The impact of competition on the operations of foreign banks in Australia in the post-deregulation period

In 1985, Australia removed its long-standing embargo on the entry of foreign banks. The Australian market therefore provides an opportunity to study the factors influencing multinational bank expansion in a new host country. This paper tests a model of the size of multinational banking operations in Australia in the post-embargo period. One major finding is that a push for market share in a highly competitive environment led to risky lending practices in the global boom-bust economic climate of the late 1980s, which adversely affected the foreign banks’ performance. Another is that competition from home country banks had a significantly negative effect on foreign banks’ asset volumes.     

Operating cash flow asymmetric timeliness in Australia

Operating cash flow (CFO) asymmetric timeliness occurs when CFO reflects bad news more quickly than good news. We examine the presence and determinants of CFO asymmetric timeliness in Australia, where substantial differences in reporting requirements of cash flow components, in characteristics of listed companies and in the degree of conservative financial reporting produce contrasting findings to those in the United States. We find supportive evidence for the novel ‘sticky cost behaviour’ explanation and also the product-pricing strategy, but not the life cycle hypothesis. These findings are useful for investors and analysts concerned with forecasting the future values of companies.     

Real-Time Pricing and Imperfect Competition in Electricity Markets*

We analyze the effects of the adoption of real-time pricing (RTP) of electricity when generating firms have market power. We find that an increase in consumers on RTP contracts decreases peak prices and increases off-peak prices, increases consumer surplus (both for switching and non-switching consumers) and welfare, while decreasing industry profits, with these effects being magnified by the extent of market power. We illustrate these results by calibrating our model to the New Zealand electricity market, and find that taking into account the market power of generating firms increases the efficiency gains from RTP adoption by 41%.     

THE EFFECTS OF NEWS WHEN LIQUIDITY MATTERS

We analyze the impact of news (information shocks) in economies where liquidity matters, including those with endogenous credit limits, and those with assets serving as collateral or media of exchange. Although we also consider news about productivity and credit conditions, a leading case concerns monetary policy announcements. Real or monetary news has big effects on markets, potentially causing cyclic or boom–bust responses, even though we focus on the unique transition consistent with stationarity after shocks. In particular, policy announcements may induce instead of reduce volatility. We also discuss the implications for the inflation puzzle, forward-guidance puzzle, and other apparent anomalies.     

Has Adoption of IFRS Increased Non–North American Institutional Investment in the Canadian Stock Markets?

We investigate whether non–North American (non‐NA) institutional investment in firms listed on the Canadian stock markets increased between the pre‐ and post‐IFRS adoption periods relative to such investment in firms listed on the U.S. stock markets. Prior to IFRS adoption, Canada had high‐quality financial reporting standards that were similar to the U.S. standards. As consequences of IFRS adoption, Canadian financial statements became more comparable with European and other IFRS country financial statements and less comparable with neighboring U.S. financial statements. Thus, a question of interest is whether the enhanced comparability with non‐NA companies was beneficial in terms of attracting non‐NA investment to Canadian companies versus U.S. companies. We find that there was no significant change in non‐NA institutional investment in Canadian firms relative to U.S. firms for the very largest (fifth quintile) and for smaller (first, second, and third quintiles) Canadian companies. However, intermediate‐sized Canadian companies in the fourth size quintile lost non‐NA institutional investment relative to their U.S. peer companies, suggesting that non‐NA investors cared more about comparability with U.S. peer companies than non‐NA peer companies for companies in this size quintile.     

Efficient forecast tests for conditional policy forecasts

Central Banks regularly make forecasts, such as the Fed’s Greenbook forecast, that are conditioned on hypothetical paths for the policy interest rate. While there are good public policy reasons to evaluate the quality of such forecasts, up until now, the most common approach has been to ignore their conditional nature and apply standard forecast efficiency tests. In this paper we derive tests for the efficiency of conditional forecasts. Intuitively, these tests involve implicit estimates of the degree to which the conditioning path is counterfactual and the magnitude of the policy feedback over the forecast horizon. We apply the tests to the Greenbook forecast and the Bank of England’s inflation report forecast, finding some evidence of forecast inefficiency. Nonetheless, we argue that the conditional nature of the forecasts made by central banks represents a substantial impediment to the analysis of their quality—stronger assumptions are needed and forecast inefficiency may go undetected for longer than would be the case if central banks were instead to report unconditional forecasts.     

Are paper winners gamblers? Evidence from Australian retail investors

This study examines stock market gambling using a comprehensive set of investor characteristics and past portfolio performance measures. We find that retail investors overinvest in ‘lottery stocks’, stocks with gambling‐like properties. Significant portfolio underperformance is the result of gambling through lottery stocks. Investors are more likely to gamble following recent portfolio paper gains, regardless of realised performance, providing new evidence that paper gains trigger a house money effect. Investors trading greater values or holding more stocks, and older and female investors, are less likely to invest in lottery stocks.     

Understanding the Social Role of Entrepreneurship

There is a need to rethink and redefine the social value added of entrepreneurial activities to society. In this paper we develop five pillars on which the evolving social role of entrepreneurship can rest and have its impact: (1) connecting entrepreneurial activities to other societal efforts aimed at improving the quality of life, achieving progress, and enriching human existence, (2) identifying ways to reduce the dysfunctional effects of entrepreneurial activities on stakeholders, (3) redefining the scope of entrepreneurial activities as a scholarly arena, (4) recognizing entrepreneurship's social multiplier, and (5) pursuing blended value at the organizational level, centring on balancing the creation of financial, social and environmental wealth. In a final section we discuss implications for practices and for further research.     

Insider-controlled Firms in Russia

Privatisation Vouchers in Russia were heavily invested in the holders' own firms. Using data from a recent survey, we show that insider control in firms privatised in 1992-4 through the voucher process (as distinct from the earlier leased buy-out method) is insecure and dependent on managers' support. For employees, investment in insider control appears to have been motivated by employment income insurance rather than expected excess returns on the equity. Managers are predominantly the same individuals as before privatisation and display considerable hostility to outside investors, probably because they fear dismissal should outsiders gain control. Despite insider control, firms are shedding labour quite rapidly through voluntary resignations. Employment dynamics appear to be unrelated to insider equity ownership. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.