Passive Investment Strategies and Efficient Markets

This paper presents the case for and the evidence in favour of passive investment strategies and examines the major criticisms of the technique. I conclude that the evidence strongly supports passive investment management in all markets—small–capitalisation stocks as well as large–capitalisation equities, US markets as well as international markets, and bonds as well as stocks. Recent attacks on the efficient market hypothesis do not weaken the case for indexing.     

创建"服务型机关"——高校机关作风建设的问题和对策

创建"服务型机关"主要是以邓小平理论和"三个代表"重要思想为指导,树立和落实科学发展观.以转变观念为前提,增强服务意识;以提高素质为基础,提高服务能力;以提高效率为主线,提高服务质量;以争创先进为动力,创新服务载体;以建章立制为保证,强化服务效果,将高校机关建设成为基层服务、为教学科研服务、为师生员工服务的"服务型机关".     

Educational Insights: A Hybrid Course in Risk Management and Insurance

Universities and colleges continue to face constraints related to classroom space and faculty time, thus increasing the need to consider options such as hybrid courses that can leverage available resources. This article discusses the benefits of a hybrid course, as well as its design and implementation at a large, public university. In addition, for universities that use the introduction to risk and insurance course as a significant course for attracting majors, we identify the benefits for students from the use of hybrid courses, such as the variety of materials and activities utilized, as well as the flexibility in scheduling. This information may be useful in marketing the course so that it will be immediately attractive to students.     

信息化在改变商业银行

无论是来自建设银行提高市场竞争能力和经营管理水平以及重组改制的要求等内在动力,还是来自外部监管机构的要求,都将从不同的业务和管理的角度以及数据要求考验我们信息技术的应用开发能力、应用架构的完整性灵活性以及技术和数据管治能力。面向管理信息化迫切要求,我们以往的经验和成绩并不都能带来更多裨益,因为新的业务模式恰恰是要改变我们已经习惯的管理理念和操作方式。在系统建设的内容与需求、技术的设计方法、项目开发以及管理方式都与以往不同,可以说信息技术自身也处于不断探索和改革之中。     

《创业投资企业管理暂行办法》解读

本文在对“创业投资”进行准确法律界定的基础上，阐述了《创业投资企业管理暂行办法》扶持创业投资发展并引导其投资方向的立法宗旨以及政策扶持的主要方式，并就该办法为何仅调整创业投资基金以及所提供的特别法律保护、所确定的政府监管方式和研究制定有关配套规章与政策，进行了论证和解读。     

GARCH-stable as a model of futures price movements

A GARCH-stable process is tested as a model of the distribution of daily futures prices. The GARCH-stable process cannot be rejected as a model of 12 of the 37 price series considered. The evidence regarding stable distributions as a model of futures prices is not as unfavorable as suggested by some past research. The remaining rejections of the GARCH-stable model could be due to the inappropriateness of the stable distribution assumption or to other factors such as ignoring day-of-the-week effects and price limits.     

Risk at a turning point?

There is increasing recognition in comparative risk assessment of the intrinsic subjectivity of fundamental framing assumptions and the consequent necessity for active participation in analysis by all interested and affected parties. Despite this, there remains considerable inertia in the implementation of these insights in formal policy making and regulatory procedures on risk. Here, the issue seems as often to be seen as a need for better 'communication' and 'management' as for better analysis, with attention devoted as much to the classification of divergent public perspectives as to techniques for direct stakeholder participation. Pointing to the fundamental methodological problems posed in risk assessment by the conditions of ignorance and Arrow's impossibility, the present paper contends that public participation is as much a matter of analytical rigour as it is of political legitimacy. It is argued that straightforward techniques such as multi-criteria and sensitivity analysis, along with a formal approach to diversification across portfolios of 'less risky' options, may go some way toward addressing these apparently intractable problems.     

The Landscape of Economic Growth: Do Middle-Income Countries Differ?

