Hedging spot fuel oil in Singapore: Will the new SIMEX contract succeed?

We assess SIMEX's new market for fuel oil futures by examining its effectiveness in hedging a cash fuel oil position in Singapore. We find that the SIMEX contract can eliminate about two-thirds of the volatility of a Singapore cash position and is many times more effective than a cross-hedge constructed with overseas contracts. Given its potential usefulness as a hedging tool for the regional petroleum industry, we anticipate that the new contract will be a success.We are grateful to Mobil (New York) for making the Platt oil price data available to us and to Jim Bovenage specifically for accessing the data for us.     

Accountability and value enhancement roles of corporate governance

We examine the twin roles of accountability and value enhancement of corporate governance in the context of financial reporting. We investigate the accountability role by examining the association between governance structures and abnormal accruals, and the value enhancement role by investigating the association between abnormal accruals explained by governance structures and future performance. We differentiate between governance mechanisms that have direct roles in the financial reporting process (audit related) from mechanisms that have indirect roles (board related). We find that independent and active audit committees and independent boards are important governance attributes for financial reporting. We show that both audit‐related and board‐related governance structures are value enhancing.     

韩国农业国际竞争力分析

本文从生产率、价格、贸易成果三个方面对韩国农业竞争力进行了分析。结果显示,虽然韩国农业土地生产率相当高,但价格竞争力很弱。通过对27种主要农产品进行价格比较,发现韩国农产品价格比中国农产品价格平均高6.4倍,这意味着韩中两国之间如果达成自由贸易协定,中国农产品对韩国出口的可能性会大大提高。通过对贸易成果的分析,本文发现,与其他国家的贸易相比,韩中两国之间的农产品贸易存在互补性,但因价差太大,很难找到具体的互补或合作的领域。     

Jack of fewer trades: Evolution of specialization in research

It is widely maintained that scientists have become increasingly specialized with a narrow range of expertise ever since the era of “Renaissance men.” However, evidence on scientists' specialization is rather anecdotal. We provide large-scale evidence to address whether younger generations of inventors have indeed become more specialized, using a unique panel data set of Korean inventors. We also investigate how the degree of specialization evolves over an inventor's research career and how far an inventor switches his or her field of expertise in the technology space over a career.