Bank competition and financial stability in Asia Pacific

Analysis of the tradeoff between competition and financial stability has been at the center of academic and policy debate for over two decades and especially since the 2007–2008 global financial crises. Here we use information on 14 Asia Pacific economies from 2003 to 2010 to investigate the influence of bank competition, concentration, regulation and national institutions on individual bank fragility as measured by the probability of bankruptcy and the bank’s Z-score. The results suggest that greater concentration fosters financial fragility and that lower pricing power also induces bank risk exposure after controlling for a variety of macroeconomic, bank-specific, regulatory and institutional factors. In terms of regulations and institutions, the results show that tougher entry restrictions may benefit bank stability, whereas stronger deposit insurance schemes are associated with greater bank fragility.     

A machine learning analysis of citation impact among selected Pacific Basin journals

This study uses a machine learning approach to identify and predict factors which influence citation impacts across five Pacific Basin journals: Abacus, Accounting & Finance, Australian Journal of Management, Australian Accounting Review and the Pacific Accounting Review from 2008 to 2018. The machine learning results indicate that citation impact is mostly influenced by: length of a journal article; the field of research (particularly environmental accounting), sample size; whether the sample is local or international; choice of research method (e.g., archival vs survey/interview); academic rank of the first author; institutional status of the first author; and number of authors of the article. The results may be useful for predicting future trends in citation impact as well as providing strategies for authors and editors to improve citation impact.     

Accounting-policy choice and firm characteristics in the Asia Pacific region: An international empirical test of Costly Contracting Theory

This study provides evidence on the cross-sectional relationship between firm-specific variables and management's choice of accounting policies by examining four key accounting-policy disclosures in the 2000/2001 annual reports of 442 listed companies in the Asia Pacific region. The dependent variable is the composite measure for the income increasing (decreasing) accounting-policy choice tendency.The results show that firm-specific variables linked to Costly Contracting Theory partially explain management's choice of accounting policies. Companies that pursue income-increasing accounting techniques are characterized by lower financial leverage, lower level of ownership concentration, and higher investment opportunity sets. This finding holds true when country and industry control variables are not considered. When the control variables are included, the CCT variables are less a factor and instead country of reporting provides the strongest explanation for company managers' choice of accounting policies. Indonesian companies utilize the most income-decreasing accounting technique.     

Drivers of research impact: evidence from the top three finance journals

We study the characteristics of all published papers in the top three finance journals (JF, JFE and RFS), and how these paper characteristics affect the number of citations in Google Scholar and the Web of Science database. First, we find the characteristics in the universalist perspective remain constant while the characteristics in the constructivist and presentation perspectives increase over time. Second, some characteristics are significantly different between the high-impact and the low-impact papers. Third, paper quality, research method, journal placement and paper age are the most important drivers. Last, different drivers play different roles in different journals.     

Sixty years of research leadership: contributing authors and institutions to the journal of finance

While corporate executives freely admit that they work in a jungle, faculty members in institutions of higher learning are supposed to pretend that they work in the relaxed atmosphere of an informal English garden (Alice Vandermeulen, 1975).

The Journal of Finance was the first pure finance journal to emphasize research, and it has been the undisputed “gold standard” in academic finance literature for the past 60 years. This study identifies the contributors to JF over these 60 years—the authors, the institutions employing the authors, and the institutions granting PhDs to the authors. The prolific authors listed in this article make it look easy, like Alice’s relaxed English garden, but the information reported herein suggests otherwise.

Accounting earnings response coefficient: An extension to banking shares in Asia Pacific countries

This paper reports new finding on earnings response coefficients for banking firms on how disclosures on total earnings and disaggregated fee earnings are used by investors to change share prices prior to earnings disclosures. The information relating to total earnings influences share prices significantly in all four banking sectors studied, all of which have sufficiently liberalized capital markets. Australian investors appear to use information on disaggregated non-interest fee income to revise share prices significantly: not so in other markets. The investors in Malaysia and South Korea appear to consider changes in fee income as bad news with negative price impact, anomalous to theory. The Australian investors appear to regard both total and fee incomes as equally important whereas investors in other markets either ignore or consider changes in fee income as bad news for share valuation. This study extends the literature on this topic from non-bank to banking firms.     

