Combining data and text mining techniques for analysing financial reports

There is a vast amount of financial information on companies' financial performance available to investors in electronic form today. While automatic analysis of financial figures is common, it has been difficult to extract meaning from the textual parts of financial reports automatically. The textual part of an annual report contains richer information than the financial ratios. In this paper, we combine data and text mining methods for analysing quantitative and qualitative data from financial reports, in order to see if the textual part of the report contains some indications about future financial performance. The quantitative analysis has been performed using self‐organizing maps, and the qualitative analysis using prototype‐matching text clustering. The analysis is performed on the quarterly reports of three leading companies in the telecommunications sector. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Atomic energy—Key to industrial progress

The International Atomic Energy Agency came into legal existence on the 29th July, 1957. It now has 101 Member States who meet annually in the General Conference. A Board of Governors consisting of 25 Member States carries out the functions of the Agency in accordance with the Statute. The IAEA is an autonomous body linked to the United Nations and a number of its Specialised Agencies by relationship agreements, but itself not a Specialised Agency. In pursuance of its first objective to promote the peaceful use of the atom for the welfare of man, the Agency is engaged in a wide spectrum of activity which could be considerably extended by the Non-proliferation Treaty. In Vienna we interviewed the Director General of the IAEA about certain aspects of the Agency’s present and future work.     

A FRAMEWORK FOR STATE TRANSITIONS ON THE SELF‐ORGANIZING MAP: SOME TEMPORAL FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS

Self‐organizing maps (SOMs) have commonly been used in temporal applications. This paper enhances the SOM paradigm for temporal data by presenting a framework for computing, summarizing and visualizing transition probabilities on the SOM. The framework includes computing matrices of node‐to‐node and node‐to‐cluster transitions and summarizing maximum state transitions. The computations are linked to the SOM grid using transition‐plane visualizations. We demonstrate the usefulness of the framework on two SOM models for temporal financial analysis: financial performance comparison of banks and monitoring indicators of currency crises. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing constancy of the error covariance matrix in vector models

In this paper a Lagrange multiplier test of the hypothesis that the covariance matrix of a multivariate time series model is constant over time is considered. It is assumed that under the alternative, the error variances are time-varying, whereas the correlations remain constant over time. Under the parameterized alternative hypothesis the variances may change continuously as a function of time or some observable stochastic variables. Small-sample properties of the test statistic are investigated by simulation. The assumption of constant correlations does not appear overly restrictive.     

Developing integration in a local industrial ecosystem – an explorative approach

The objective of this study is to develop and evaluate an approach for initiating development of a local industrial symbiosis network. By maintaining the broad perspective of industrial symbiosis, which includes both material and energy flow analysis, and also taking into account the internal energy use and possibilities for energy savings, we aim to achieve a better system view that avoids both sub‐optimizations and unhealthy dependencies. The approach is applied to a case based on the cooperation between the forest industry, municipality and energy service company in a small town in southern Sweden. Several possibilities for improving material and energy use by increasing integration were identified. It was concluded that it is important to have a genuine knowledge of the system studied and close contact with the actors involved, since a simple analysis of energy and material flows is not sufficient to decide which solutions might be more advantageous. It is also important to have a flexible system boundary looking at the system from different perspectives and at different levels to find the best uses for existing energy and material streams. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Managers, Workers, and Industrial Welfarism: Management Strategies at ER&S and the Sulphide Corporation, 1895—1929

This article is a comparative analysis of the labour management strategies of two base metal refineries: the Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company of Australia (ER&S), Port Kembla, and the Sulphide Corporation, Cockle Creek. During the period 1895—1930 both companies adopted aspects of an industrial welfarist strategy but at different times and in different forms. ER&S developed a broad-ranging industrial welfarism that included workplace and community-based initiatives such as cooperative stores and benefit funds. Long-term financial security, inaccessibility to outside labour, and interest in North American developments propelled ER&S's interest in welfarism. The Sulphide Corporation was less interested in such long-term strategies. The smelter at Cockle Creek was more marginal to the Corporation's business and had less secure markets. The British-owned company was also influenced by a dominant British tradition of management that was less interventionist and less experimental. However, following major economic and political reorganization of the industry brought about by the onset of war in 1914 the Corporation slowly came around to 'on the job' welfarism by 1919. A comparison of these two firms can isolate the specific and general factors that account for this management diversity. Furthermore, it highlights how particular management styles such as industrial welfarism had implications beyond the workplace to the towns and communities where workers lived.     

Product regulations and persistence of profits: OECD evidence

In competitive markets, profits deviating from the norm will not persist for extended periods. If unimpeded, entry and exit of firms should restore profits to competitive levels. This dynamic process is influenced by regulations that temporarily or permanently impede competition. We study how product market regulations (PMR)—as measured by the OECD—affect competition by their impact on the profit persistence (Wölfl et al. in Ten years of product market reform in OECD countries-insights from a revised PMR indicator, 2009, Product market regulation: extending the analysis beyond OECD countries, 2010). To examine profit dynamics, we follow the methodology developed by Mueller (Economica 44(176):369–380, 1977), which measures both the short run persistence of profits and the long run permanent rents. The method can be used to measure: (1) short run transitory rents; (2) long run permanent rents. To this end we use firm level data from 30 OECD countries over the period 1998–2013. Results show that PMR increase the permanent rents of firms but we find no significant effect on short run profit persistence. We conclude that PMR negatively influence competition and increase permanent rents, resulting in misallocation of resources.     

Entrepreneurship and failure: two sides of the same coin?

Small Business Economics - This paper attempts to shed light on the nexus of relationships existing between failure, bankruptcy, institutional context, and local characteristics on one hand and...