The Predictive Value of Earnings, Cash flows and Accruals in the Period Surrounding the Asian Financial Crisis: Evidence from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand

This paper examines the predictive value of earnings, operating cash flows and accruals in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand for the period 1994–2001. We also examine the impact of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 on the predictive power of the accounting performance measures. We regress future cash flows and future excess returns on earnings (or cash flows and accruals) for the periods 1994–1996 (pre‐crisis period), 1997–1998 (crisis period) and 1999–2001 (post‐crisis period). Our findings indicate that the accounting measures have explanatory power for 1‐year ahead cash flows. Our analyses of 1‐year ahead excess returns indicate that investors may have undervalued the accounting measures in the pre‐ and post‐crisis periods, and overvalued the measures during the crisis period.     

Loan Loss Provisions by Banks in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore

This paper studies loan loss disclosures by banks in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore for the period 1993 through 2000. We find that unexpected loan loss provisions are positively related to bank stock returns and future cash flows. This indicates that Asian bank managers increase loan loss provisions to signal favorable cash flow prospects, and bank investors bid bank stock prices up when unexpected provisions are positive. These results are consistent with those obtained by Wahlen (1994) for US banks. We also examine the impact of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 on the loan loss variables. The results indicate that the association between the unexpected loan loss provisions and bank stock returns and future cash flows was significantly lower in the crisis years, relative to the non‐crisis period. Evidently, discretionary loan loss provisions had no signaling value during the crisis. This suggests that macroeconomic uncertainty influenced the strategic behavior of Asian bank managers and investors.     

On the Performance of Naïve, Analyst and Composite Earnings Forecasts: Evidence from Hong Kong

In this paper, we compare the information content and performance of naïve, analyst and composite forecasts in Hong Kong. Empirical evidence shows that superior performance can be obtained by a composite measure combining both analyst and naïve forecasts. In addition, analyst forecasts become more conditionally efficient over the naïve model as the actual announcement approaches. The superiority and timing advantage of analyst forecasts suggest that more emphasis should be placed on the services of analysts for predicting future earnings figures, particularly when the announcement is approaching.     

Insider Trading, Earnings Management and Corporate Governance: Empirical Evidence Based on Hong Kong Firms

We document positive association between earnings management and insider selling after the fiscal year‐end for Hong Kong firms. This positive association is especially evident before the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Our findings suggest that Hong Kong executives manage reported earnings to maximize their private benefits from insider selling. Additionally, we find that a higher proportion of independent directors (INED) on corporate boards moderate the positive association between insider selling and earnings management. Stricter monitoring of earnings management by INED is especially evident when no member of the family with majority ownership is present on corporate boards as a director. This suggests that the presence of family members with majority ownership on corporate boards significantly reduces INED's monitoring effectiveness. Our findings suggest that strict regulations are needed to control insider trading, and independence of corporate boards is important for monitoring of earnings management associated with insider trading. Furthermore, appointment of family members with majority shareholdings should be avoided to enhance independence and to monitor effectiveness of corporate boards.     

The Coupling of Ownership and Control and the Allocation of Financial Resources: Evidence from Hong Kong

Theoretical and empirical research regarding the impact of corporate ownership on the behaviour and performance of firms have typically focused on consequences stemming from the separation of ownership and control. While large scale business enterprise characterized by such a separation is dominant in the US, Japan and the UK, firms in which ownership and control is coupled in the hands of individuals and their families are apparent in many other large developed economies and are dominant in most emerging markets. This paper examines consequences regarding the generation and allocation of financial resources stemming from the coupling of ownership and control among Hong Kong based firms. In doing so, we join insights from the economics literature regarding the incentive and risk bearing consequences of coupled ownership and control with the extant management, sociology and history literatures regarding Chinese family business groups and develop and six hypotheses pertaining to patterns in the allocation of financial resources. Results indicate that coupled ownership and control is positively related with dividend payout levels and financial liquidity while it is negatively related to investments in capital expenditures. Consistent with these results, we also find that coupled ownership and control is positively related to short-term (accounting) profitability.     

The Impact of the Big 8 Mergers on Market Power: Evidence from the Hong Kong Market

This study examines the impact of the Big 8 mergers on market power in an audit market where the merging firms have little presence. Audit fee changes for each merger participating firm are identified and fee changes for several post‐merger years are examined. The pre‐merger differential market power between the merging and non‐merging long‐established Big 8 firms (Price Waterhouse and KPMG Peat Marwick) in Hong Kong provides a unique opportunity to examine whether the mergers could help the merging firms to increase their market power. The results are consistent with the hypotheses that the audit fees of the merging firms were significantly lower than that of the non‐merging, long‐established Big 8 firms before the mergers, but the audit fees of the merged firms increased significantly to a level comparable with that of the latter group after the mergers. In addition, the market share of the merged firms increased significantly after the mergers. However, no association is found between market concentration and market power. Overall, the results show that the Big 8 mergers have helped the merged firms increase their market power and market share in the Hong Kong audit market where they had little presence.     

