Effects of demographic factors on bank customers’ attitudes and intention toward Internet banking adoption in a major developing African country

This study provides an African perspective to the global research and literature on retail customer adoption of Internet banking (IB). It empirically examines the influence of seven demographic variables – age, gender, level of education, marital status, employment status, income level and area of residence – on retail banking customers’ behaviours toward IB adoption in a major developing African country – Nigeria. A sample of 500 customers was surveyed, and ANOVA and multiple regression analyses were used in testing the association of the variables with customer attitude and intention toward IB adoption. Although all seven variables were correlated with attitude and intention, only gender, level of education, and employment status showed significant ability to influence Nigerian customers’ attitude and intention toward IB adoption. The study therefore concludes that gender, level of education, and employment status are the major demographic affecters of Nigerian banking customers’ attitudes to IB adoption.     

Effects of demographic factors on bank customers’ attitudes and intention toward Internet banking adoption in a major developing African country

This study provides an African perspective to the global research and literature on retail customer adoption of Internet banking (IB). It empirically examines the influence of seven demographic variables – age, gender, level of education, marital status, employment status, income level and area of residence – on retail banking customers’ behaviours toward IB adoption in a major developing African country – Nigeria. A sample of 500 customers was surveyed, and ANOVA and multiple regression analyses were used in testing the association of the variables with customer attitude and intention toward IB adoption. Although all seven variables were correlated with attitude and intention, only gender, level of education, and employment status showed significant ability to influence Nigerian customers’ attitude and intention toward IB adoption. The study therefore concludes that gender, level of education, and employment status are the major demographic affecters of Nigerian banking customers’ attitudes to IB adoption.     

Why do closed-end country funds trade at enormous premiums during currency crises?

We investigate the response of US traded country fund premiums to currency crises in related foreign (local) markets. Our analysis includes 25 currency crises over the past decade involving 18 funds investing in 12 emerging markets, and 7 funds investing in 6 developed markets. We find that fund premiums and the volatility of the premiums increase dramatically in response to a currency crisis, both for emerging and developed markets funds, and that these effects dissipate slowly over time. Our results show that country fund shares and net asset values (NAVs) have differential risk exposures and that these differences are exacerbated during a crisis. While the NAV returns show sensitivity to changes in the local market index, share returns are sensitive to changes in both local and world market indices. Therefore, in response to a currency crisis, when local stock markets decrease in value, fund NAVs react more strongly than their share prices which have a strong global component. We also show that the high premiums observed during currency crises are not due to the reluctance of investors to trade and realize losses.     

Can exchange traded funds be used to exploit industry and country momentum?

There is overwhelming empirical evidence on the existence of country and industry momentum effects. This line of research suggests that investors who buy country and industry portfolios with relatively high past returns and sell countries and industries with relatively low past returns will earn positive risk-adjusted returns. These studies focus on country and industry indexes that cannot be traded directly by investors. This raises the question of whether country and industry momentum effects really can be exploited by investors or whether they are illusionary in nature because they exist only on non-tradable assets. We analyze the profitability of country and industry momentum strategies using actual price data on exchange traded funds (ETFs). We find that over the sample periods during which these ETFs were traded, an investor would have been able to exploit country and industry momentum strategies with an excess return of about 5 % per annum. These returns cannot be explained by unconditional exposures to the Fama–French factors. The daily average bid-ask spreads on ETFs are substantially below the implied break-even transaction cost levels. Hence, we conclude that investors who are not willing or able to trade individual stocks may use ETFs to benefit from momentum effects in country and industry portfolios.     

Do multinational banks create or destroy shareholder value? A cross‐country analysis

We question whether the international diversification of multinational banks creates or destroys shareholder value. Based on a sample of 384 listed banks from 56 countries we provide new and robust evidence that bank cross‐border activities create shareholder value, as shown by an economically and statistically significant premium for international diversification. Our results are confirmed controlling for bank fixed effects, time‐varying bank characteristics, reverse causality, functional diversification, and instrumenting for the choice to expand abroad. The increase in shareholder value is slightly larger for banks in the middle range of international diversification and in the case of expansion towards less developed countries.     

Empirical evidence on the impact of external monitoring on book–tax differences

This study investigates whether institutional ownership levels are associated with levels of and time-series variability in book–tax differences (BTDs). Firm and year fixed-effects regression results suggest that institutional ownership is negatively associated with total, permanent, and temporary BTDs. This effect is driven primarily by permanent BTDs in the pre-SOX era but is consistently present for both permanent and temporary BTDs post-SOX. Further, this negative association is present regardless of firms' classification as “tax planners” and/or “earnings managers.” Finally, the results provide some evidence that stronger monitoring by the board and audit committee (i.e., a smaller and more independent board and a larger audit committee) is associated with lower permanent BTDs but is not consistently related with total or temporary BTDs. Overall, these findings are consistent with higher levels of institutional ownership equating to more effective monitoring of management, resulting in lower BTDs (in terms of both levels and time-series variability).     

Intime Goes Public on Hong Kong

Intime Department Store （Group） listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange since Mar. 20th. Intime offered 450 million shares at the price of HK$ 5.39, and raised HK$ 2.43 billion or $310 million. According to Intime＇s saying, 40% of funding will be used to expand its operation and stores.     