经济视角下东北亚货币金融合作分析

区域货币金融合作是区域经济合作的重要内容。本文以中日韩俄四国为例从区域经济开放程度、货币政策和财政政策协调程度、外部危机共御程度三方面对东北亚货币金融合作的经济因素进行分析,指出区域开放程度反映了四国参与区域货币金融合作所能带来的客观优势,货币和财政政策的协调程度反映了四国参与区域货币金融合作需要面对的政策成本,外部危机共御程度反映了四国参与货币金融合作的契机和条件。     

Pacific Basin stock markets and international capital asset pricing

In this paper, we follow Harvey (1991) to investigate whether rates of return on Pacific Basin stock markets can be explained by conditional version of International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM), which allows for time-varying expected returns, variances, and covariances. The results show that most individual Pacific Basin markets can be described by the conditional ICAPM. However, the multiple markets' tests do not support the conditional ICAPM formulation, and the estimates of world reward to risk ratio are not the same across these markets. Furthermore, the Ghysels and Hall test (Ghysels & Hall, 1990a, 1990b) shows that the estimates of parameter are also unstable in the conditional ICAPM formulation. This implies that it is difficult to use world return to describe the relationship between expected return and risk for the Pacific Basin stock markets.     

Profitability of Nonlinear Dynamics Under Technical Trading Rules: Evidence from Pacific Basin Stock Markets

This paper explores a possible link between an asymmetric dynamic process of stock returns and profitable technical trading rules. Using Pacific Basin stock market indexes, we show that the dynamic process of daily index returns is better characterized by nonlinearity arising from an asymmetric reverting property, and that the asymmetric reverting property of stock returns is exploitable in generating profitable buy and sell signals for technical trading rules. We show that the positive (negative) returns from buy (sell) signals are a consequence of trading rules that exploit the asymmetric dynamics of stock returns that revolve around positive (negative) unconditional mean returns under prior positive (negative) return patterns. Our results corroborate the arguments for the usefulness of technical analysis.     

Machine Learning and Expert Judgement: Analyzing Emerging Topics in Accounting and Finance Research in the Asia–Pacific

In this paper, we focus on the question to what extent machine learning (ML) tools can be used to support systematic literature reviews. We apply a ML approach for topic detection to analyze emerging topics in the literature—our context is accounting and finance research in the Asia–Pacific region. To evaluate the robustness of the approach, we compare findings from the automated ML approach with the results from a manual analysis of the literature. The automated approach uses a keyword algorithm detection mechanism whereby the manual analysis uses common techniques for qualitative data analysis, that is, triangulation between researchers (expert judgement). From our paper, we conclude that both methods have strengths and weaknesses. The automated analysis works well for large corpora of text and provides a very standardized and non-biased way of analyzing the literature. However, the human researcher is potentially better equipped to evaluate current issues and future trends in the literature. Overall, the best results might be achieved when a variety of tools are used together.     

Sustainability and the reconstruction of academic finance

It is now widely acknowledged that tackling the ongoing global economic, social and ecological crisis will require to redefine simultaneously the existing criteria for the allocation of capital, the modalities of corporate governance, and the mission of organizations. The present special issue hence attempts to discuss new practices, remove existing epistemological obstacles to a paradigmatic diversification in finance, and carve out innovative paths for financial research.     

Finance editorial board membership and research productivity

The research productivity of board members of the top academic finance journals—Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Financial Management—is investigated. Discipline specific benchmarks for substantial research excellence are determined and an evaluation of influential finance journals is presented. Publication in Journal of Finance is the most notable benchmark for selection to the editorial board of any of the finance journals evaluated. The results imply that publishing one article in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics or Review of Financial Studies in a 5-year period coupled with additional appearances in the broader top tier finance journals would be representative of exceptional research achievement.

