growth and liquidity constraints: evidence from the manufacturing and service sectors in Italy

We use a large firm-level panel data set to analyse the relevance of liquidity constraints on firm growth in Italy. In most European countries, mainstream financial institutions are scantly able to provide affordable credit facilities to small firms. Thus, these firms are forced to finance their growth almost exclusively through retained earnings. We estimate a dynamic version of Gibrat-law, incorporating cash flow as a measure of financial constraints, for two different size classes within small and medium size enterprises and for several industries in manufacturing and service sectors. The findings show that, in general, small manufacturing firms have higher growth-cash flow sensitivities with respect to medium firms. Conversely, our results highlight, for the services, a significant heterogeneity in the impact of liquidity constraints on firm growth. In particular, the sensitivity of growth rates to the cash flow appears relatively high for small firms belonging to Knowledge Intensive Business Services. Validation of Gibrat-law in the services suggests that an important group of industries, with a superior capacity of encouraging firm’s competitiveness, need more financial resources to promote their growth and that of the manufacturing sectors with whom they are connected.     

Do financial distress and liquidity crises affect value and size premiums?

This study investigates the impact of liquidity crises on the relationship between stock (value and size) premiums and default risk in the US market. It first examines whether financial distress can explain value and size premiums, and then, subsequently, aims to determine whether liquidity crises increase the risk of value and size premium investment strategies. The study employs a time-varying approach and a sample of US stock returns for the period between January 1982 and March 2011, a period which includes the current liquidity crisis, so as to examine the relationship between default risk, liquidity crises and value and size premiums. The findings indicate that the default premium has explanatory power for value and size premiums, which affect firms with different characteristics. We also find that liquidity crises may actually increase the risks related to size and value premium strategies.     

The moments of the time to ruin in dependent Sparre Andersen models with Coxian claim sizes

A very general class of dependent Sparre Andersen models with Coxian claim sizes (e.g. Landriault et al. 2014) is considered in this paper. The moments of the time to ruin are studied under this class. An analytical form is provided for the moments, which involves solving linear systems of equations. Numerical examples are then considered to further study the properties of the mean and variance of the time to ruin.