The Impact of Accounting Conservatism on the Compensation Relevance of UK Earnings

Abstract

It has long been established that because of accounting conservatism, the contemporaneous correlation between returns and earnings is lower (higher) for good (bad) news firm-years. Meanwhile, prior analytical agency work suggests that the compensation role of accounting earnings is potentially greater (for tasks such as noise filtering and incentive balancing) when the contemporaneous correlation between earnings and returns is lower. Hence, since accounting conservatism implies that earnings have a lower correlation with returns in good news firm-years, the present paper hypothesises that UK CEO cash compensation exhibits a stronger (weaker) sensitivity to accounting earnings in good (bad) news firm-years. The empirical findings offer substantial support for this hypothesis and are robust to alternative estimation methodologies. In addition, the results appear not to be attributable to the well-established impact of earnings persistence on the compensation–earnings association. Overall, the findings are consistent with the notion that UK compensation committees appear to take cognisance of the impact of accounting conservatism when awarding earnings-based compensation. In addition, the present work offers additional insights into the nature of the interaction between the contracting and valuation roles of accounting numbers.     

The Basu Measure as an Indicator of Conditional Conservatism: Evidence from UK Earnings Components

Following the work of Basu in 1997, the excess of the sensitivity of accounting earnings to negative share return over its sensitivity to positive share return (the Basu coefficient) has been interpreted as an indicator of conditional accounting conservatism. Although this interpretation is supported by substantial evidence that the Basu coefficient is associated with likely demands for conservatism, concerns have arisen that it may reflect factors not directly related to conservatism, and that this may adversely affect its validity as an indicator of that phenomenon. We argue that evidence on the validity of the Basu coefficient as an indicator of conditional conservatism can be obtained by disaggregating earnings into components, classifying those components by whether or not they are likely to be affected by conditional conservatism, and examining whether the Basu coefficient arises primarily from components likely to be affected by conditional conservatism. We implement this procedure for UK firms reporting under FRS 3: Reporting Financial Performance from 1992 to 2004. Although a substantial proportion of the Basu coefficient emanates from cash flow from operating and investing activities (CFOI), which cannot directly reflect accounting conservatism, its incidence across other components of earnings is predominantly within those components likely to be affected by conditional conservatism. Also, although the bias documented by Patatoukas and Thomas in 2009 is present in all of our aggregate earnings measures, it is heavily concentrated in the CFOI component of earnings and largely absent from components classified as likely to be affected by conditional conservatism. With the important caveat that researchers should test the robustness of their results to the exclusion of the element of the Basu coefficient due to cash flows, our findings are consistent with the conditional conservatism interpretation of the coefficient.     

On the Competitive Land Market: Evidence from Hong Kong

This paper examines both theory and empirical evidence on the relationship between market concentration and profitability in Hong Kong's land market. Such a relationship has been the subject of substantial debate among academics and practitioners. The study highlights several distinctive characteristics of property development in Hong Kong, and particularly various competitive strategies. In Hong Kong, land can be acquired through public auction, redevelopment and lease modifications. Thus, those developers without a sufficient land bank tend to be very aggressive in land auction. However, in the land auction market, competition is keen and the land acquired expensive. This study found that the leading property developers do not take the largest share in the land auction market. We argue that the developers tend to locate themselves in a suitable market position or strategic domain, within which they sustain competitiveness by increasing their market share. We also found that the property developers undertaking a relatively high proportion of large-scale projects tend to have a higher proportion of profits from such projects.     

合并财务报表、母公司个别财务报表与会计稳健性——来自沪深A股的经验证据

在回顾相关研究文献的基础上,分析了合并财务报表与个别财务报表对会计稳健性的影响,并采用Basu逆回归模型及其扩展的Basu模型,构建Vuong统计量和Basu值,以2005年-2008年的上市公司为研究样本进行实证分析,由此得出结论:合并财务报表的信息比母公司的个别财务报表的信息具有更差的稳健性,而基于主体理论编制的合并财务报表比基于母公司理论编制的合并财务报表具有更稳健的会计信息。     

金融危机对HR的影响及应对措施

本轮国际金融危机已经严重影响到全球经济的健康发展。企业要抓住机遇做好人力资源（HR）管理现代化工作，调整人力资源战略规划，加大人才的招聘和储备，进一步做好人才结构优化等工作。     