We review the growth experience of middle-income countries. Economic factors associated with growth appear to differ between middle-income and other countries. The efficiency of the financial system is importantly related to the growth rate in low- and middle-income countries, but appears to matter less as one moves up the income scale. Demographic variables also matter importantly in low-income countries. In middle-income countries, in contrast, measures of the financial system no longer appear to matter as importantly, as if inefficiencies in banking and financial systems are no longer as binding a constraint as at earlier stages of financial development; nor are demographic variables as important as before. At this point, other variables gain a growing role: these include whether the country experiences a banking or currency crisis, the extent of non-foreign direct investment capital inflows, and government debt as a share of gross domestic product.     

Personality types of accounting students and faculty: Comparisons and implications

This exploratory study presents and discusses differences found in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) types (personality preferences) of undergraduate and graduate accounting students, as well as accounting faculty members as they apply to two concerns. The first is the ability of today's accounting education programs to attract the types of students demanded by the profession. The second is the propensity of accounting faculty to expand traditional teaching modalities beyond those aimed at disseminating technical accounting knowledge. The results (using chi square tests) indicate significant differences in certain MBTI types among the groups, which have implications for accounting programs as they attempt to implement fundamental changes advocated by the profession and the Accounting Education Change Commission. The implications are discussed as they relate to accounting students who are predominantly extraverts, sensors, thinkers, and judgers, as well as to attracting and retaining a more diverse group of students. The implications of expected changes in teaching modalities are also discussed as they relate to accounting faculty who are predominantly introverts, sensors, thinkers, and judgers.     

Digital finance in Europe: Competitive dynamics and online behaviour

The internet has emerged as a widely recognised distribution channel for the banking industry in Europe. Traditional banks, as well as new players, have discovered its effectiveness compared with other channels. The aim of this paper is to draw a picture of online banking in Europe, by observing behavioural patterns of internet users accessing bank websites and managing their finances online. Similarities across countries as well as main differences emerge in market structure and competitive dynamics. In-depth analysis of Spain and Italy is provided.     

中国财产保险需求的影响因素研究——基于险种结构的动态分析

将影响财产保险需求的因素分为宏观性间接因素和结构性直接因素两大类,进而选择新增汽车拥有量、固定资产投资、民事案件受理数量和出口贸易总值等四个具有代表性的结构性直接变量,利用1980年～2009年我国的时间序列数据,运用脉冲响应和方差分解的方法考察了各因素对产险需求影响的动态特征,以及这些影响因素的相对重要性。实证结果较好地解释了产险内部各子险种需求的动因,以及产险内部险种结构严重失衡的内因。     

审计师对信息风险区别对待了吗?——基于“调增式变脸”与审计意见关系的证据

借鉴Francis等(2005)将信息风险区分为基本面、信号传递、机会主义行为与纯噪音四方面风险的思路,本文研究审计师是否对信息风险的不同构成进行了区别对待。结合相关理论,本文选择了管理层预测报喜的公司为样本,以报喜"无变脸"代表信号传递风险或无风险,以"调增式变脸"代表基本面与机会主义披露策略的混合风险,实证发现"调增式变脸"更容易得到非标意见。进一步地选择"调增式变脸"的公司为分样本,以"扭亏型变脸"代表基本面风险,以"其他调增式变脸"代表机会主义披露策略风险,实证发现"扭亏型变脸"更容易得到非标意见。研究结果表明,审计师对信息风险的不同构成进行了区别对待,且最关注基本面风险。     

The future of science studies

Science studies suffers from a sense of secondariness. It can abandon this inferiority if it relocates itself in terms of a politics of knowledge. Science studies should stop viewing itself as a quilt patch of subjects and reading itself as a creative mediation between knowledge and power. This is illustrated in terms of the emergence of Science Studies in India. Official India emphasized science policy as an extension of the Nation-State. Science studies arose as a response to science policy questioning the social contract between Science and State in India. Science studies emerged as a part of civil society after the Emergency of 1975 and among social movements rather than as a professionalized academic subject. In attempting to create an identity, science studies moved across four axis of possibility: the science of science, interdisciplinary science, transscience and alternative science. The second part of the paper links science studies to the democratic imagination. It argues that the citizen must be seen as a scientist, a person of knowledge not merely as a consumer and voter. The citizen thus becomes a trustee of local, defeated and marginal forms of knowledge. Its real role is in enhancing the democratic imagination, providing methodologies of conflict resolution and plural frameworks of knowledge for cognitive justice, thus emerging as a site for dissenting imaginations against the emerging global regime.     

