The Effect of Earnings–Announcement Timing on Earnings Management

This paper examines whether firms which delay earnings announcements engage in earnings management. The cross–sectional version of the modified Jones 1995 model is used to estimate 'normal' accruals. Prior research has documented that, on average, delayed earnings announcements are associated with negative earnings surprises. Our evidence suggests that the market anticipates unfavorable earnings news when it observes reporting delays. As a consequence, late reporters appear to make the most of a bad situation by employing income–decreasing accruals in big–bath–type earnings management and in contractual renegotiations. We find that the magnitude of income–reducing abnormal accruals is related to the reporting lag.     

What Is Fair? Experimental Evidence

There has been growing interest within the economics discipline in the role of equity concerns in the distribution of resources. This paper presents empirical evidence from controlled laboratory experiments where third-party decision makers allocate resources between two individuals. The experimental results indicate that subjects view a wide range of different allocations as the fair distribution of resources. However, regression analysis indicates that both treatment effects and a few demographic variables explain some of this variation in fairness concepts. Most significantly, decision makers rewarded subjects who earned their favorable positions, and the gender of the decision maker was an important predictor of the allocation chosen.     

Endogenous Group Formation

While the rules governing the formation of groups engaging in collective action may have significant impact on group size and behavior of members, most experiments on public goods have been conducted with the subjects in exogenously fixed groups or of fixed sizes. We study endogenous formation of groups in a public‐goods provision game by allowing subjects to change groups under three sets of rules: free entry/exit, restricted entry with free exit, and free entry with restricted exit. We find that the rules governing entry and exit do have a significant impact on individual behavior and group‐level outcomes.     

Harmonizing the interests of a city and its region: Krasnoyarsk krai experience

The paper focuses on the emerging system of territorial strategic planning in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and municipalities. Suggested for practical application are the best Russian research studies and practices of coordinating the interests of municipal and regional authorities. The analysis of scholarly approaches to the issue in focus allows one to infer that the best elaborated position is that of the staff of the North-Western Office of the Russian Research Center for Local Governance (RRCLG). As regards the express-analysis of practices adopted in the number of the Russian Federation constituent entities, the practices of the Krasnodar krai appear to be the most promising.     

Extending working hours: why not work 42 h rather than 38?—a CGE analysis for Germany

Faced with a record level of unemployment, the present debate in Germany is to extend the weekly hours of work. In this paper the employment effects of an economy-wide increase in weekly hours are quantified on the basis of a computable general equilibrium model for different specifications of the wage setting rule and the use of additional policy-induced public income. The simulation results back the argument of the opponents of longer working time that not more jobs will be created. However, when the higher tax revenues from GDP growth are used to reduce social security contributions, then the claim of the proponents that more jobs will be created can be supported.     

中国投资者进军美国市场将获新途径

中国股市从不久前的辉煌之巅急转直下，而与此同时，这个全球第一人口大国的投资者们又将获得新的渠道进军包括美国在内的海外股市。     

Generalized piecewise linear histograms

We extend the concept of piecewise linear histogram introduced recently by Beirlant, Berlinet and Györfi. The disadvantage of that histogram is that in many models it takes on negative values with probability close to 1. We show that for a wide set of models, the extended class of estimates contains a bona fide density with probability tending to 1 as the sample size n increases to infinity. The mean integrated absolute error in the extended class of estimators decreases with the same rate n^–2/5 as in the original narrower class.     

Relationship marketing of services—growing interest,emerging perspectives

Relationship marketing is an old idea but a new focus now at the forefront of services marketing practice and academic research. The impetus for its development has come from the maturing of services marketing with the emphasis on quality, increased recognition of potential benefits for the firm and the customer, and technological advances. Accelerating interest and active research are extending the concept to incorporate newer, more sophisticated viewpoints. Emerging perspectives explored here include targeting profitable customers, using the strongest possible strategies for customer bonding, marketing to employees and other stakeholders, and building trust as a marketing tool. Although relationship marketing is developing, more research is needed before it reaches maturity. A baker’s dozen of researchable questions suggests some future directions. holds the J. C. Penney Chair of Retailing Studies, is a professor of Marketing, and is director of the Center for Retailing Studies at Texas A&M University. He is a former national president of the American Marketing Association. His research interests are services marketing, service quality, and retailing strategy. He has published numerous journal articles and books, includingDelivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations (Free Press, 1990),Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality (Free Press, 1991), andOn Great Service: A Framework for Action (Free Press, 1995).     

On the adequacy of single‐stock futures margining requirements

Unlike the traditional futures contract risk‐based approach to margining, new security futures contracts are margined under a strategy‐based margining system similar to that which applies in the equity options markets. As a result, these new margin requirements are potentially much less sensitive to changes in market conditions. This article performs a simulation to evaluate whether these alternative margining methodologies can be expected to produce comparable outcomes. The analysis suggests that a 1‐day settlement period will likely lead to collection of customer margins that are virtually always greater than that which its traditional risk‐based counterpart would require. A 4‐day settlement period would lead to margin requirements that both significantly under‐ and overmargin relative to a comparable risk‐based system. This study argues that exchanges may approach the preferred probability of customer exhaustion by managing margin settlement intervals. Thus, the new strategy‐based rules, in and of themselves, will not necessarily inhibit new security futures trading activity. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:989–1002, 2003