Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards: Impact on the Value Relevance of Intangible Assets

We examine whether the value relevance of reported intangibles differs between financial reporting regimes pre- and post-adoption of Australian Equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (AIFRS) and Australian Accounting Standards (AGAAP) respectively. Using AIFRS and AGAAP measures of goodwill and identifiable intangible assets for the same financial year and testing their association with share prices, we find evidence that AIFRS generally convey incremental useful information for investors about goodwill. For aggregated identifiable intangible assets there is no evidence that AIFRS conveys information beyond that in AGAAP. In contrast, we find evidence that AGAAP provides incremental information for investors in relation to identifiable intangibles, but not goodwill .     

Rendering Alternative Offerings Less Profitable with Resale Price Maintenance

When it was legal, resale price maintenance (RPM) was commonly observed on items such as aspirin, pens, pencils, toothpaste, soap, shaving cream, and milk. In providing a theory that is based on compensating retailers for their opportunity cost of shelf space, and that does not hinge on the existence of externalities in nonprice competition, this article explains why a manufacturer might impose RPM on these and many other products. By contrast, the use of RPM on food, grocery, and drug store items is not easily explained by standard theories such as free riding on presale services and quality certification by high-priced retailers.

The typical supermarket has room for fewer than 25,000 products. Yet there are some 100,000 available, and between 10,000 and 25,000 items aye introduced each year. ¹

     

Applying public participation GIS (PPGIS) to inform and manage visitor conflict along multi-use trails

Managing visitor conflict is an important task in protected areas. This study used public participation GIS (PPGIS) mapping and a visitor survey to research conflicts between mountain bikers and horse riders, and other groups frequenting trails for tourism and recreation in national parks in northern Sydney (Australia). The goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of the PPGIS for determining conflict locations, and to integrate stated reasons and conflict resolution measures in a model. The survey showed that 42% of mountain bikers and 69% of horse riders had experienced conflicts, with each other, motorbike riders, walkers/hikers and dog walkers. PPGIS effectively mapped concurrent usage intensity to predict potential conflict locations over a reasonably large study area thereby identifying trails of the greatest concern. PPGIS also offered high-quality GIS visualisation options, and the novelty of the PPGIS increased participant engagement. We evaluated PPGIS compared to questionnaire-based surveying, direct visitor observations, GPS tracking, traffic counters and cameras. Because visitor conflict occurs within a spatial context, conflict management will require greater spatial knowledge of visitor activity, which can be obtained through the innovative PPGIS mapping. A conflict model is presented that integrates this study's empirical findings on conflict reasons and resolutions with existing conflict theory.     

Current Accounts and Exchange Rates: A New Look at the Evidence

A small literature has developed exploring nonlinearities in exchange rate data. This paper studies bivariate statistical relationships between current accounts, exchange rates, and cross–country ratios of GDP. The analysis differs from previous empirical work on these issues in using nonparametric methods to allow for nonlinearities, in employing a minimum of statistical assumptions, and in focusing on a fundamental characterization of the data. The authors present new evidence on the connections between exchange rates, the current account, and GDP. While the evidence loosely supports some common beliefs about the data, it conflicts with some common theoretical models. Thus the results pose new challenges for theory.     

Market responses to qualitative information from a group polarization perspective

This study examines the predictions of group polarization in response to the receipt of qualitative information (i.e., good or bad news) in a laboratory market. Qualitative information induces varying beliefs within the market because such information is interpreted using the relevant knowledge possessed by the recipients. Findings from the group polarization literature suggest that individuals who subsequently hold the most extreme price beliefs will influence the market to a greater extent than individuals holding the most conservative beliefs. Group polarization research also suggests that participation in a market will accentuate risk preferences so that good news produces a cautious shift in prices (i.e., towards lower prices) whereas bad news produces a risky shift (i.e., towards higher prices). The results confirm the predictions of group polarization and further suggest that if extreme reactions to information reflect recency, so too may the market price.     

The Ex Post Performance of Four Portfolio Selection Algorithms

This paper explores the ex post performance of four widely cited (and sometimes applied) normative portfolio selection models. Each is supposed to solve the same portfolio selection problem relative to the same mean-variance efficiency criteria. It has been shown elsewhere, and this paper confirms, that the models result in vastly different ex ante stock selection strategies. However, the acid test of normative theory is ex post performance relative to a set of efficiency criteria or some other standard. The empirical results reported here show that, with one exception, the ex post performance of the models is consistent with the same mean-variance efficiency criteria, and, over a predictable range of outcomes, consistently outperform the index portfolio based on Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index.     

Communicating the Ethos of Codes of Ethics in Corporate Australia, 1995–2001: Whose Rights, Whose Responsibilities?

This paper considers the commitment to business ethics of the top 500 companies operating in the Australian private sector and communicates the results of a longitudinal study conducted from 1995 to 2001. Primary data was obtained (in 1995 and again in 2001) via a self-administered mail questionnaire distributed to a census of these top 500 Australian companies. This commitment of each company to their code of ethics was indicated and measured via a range of methods used by organizations to communicate the ethos of their codes to employees. Just as they were in 1995, it would appear that companies in 2001 still are good at ensuring that their rights are protected, but at the same time they do not seem to take on the responsibility to ensure that employees' rights are just as well protected. This double standard leads to cynicism towards the current business ethics processes inherent in Australian companies.