企业应担负起社会责任

如今,企业是否应该承担社会责任的问题得到广泛关注,人们对这个问题的想法各有不同。有些人认为企业只需要做到利润最大化,而作者不同意追求利润最大化是企业的唯一目标。企业的社会责任就是对客户,供应商,雇员,股东,以及环境负责。企业应遵守法律,并自觉的采取进一步措施,来提高人们的生活质量。     

论民间融资法律规制理念的反思与重构

基于理念对民间融资法律制度设计与实践的指导意义,本文以金融安全、金融效率、金融自由、社会公平为衡量基准,反思我国现有民间融资法律规制的理念,最终提出我国民间融资法律规制理念应当以赋予融资自由为先导、以权利公平配置为根本、以提升金融效率为核心、以维护金融安全为后盾,从而有效指导民间融资法律规制的制度创新与实践。     

Creditors' Committees: An Anglo‐German Comparative Study

This article deals with the creditor's committee as a tool to increase the participation of creditors and thereby the transparency and acceptance of the office holder's decisions. For this purpose, the laws of England and Germany, as major and significant jurisdictions, will be analysed to compare the different approaches and results, particularly as regards the establishment, composition, tasks and procedure of the committee as well as the liability and the remuneration of the committee's members. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Valuing the project: a knowledge-action response to network governance in collaborative research

The delegation of research to self-directed networks is a relatively new strategy to focus academic endeavour on public priorities. Networks involve policy-makers, knowledge producers and knowledge users in unfamiliar governance and management relationships. Here we reflect, as practitioners, on research networks as complex governance systems and on their projects as knowledge-action systems designed to deliver public value. Projects represent the currency in which delegated research is issued, but their conversion into monetary grants and awards diverts attention from their potential as boundary organizations or communities of practice in the production of societal knowledge and understanding. Recognizing and supporting projects as scalable components of enduring knowledge-action systems, rather than as transient instances of research funding, is key to sustaining delivery of public value under conditions of network governance.     

The chronospace: A proposed methodology for futures studies

In a recent article in Futures, ¹ eclectics was presented as the first part of a methodology of futures studies. In this second article, time is introduced as a variable and expressed in a diagram entitled the chronospace. Time is treated both as a subjective perception and as a vehicle for causality. The passage of time is perceived as a “scenario”, the content of which must vary with the scenario writer and the medium used. The perceived symmetry between historical and futures studies leads the author to propose the construction of a new science of time—chronosophy —to use with eclectics as an operational methodology for futures studies.     

CEO political preference and credit ratings

This study investigates whether a CEO's personal political ideology, as captured by his or her political contributions, is associated with a firm's credit ratings. Republican CEOs, we find, are associated with higher credit ratings, especially when their firms are headquartered in conservative areas. In addition, the link between political ideology and credit rating is more pronounced in firms that exhibit high financial distress or weak corporate governance. Changes in political ideology are associated with changes in credit rating. Our results support the behavior consistency, upper echelon, and social identity theories, as well as the risk acceptance hypothesis, and are robust to a number of alternative specifications as well as when alternate approaches and measures of credit risk are introduced. Using Republican CEOs as a proxy for conservative CEOs, our evidence implies that credit rating agencies justifiably view a CEO's political ideology and conservatism as indicative of corporate policies and, therefore, as an important determinant of the firm's credit ratings.     

Paths of learning, grieving and transforming

This paper looks at the internal paths people walk as they are engaged in learning about future generations. The deep personal relevance and immediacy of the topic engage students as whole persons in learning processes that transform their perspective on the world and on themselves. Facilitating students as they go through this transformative learning cycle is the task of the teacher. Furthermore, although not widely recognized as such, grief is a part of any learning process as people let go of one thought, perspective or behavior, and try on a different one. When the topic is emotionally loaded with such profound implications as that of the future of our planet, grief becomes even more intense for the learner. Thus educators benefit from an understanding of both learning and grieving processes as they teach courses about future generations. By acknowledging the mourning associated with transforming the learners' world view, educators may assist students to move beyond immobilizing blocks and despair to creative action. This paper explores the normal experiential learning cycle and natural grief processes as they are played out within students while learning about global futures.