Thoughts on the Teaching Quality Assessment Based on Expected Learning Achievement and Its Track Exploration

在高等院校不断扩大招生规模的背景之下,高等职业院校的教学质量问题日趋突显,并将直接对高等职业教育的发展产生影响。尤其是在严峻的大学生就业形势之下,高等职业院校如何能够培养出受社会、行业、企业欢迎的劳动者,这是非常值得研究的问题。因此,为了准确地评估教学质量,有效地进行教学改革,就必须要思考新的教学质量评估理念并探索行之有效的教学质量评估路径。本文从预期学习成果的视角对教学质量评估的理念与路径进行了探讨,以期对教学质量的提高有所帮助。     

Mundell's Opinion on China's Exchange Rate

The Nobel laureate for economics Robert Mundell addressed his opinion on China’s exchange rate system and foreign trade on Feb.13, 2006. He thought that a big change of China’s exchange rate will result in some bad effects and even cause a financial cri…     

PBOC to Relax Rules on Foreigners

China will press ahead with its opening-up and relax restrictions on foreign investors in the financial services sector,the People's Bank of China said on October 30.. It“will,in a modest manner,allow foreign investors     

Potental Pressure on China WVAS Sector

It is reported that the China Mobile will release new regulations, which will be the potential for more regulatory pressure on China WVAS Sector.     

PBOC to Relax Rules on Foreigners

China will press ahead with its opening-up and relax restrictions on foreign investors in the financialservices sector, the People＇s Bank of China said on October 30..     

Do mortgage rates vary based on household default characteristics? Evidence on rate sorting and credit rationing

Credit screening models suggest that lenders vary loan rates and debt ceilings across applicants on the basis of credit risk. We argue that regulatory constraints such as Fair Lending Laws may preclude rate sorting while increasing lender use of debt ceilings to adjust for applicant credit risk. Using household data from the 1983 SCF, we find that mortgage rates do not vary with applicant credit risk whereas related studies find that debt ceilings vary with borrower risk attributes. Together, these findings support arguments that regulatory constraints reduce rate sorting while increasing the use of non-price terms in the mortgage contract.     

Reducing added tax on some resource products

The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation gave a notice to specify the added tax policies for the comprehensive utilization of some resources and other products, which would be implemented from January 1, 2004.     

Lehman Brothers Closes on $3.3B

News on 14th June, Lehman Brothers raised its new global buyouts fund, Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Partners IV （Fund IV） at $3.3 billion, which focuses on small-and meddle-sized companyinvestment opportunities in Europe, America, and Asia.     

WTO members resume negotiations on Doha Round

World Trade Organization(WTO)members resumed intensive negotiations recently on the long-stalled Doha Round of global trade talks,trying to narrow their differences in the next few weeks.The negotiations will be focused on agriculture     

Consumers’ avoidance of information on red meat risks: information exposure effects on attitudes and perceived knowledge

In accordance with cognitive dissonance theory, individuals generally avoid information that is not consistent with their cognitions, to avoid psychological discomfort associated with tensions arising from contradictory beliefs. Information avoidance may thus make risk communication less successful. To address this, we presented information on red meat risks to red meat consumers. To explore information exposure effects, attitudes toward red meat and perceived knowledge of red meat risks were measured before, immediately after, and two weeks after exposure. We expected information avoidance of red meat risks to be: positively related to (1) study discontentment; and (2) positive attitudes toward red meat; and negatively related to (3) information seeking on red meat risks; and (4) systematic and heuristic processing of information. In addition, following exposure to the risk information, we expected that (5) individuals who scored high in avoidance of red meat risks information to change their attitudes and perceived risk knowledge less than individuals who scored low in avoidance. Results were in line with the first three expectations. Support for the fourth was partial insofar as this was only confirmed regarding systematic processing. The final prediction was not confirmed; individuals who scored high in avoidance decreased the positivity of their attitudes and increased their perceived knowledge in a similar fashion to those who scored low in avoidance. These changes stood over the two-week follow-up period. Results are discussed in accordance with cognitive dissonance theory, with the possible use of suppression strategies, and with the corresponding implications for risk communication practice.     

Q method can identify diverse perspectives on ‘helpful’ information on cancer clusters and inform risk communication generally

Communication by state public health agencies about cancer clusters is complicated by divergent official and citizen beliefs about causation (e.g. chance versus environmental pollution). We use Q method, rarely applied in the risk field, to explore disparate perspectives on what people deem helpful and unhelpful in background (not site-specific) information about cancer clusters. Q method identified five unique perspectives, with low inter-factor correlations: Cancer Causation, Best Information, Cancer Frequency, Study Success, and Empathy/Competence. Besides discussing implications of these perspectives for improving communication about cancer clusters, we use this case to illustrate Q method’s more general ability to represent variability in attitudes about risk and risk information and to improve risk communication.     

Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud?

To identify the most effective mechanisms for detecting corporate fraud, we study all reported fraud cases in large U.S. companies between 1996 and 2004. We find that fraud detection does not rely on standard corporate governance actors (investors, SEC, and auditors), but rather takes a village, including several nontraditional players (employees, media, and industry regulators). Differences in access to information, as well as monetary and reputational incentives, help to explain this pattern. In‐depth analyses suggest that reputational incentives in general are weak, except for journalists in large cases. By contrast, monetary incentives help explain employee whistleblowing.     

Variance swaps on time-changed Lévy processes

We prove that a multiple of a log contract prices a variance swap, under arbitrary exponential Lévy dynamics, stochastically time-changed by an arbitrary continuous clock having arbitrary correlation with the driving Lévy process, subject to integrability conditions. We solve for the multiplier, which depends only on the Lévy process, not on the clock. In the case of an arbitrary continuous underlying returns process, the multiplier is 2, which recovers the standard no-jump variance swap pricing formula. In the presence of negatively skewed jump risk, however, we prove that the multiplier exceeds 2, which agrees with calibrations of time-changed Lévy processes to equity options data. Moreover, we show that discrete sampling increases variance swap values, under an independence condition; so if the commonly quoted multiple 2 undervalues the continuously sampled variance, then it undervalues even more the discretely sampled variance. Our valuations admit enforcement, in some cases, by hedging strategies which perfectly replicate variance swaps by holding log contracts and trading the underlying.