地方中小金融机构发展情况研究——以吉林省松原市为例

地方中小金融机构主要以农村信用社和村镇银行的发展为主。截至2011年末,农村信用社在国家政策扶持下,资金实力不断增强,历史包袱得到一定化解,信贷规模大幅上升,有力支持了农村经济发展,发挥了农村金融主力军和联系农民的金融纽带的作用。村镇银行成立以来,存贷款增长较快,各项业务发展迅速,成为农村金融市场有益补充,但这些地方中小金融机构在经营发展过程中,仍存在诸多问题,值得关注。本文旨在通过剖析地方中小金融机构发展中存在的问题,提出促进地方中小金融机构长期发展的合理化建议,为地方中小金融机构的健康发展提供理论支撑。     

A review of research on regulation changes in the Asia‐Pacific region

In this study, we review the financial research on regulation in the Asia‐Pacific region. We do this by analysing six leading regional accounting and finance journals – Abacus, Accounting & Finance, Australian Accounting Review, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal. We identify five main themes of regulation research relating to: (i) banking and financial institutions, (ii) markets and trading, (iii) corporate governance, (iv) disclosure and (v) accounting standard setting. Our paper synthesises the regional literature in these areas and provide some suggestions for future directions.     

吉林省农村金融发展现状研究

本文以2007年中国银监会实施调整后的农村金融政策为界点,阐述2007年以来吉林省农村地区各类涉农金融机构发展现状,分析各类涉农金融机构当前存在的问题,并对存在的问题提出相应的发展对策,以期通过浅显的研究,对吉林省农村金融业的发展提供一些有益参考。     

The concept of the Pacific shift

This article introduces the concept of the Pacific Shift—not merely a transfer of economic wealth from one centre to another, but also the transfer of cultural myth and idea innovation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The article is part of a larger study undertaken at the Hawaii Judiciary to understand how such a shift may affect Hawaii's legal system.     

Fifty years of capital markets research in accounting: Achievements so far and opportunities ahead

This paper reviews the literature on capital markets research in accounting over the last 50 years. Rather than trying to be comprehensive, the review focuses on selected areas, and strives to be forward-looking. The first major takeaway is that the literature has made great progress, especially on the technical side. The second takeaway is that great opportunities remain, especially in using Big Data, looking more closely into the accrual process, and in issues related to standard setting.     

金融支持贫困县县域经济发展情况调研——以广西隆安县为例

如何发展与壮大贫困县的县域经济,是需要我们思考的问题.本文以国家贫困县广西隆安县为例,深刻分析金融支持县域经济发展中存在的问题,从金融机构和经济环境两方面对金融如何支持贫困县县域经济发展作一些探索.     

Positivism in finance and its implication for the diversification finance research: Diversifying finance research: From financialization to sustainability

This paper is a complementary comment to the article recently published in IRFA by Thomas Lagoarde-Segot on the necessity of diversification of modelling in finance. In his claim, the author explained that financial concepts used by the mainstream are not neutral because they refer to a particular ethical judgement mainly focused on the shareholders' interest. In this comment, I explain that this ethical judgement historically results from the role playing by the Gaussian distribution in finance: while this statistical framework gave the first scientific foundations to finance in the 1960s, its symmetrical configuration implies that negative changes occur with the same probability than positive ones. In this context, all potential intervention (regulation) could only interfere (disturb) this “ethically fair situation” within the only perturbing element is the shareholder whose behaviours are likely to influence the market. After having explained that this reasoning is based on an a priori statement about observational facts (in opposition with positivism), I present this situation as an opportunity for current researchers in finance to clarify their implicit assumptions; which would open the door to a diversification of modelling in finance as Lagoarde-Segot promoted it in his IRFA article.