Do Firms Adjust Their Timely Loss Recognition in Response to Changes in the Banking Industry?

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the banking sector on firms’ timely recognition of economic losses. In particular, we focus on the entry of foreign banks into India during the 1990s, which likely causes an exogenous increase in lender demand for timely loss recognition. Analyzing variation in both the timing and the location of the new foreign banks’ entries, we find that foreign bank entry is associated with more timely loss recognition and this increase is positively related to a firm's subsequent debt levels. The change appears driven by a shift in firms’ incentives to supply additional information to lenders and lenders seem to value this information. The increase in timely loss recognition is also concentrated among firms more dependent on external financing: private firms, smaller firms, and nongroup firms. Overall, our evidence suggests that a firm's accounting choices respond to changes in the banking industry.     

The Taylor Principle and Monetary Policy Approaching a Zero Bound on Nominal Rates: Quantile Regression Results for the United States and Japan

This paper offers a new approach that estimates the response of interest rates to inflation and the output gap at various points (quantiles) on the conditional distribution of interest rates. This offers an improvement on empirical estimates conducted only at the mean and also allows us to test the propositions that policy shows greater aggression to inflation in the reaction function in terms of a greater response coefficient as interest rates reach low levels, and increasing aggression as the lower bound is approached. We find support for the Taylor principle, a more aggressive response to inflation than under a Taylor rule, but no detectable evidence of increasing aggression as the zero lower bound is approached in the US and Japan.     

Broad‐Based Employee Stock Ownership: Motives and Outcomes

Firms initiating broad‐based employee share ownership plans often claim employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) increase productivity by improving employee incentives. Do they? Small ESOPs comprising less than 5% of shares, granted by firms with moderate employee size, increase the economic pie, benefiting both employees and shareholders. The effects are weaker when there are too many employees to mitigate free‐riding. Although some large ESOPs increase productivity and employee compensation, the average impacts are small because they are often implemented for nonincentive purposes such as conserving cash by substituting wages with employee shares or forming a worker‐management alliance to thwart takeover bids.     

Disappearing Dividends: Implications for the Dividend–Price Ratio and Return Predictability

The conventional dividend–price ratio is highly persistent, and the literature reports mixed evidence on its role in predicting stock returns. We argue that the decreasing number of firms with a traditional dividend‐payout policy is responsible for these results, and develop a model in which the long‐run relationship between the dividends and stock price is time varying. An adjusted dividend–price ratio that accounts for the time‐varying long‐run relationship is considerably less persistent. Furthermore, the predictive regression model that employs the adjusted dividend–price ratio as a regressor outperforms the random‐walk model. These results are robust with respect to the firm size.     

危机后的金融体系框架——全球金融改革及其对于韩国的意义

在设计“危机后金融体系架构”时，我们会想到三个支柱：金融产业、金融市场（尤其是资本市场）以及金融监管。在讨论架构问题时，我将首先将注意力集中于全球金融市场，其次，也更重要的是，如何建设韩国的金融体系以反映它的经济和金融市场特性。我希望，即使将本文中的“韩国”替换为“中国”，它仍然能够为考虑“最适合于中国的中国金融体系架构”提供一个框架。我们必须记住，在全球趋势与国内特征之间取得平衡远比看起来困难。不过，无论它有多么困难，这都是我们必须努力的方向。从政策制定者的角度来看，最具有挑战性的议题就是处理系统性风险。各个国家的系统性风险来源是不同的．因此每个国家都必须建立一个能够最好地识别与管理其系统性风险的监管范式，尤其是宏观审慎性监管。     

A study on the subjective symptoms of the ageing process in middle-aged men: effects of socio-economic status,diet and health care behaviour*

In order to investigate the factors influencing the ageing process of middle-aged men, different environmental variables including socio-economic status, diet, smoking and drinking were studied as possible determinants of the ageing process. Six hundred and forty-seven Korean men over 40 years of age were studied. Frequency, chi-square, t-test, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were employed to identify the significant variables. As a result of the analyses, occupation and smoking were found to be the most influential factors. In short, those who did not refrain from smoking and had professional jobs experienced early symptoms in the ageing process.     

Accounting for Income Taxes: Early Adoption Issues

This study investigates whether the revised AASB 1020 Income Taxes was adopted early by Top 100 publicly listed companies in Australia between 2000 and 2004. We found that only three of the companies adopted the revised standard before its implementation date of 1 January 2005. Interviews with senior company representatives indicated that the three companies had quite different reasons for early adoption. Non-early-adopting companies had considered that the revised standard would not make a material difference to their reporting results. Tax consolidations and the impending international financial reporting standards were regarded as more important issues.     

The market for American state government bonds in Britain and the United States, 1830–431

In the 1830s the British and American economies were hit by a series of shared macroeconomic shocks. This paper investigates the role of markets for America's State bonds in Britain and the USA during and between the crises in 1837, 1839, and 1842.There is strong evidence that the crises in 1839 and 1842 originated in the USA and spread to Britain. There is also strong evidence that credit markets for American state bonds were tighter in the USA than in London between 1839 and 1842. The idea that the depression that began in 1839 in the USA was triggered by credit conditions in Britain and transmitted via the market for state credit, finds no support here.     

High‐Performance Work System and Organizational Turnover in East and Southeast Asian Countries1

In this paper, we examine the impact of high‐performance work systems (HPWSs) on both voluntary and involuntary organizational turnover rates. Most research on this topic has been done in the United States. Given the global competitive pressures confronting many of the countries of East and Southeast Asia, companies in this region are seeking to become more flexible and often adapt HPWSs practices. We explore the impact of HPWSs in both locally owned companies and subsidiaries of multinational corporations in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand. These countries have significantly different national cultures from the United States and most other Western countries and HPWSs effects in relation to turnover might vary from the studies based in the United States. Our findings are, however, somewhat consistent with U.S.‐based studies. In fact, HPWSs were found to be more effective in reducing turnover in locally owned companies than in subsidiaries of Western and Japanese multinational companies.     

Productivity and Performance Indicators in Enterprise Agreements

The design and implementation of performance measurement systems is a major interest of management accountants. In recent years many organisations have made enterprise agreements with their employees, often specijjing performance indicators on which to base wage increases. This paper explains how performance indicators are used in enterprise agreements and considers alternative definitions of indicators and their limitations. It argues that performance indicators in enterprise agreements should be consistent with wider organisational performance measurement systems, particularly those having a strategic focus.