POLICIES AND PERFORMANCES: The Real Estate Markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, and West Coast Cities

The flow of international funds in real estate investment between Asian and North American cities in the Pacific Rim is now a major financial force to be recognized. This paper reviews the differences in the characteristics and performances of the real estate markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, and several west coast cities. The residential and office price movements among selected Pacific Rim cities over the last 20 years are compared. The paper attributes the differences in the performances to the differences in economic and planning policies in these cities, the differing strategies adopted by the market players, the differences in East and West cultural values, and the differing opportunities and risks created by the various "rules of the game" in each city. If Asian countries continue to enjoy robust economic growth, and the differences in regional real estate markets persist, the flow of international funds within the region and across the Pacific will continue to dominate the 1990's.     

金融危机对中国城市经济的影响及其应对

文章全面分析了金融危机对我国城市经济的影响,指出中国城市经济发展已经进入到一个重要的转型时期.面对金融危机的挑战,必须把短期启动和可持续发展统一起来,从需求和供给两方面入手,着力解决制约城市经济发展的一些深层次问题.加快推动城市经济转型升级.     

Financial Constraints on German Firms after the Crisis: Evidence from Threshold Panel Estimation

This article studies the existence and magnitude of financial investment constraints in Germany between 2006 and 2012 with a special emphasis on small and medium‐sized firms. The core contention is that the sensitivity of the investment rate to the cash flow rate is a function of a firm's financial position contributing to its access to external finance. The application of a nonlinear panel threshold model reveals that the marginal effect of the cash flow rate on the investment rate is almost twice as strong for ‘high debt’ firms compared to ‘low debt’ firms. This result holds for six out of seven balance sheet threshold variables. For a single specification, the results reveal a non‐monotonic relationship between the cash flow rate and investment rate. Firm size, however, does not explain differences in the cash‐flow‐investment nexus.     

The Extent of Divergence in Human Resource Practice Across Three Chinese National Cultures: Hong Kong,Taiwan and Singapore

This study examines the extent of divergence versus convergence impact on the design of performance appraisal schemes across three Chinese culture-based newly industrialised countries: Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. This survey research, which assessed respondents’ perceptions of their country's predominant behavioural characteristics of management practice pertinent to performance appraisals, demonstrated significant differences among the countries under study. the results suggest that, contrary to past cross-cultural cluster research, homogeneity should not automatically be assumed in guiding important management practices such as performance appraisal.     

审计意见和未预期盈余对上市公司年报时间的影响

本文在分析我国特殊的制度背景的同时,研究了审计意见和未预期盈余对于上市公司年报公布时间的影响。本文研究认为,审计意见、未预期盈余的方向对于年报的时间有影响,而且股权性质也会影响年报公布的时间。     

控股股东行为、特征与财务报告稳健性——中国A股市场上市公司的经验证据

以中国A股上市公司2004年-2006年间的3618个公司年度为样本,借鉴Ball和Shivakumar、Khan和Watts以及Gassen等的研究成果对财务报告稳健性进行了实证度量,研究了不同特征的最终控股股东的行为对上市公司财务报告稳健性的影响.研究发现:控股股东的掏空行为显著降低了财务报告稳健性,控股股东的扶持行为也降低了财务报告稳健性,但在统计意义上不显著;相对于非国家最终控制的上市公司,国家最终控制的上市公司的财务报告更不稳健;财务报告稳健性与最终控股股东的控制权比例呈负向变化,与其他股东的制衡能力呈同向变化.     

Complementarity or competition: the development of human resources in a South-East Asian Growth Triangle: Indonesia,Malaysia and Singapore

Globalization has led to the emergence and strengthening of regional and subregional economic co-operation as a means of promoting economic growth. In East Asia, a new kind of sub-regional economic zone known as a 'Growth Triangle' is gaining increasing popularity. This article explains the concept of the Growth Triangle and traces its proliferation in East Asia. It examines the conditions for the success of Growth Triangles and the policies pursued by the various participating governments. It then argues that effective human resource development (HRD) policies are essential for the participating governments to enjoy the benefits of the Growth Triangles. Arguably, the HRD policies within the Growth Triangle should be complementary rather than competitive. But using the 'Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore' Growth Triangle (IMS-GT) as an example, this research asserts that in reality co-operation and complementarity in the HRD arena will give way to competition as the Triangle develops.     

金融危机对陕西经济的影响及对策建议

由美国次贷危机引发的金融危机,对世界各地经济的影响逐步显现。陕西作为西部地区经济发展的桥头堡,金融危机中也不可避免地受到影响。本文通过分析此次金融危机的形成原因和特点,论述了这场危机对陕西经济的影响,提出了陕西经济发展的对策建议。