Corporate Internet Disclosure in the Arabian Gulf： An Empirical Examination of Determinants and Attributes

This paper investigates and reports on the extent and nature of corporate internet disclosure and the determinants of internet financial disclosure （IFD） by companies listed in three Gulf Corporation Council （GCC） countries. This paper uses data from 207 listed companies in Muscat Securities Market （MSM）, Dubai Financial Market （DFM）, and Qatar Exchange （QE）. Binary logistic regression analysis is used to examine the determinants of IFD. Kruskal-Wallis test is used to examine the differences in disclosure characteristics among the three countries. The results of this study reveal that firm size is the major factor influencing intemet financial reporting in the GCC. The results reveal that the three countries differ significantly in all the disclosure attributes with the exception of the existence of email link. This paper extends the stream of research that confirms the widespread use of internet in disclosing financial information. The results are consistent with previous literature that corporate size is a major determinant of internet financial reporting. This paper provides insights into corporate internet disclosure in the GCC that will benefit all stakeholders with an interest in corporate reporting in this important region of the world.     

Exploring the Usefulness of Extensible Business Reporting Language （XBRL） for Reporting Intellectual Capital （IC）： Evidence From Italian Preparers

Intellectual capital disclosure （ICD） has experienced a substantial increase in recent decades and many frameworks and guidelines have been issued to provide directions with regard to what constitutes ＂good＂ ICD. Companies can use Extensible Business Reporting Language （XBRL） to ＂build＂ their own intellectual capital （IC） reports. This digital format has both technical and operating characteristics suitable for reporting non-financial information. This paper reports the findings of a survey of the views of 37 Italian preparers on the scope, the taxonomy, and the assurance of IC reporting via XBRL. It was found that respondents favor the adoption of an IC reporting framework and the standardization of IC indicators. Preferences reveal uncertainty about the level of flexibility for tagging IC information, while supporting the main benefits of XBRL and indicating a marked inclination for tagged information certified by an independent audit. Overall, despite a low awareness of XBRL, the importance placed on standardization of IC information and on the usefulness of the comparability and the speed attribute of XBRL supports the appealing features of this language for developing IC reporting.     

The Relationship between the Firm Size and the Quantity of Accountants Employed by the Firm： An Analysis of the 436 Listed Firms in the Chinese Shenzhen Stock Exchange

There are 9.56 million accountants in China, who are working in different size firms and nonprofit organizations. The objective of this article is to examine the quantitative relationship between the firm size and the quantity of accountants working for the firm. In this paper, the employees, sales revenues, and total assets in a firm are employed to measure firm size. The authors collect and analyze the data of 436 listed firms from the Chinese Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The result of this study indicates there is a positive relationship between the firm size and the quantity of accountants employed by the firm. The study also establishes the multiple regression equation, which can be used to predict the quantity of accountants of listed firms. And it provides a way to predict the quantity of accountants of legal organizations.     

Self-Dealing Among Convergence and Path-Dependency Opportunities： An Empirical Analysis of Regulatory From Six European Countries

Self-dealing refers to all kinds of transactions and operations diverting value from a company to corporate controllers. In order to tackle self-dealing, academics and regulators have emphasised the legal tools. However, there is a divergence between those supporting the existence of a benchmark model towards which to converge （convergence hypothesis） and those underscoring the importance of socio-economic factors on the efficacy of governance rules （path-dependency view）. The aim of this paper is to join in the convergence vs. path-dependency debate by focusing on the efficiency of mandatory rules and investigating their effectiveness. Considering the current market integration, the traditional cost-benefit analysis has been extended in order to embrace costs specifically associated to the issue of domestic rules in a global scenario. This analysis supports the convergence view and encourages at least a partial and gradual adjustment of national legislations towards the prevailing Anglo-Saxon model. In order to test this hypothesis, an examination of the self-dealing regulatory （on conflict of interests and self-dealing） adopted in some Western （Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom （UK）） and Eastern （Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland） European countries has been conducted.     

The Biological Parameters： Support for a Successful and Sustainable Business

This study is of conceptual nature and analyzes the annual reports of agriculture ministry. Albania is an economy characterized by a high percentage of agriculture of gross domestic product （GDP） with 25%. Actually, Albania for many decades and varied reasons will remain, to the future, a country where agriculture and especially livestock will play an important role. This paper starts from the actual situation and tries to find solutions to any effective management＇s problems. Treatments in this paper are based on literature reviews and combined with empirical research. Part of this article clarifies the scope of modem agricultural business and the impacts of circumstances of biological parameters on a sustainable livestock.     

