Earnings management and firm valuation under asymmetric information

This paper seeks to provide an explanation for why corporate officers manage the disclosure of accounting information. We show that earnings management affects firm value when value-maximizing managers and investors are asymmetrically informed. In equilibrium, the strategic management of reported earnings influences investors' assessments of the market values of companies' shares.     

Influences on software piracy: Evidence from the various United States

Examining socio-economic influences on software piracy in the United States, we find a negative relationship between software piracy and income, tax burdens, and economic freedom. A 1% increase in per-capita income correlates with a 0.25% reduction in piracy.     

Making tourism work for the poor: Strategies and challenges in southern Africa

This article analyses strategies for 'pro-poor tourism' (PPT), ie strategies that increase the benefits to poor people from tourism development. Based on an international review of six pro-poor tourism case studies, it outlines the wide range of pro-poor tourism strategies used and their impacts to date, with particular focus on southern African case studies. By analysing their progress, problems and the critical factors influencing them, the article identifies implications for the way forward. This review underpins four propositions. First, despite commercial constraints, much can be done to enhance the contribution of tourism to poverty reduction, and a 'PPT' perspective assists in this endeavour. Secondly, PPT strategies can, and should be, incorporated by all actors in tourism, whether in government or business, at local or policy level. Thirdly, a wide range of impacts on poor people, going well beyond jobs, need to be recognised and enhanced. Finally, PPT strategies are difficult, but particularly relevant in southern Africa given the challenges of economic and political transformation, as well as the opportunity to influence international discussions on 'sustainable tourism' at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002.     

An empirical analysis of strategy types

Using the PIMS SPIYR data base, which pools cross-section and timeseries data, an empirical study to identify business strategy types was undertaken. Using a two-stage methodological approach combining principal component and cluster analysis on both a consumer products and an industrial products data base, two sets of strategy typologies were identified. Six strategy types were identified for consumer products: (1) harvest, (2) builder, (3) cashout, (4) niche or specialization, (5) climber, and (6) continuity. For industrial products, four strategy types were identified: (1) low commitment, (2) growth, (3) maintenance, and (4) niche or specialization. A discussion of the characteristics of each strategy type is offered.     

Petites bourgeoises and penny capitalists: women in retail in the Lille area during the nineteenth century

With few exceptions, historians have argued that in the nineteenthcentury women were excluded from most retail activities. InEurope women became increasingly concentrated in small-scale,under-capitalized, and short-lived stores. The "separate sphere" ideology in its different guises underlay this evolution.In North America, on the other hand, women capitalized on thisideology to carve a niche for themselves in trade and retailing.Women were not marginalized or segregated everywhere in Europe,however. In northern France the expansion of retail trade andoverall improvements in standards of living provided women,especially married ones, with opportunities they were not reluctantto grasp. Though the activities of married women remained subordinatedto the needs of their families, female retailers were neitherparticularly impoverished nor segregated in sectors deemed appropriatefor persons of their sex.     

Social accounting research: An Australasian perspective

This paper provides an insight into the nature and the extent of social accounting research being undertaken within Australasia. It demonstrates that Australasian researchers account for a significant amount of internationally published social accounting research, but emphasises that the research effort seems to be confined to a limited number of researchers perhaps reflecting a lack of ‘take-up’ in this area in terms of the scale of participation. Information is also presented about the relative propensity of journals within the sample to publish social accounting research, and identifies that ‘top tier’ accounting journals historically have not published social accounting research. The paper also considers various factors which seem to be impeding the ‘recruitment’ of new social accounting researchers.     

Relationship Banking, Liquidity, and Investment in the German Industrialization

Close bank relationships are thought to ameliorate firms' liquidity constraints—a phenomenon frequently measured by liquidity sensitivity of investment. Using German firms during the formative years of universal banking (1903–1913), this paper shows that, even controlling for selection bias, investment is more sensitive to internal liquidity for bank-networked firms than unattached firms. The firm exhibiting the greatest liquidity sensitivity, however, faced no apparent liquidity constraint. The findings yield two implications: they support recent research rejecting a linear relationship between liquidity sensitivity and financing constraints, and they suggest that relationship banking provides no consistent lessening of firms' liquidity sensitivity.     

Quality of life improvements after sports injury

Traffic accidents and their health consequences are a major public health problem in industrialized countries. In addition to being the first cause of death of children up to the age of 14 years, they are also responsible for considerable morbidity. Persistent lesions and more or less disabling sequelae are the lot of a certain number of causalities. In this study, we took stock of all of the information about functional impairment following injuries sustained in traffic accidents that is available in Belgium. We described the ‘itineraries’ of traffic accident patients and identified the potential sources of data. We then analyzed the available and accessible data. Our study shows that we do not have any directly usable data in Belgium that can yield a measure of the public health impact of traffic accidents in terms of temporary and permanent disabilities. Very partial information exists in the country's various institutions and insurance companies, but this information is not suitable for use in a public health approach aimed at quantifying the importance of a health problem and its course over time. We do not feel that the country's main disability measurement tool (BOBI), which is used notably by the insurance companies, attuned to the everyday reality that is experienced by people whose functional abilities have been reduced in the wake of a traffic accident. Given this lack of data, priority should be given to initiating the routine collection of such information or at least to quantifying post-traffic accident disabilities by following up a cohort of traffic accident victims.