Monetary Model of Exchange Rate Determination： Evidence From the Czech Republic,Hungary, and Poland

Using a monetary model of exchange rate determination that suggests a strong link between the nominal exchange rate and a set of monetary fundamentals, exchange rate dynamics for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland is studied. As the cointegration relationship among exchange rate, output, and the monetary fundamentals （money supply and interest rate） is found, vector autoregressions （VAR）/vector error-correction （VEC） and two-stage least squares （2SLS） error-correction models are used in this context, since both approaches allow estimating short-run correlations between exchange rates and fundamentals while taking into account the existent long-run exchange rate constraints. Based on the quarterly data for the period of 1998-2012, it is found that for all countries, an increase in the money supply, domestic output slowdown, or stronger growth abroad are factors behind a nominal exchange rate depreciation, just as predicted by the monetary model of exchange rate. However, the effects of domestic-foreign interest rate differential are quite heterogeneous, being in line with theoretical predictions of a standard monetary model for Poland only. According to the decomposition of variance, money supply and interest rates account for 30%-46% of the exchange rate variation in the Czech Republic, from 10% to 14% in Hungary, and from 23% to 42% in Poland.     

Oil Crisis,Market Reforms,and Human Welfare： An Econometric Analysis of the Australian Economy

As an active trader in international crude oil and petroleum product markets, Australia＇s human welfare is affected by oil crisis and contagion from the perspectives of economic growth, income inequality, and environmental sustainability. This paper investigates the impacts of oil price shocks upon Australia＇s gross domestic product （GDP） growth, Gini coefficients, and carbon dioxide emissions per capita from 1970 to 2012 with yearly frequency. Hypotheses concerning whether Australia＇s economic immunity against oil crisis is affected after the deregulation of oil market and whether endogenous oil price shocks account for more variations in human welfare than exogenous oil price shocks are tested. The methodologies include a theoretic model and a series of econometric tests. For the short-run dynamics, oil price is integrated into the model both linearly and non-linearly. Oil price shocks are categorized into exogenous and endogenous shocks. The conclusions are that inflated oil prices exert mainly non-linear negative impacts upon human welfare indicators and exogenous shocks induce endogenous shocks through labor price, Consumer Price Index （CPI）, interest rate, and exchange rate. For the long-run equilibrium, non-linear shocks＇ effects decay more slowly than linear shocks and the impacts of endogenous shocks last longer than that of exogenous shocks. Finally, oil market policies are evaluated and proposed.     

流动性过剩对房价波动的动态影响

国内关于房地产价格走势的研究很多,胡胜、刘旦运用向量自回归方法,就宏观经济对房地产价格的影响进行实证分析。研究结果表明：房价上升的主要原因是前期价格的变动．物价和货币供应量对房价的影响较小。     

Usefulness and Effectiveness of Related Party Transactions （RPTs） Disclosure： Empirical Evidence From Italy

Related party transactions （RPTs） can be used by corporate insiders （e.g., managers, controlling shareholders） to expropriate corporate outsiders （e.g., minority shareholders）. We argue that effective disclosure of RPTs can eliminate or at least reduce expropriation phenomena by letting corporate outsiders assess the fairness of the transactions and identify the underlying conflicts of interest. We consider a sample of large RPTs carried out by listed corporations in Italy, a country that has been affected by significant corporate scandals in recent years. In particular, we analyse the content of several compulsory informative documents, required by CONSOB （the Italian Securities and Exchange Commission）, concerning large RPTs. The focus of our content analysis is on the ＂warnings＂ sections of these documents that should convey clear and comprehensive information on potential risks and conflicts of interest. Our empirical results show that, while the ＂warnings＂ sections of the studied documents generally contain all the information required by existing rules, the depth of the information provided is often unlikely to be sufficient to communicate the implications of the RPTs. Thus, readers may not find the disclosed information adequate to evaluate the fairness of the transactions. Moreover, visual representations are rarely used in the informative documents. The use of such representations could allow companies to convey the structures and features of complex RPTs in a simpler and more direct way.     

江西省经济增长需求影响因素分析

国内生产总值(GDP)对制定正确的地区经济协调发展政策具有重要的意义[1]。王艳明、吴谐民、张兴等从需求角度对中国和地方经济增长的影响因素进行了定量分析。由于国家内部各个地区之间经济发展水平存在重大差异,为了便于各省制定符合各自实际情况的经济政策,对影响各省经济增长的投资、消费、对外贸易因素进行专门研究具有重要的现实意义。在对江西省经济增长研究方面,陈盼以1981—2006年间江西省经济增长与财政教育支出增长的时间序列为基础,运用单位根检验等统计方法和量自回归(VAR)模型对实数据进行定量研究[5];卢福财等[6]对江西产业结构升级和经济增长的内在关系进行实证分析。本文将利用向量自回归模型,选择江西省宏观经济中的主要指标,即地区支出法生产总值、最终消费、资本形成、进口、出口和政府支出组成向量自回归系统,对江西省经济发展的波动情况进行研究。