Do analysts who understand accounting conservatism exhibit better forecasting performance?

This study investigates the performance of analysts when they match the asymmetric timeliness of their earnings forecast revisions (i.e., asymmetric forecast timeliness) with the asymmetric timeliness of firms’ reported earnings (i.e., asymmetric earnings timeliness). We find that better timeliness‐matching analysts produce more accurate earnings forecasts and elicit stronger market reactions to their forecast revisions. Further, better timeliness‐matching analysts issue less biased earnings forecasts, more profitable stock recommendations and have more favorable career outcomes. Overall, our results indicate that analysts’ ability to incorporate conditional conservatism into their earnings forecasts is an important reflection of analyst expertise and professional success.     

Corporate Cash Holding in Asia

In this paper, we analyze the determinants of corporate saving in the form of changes in cash holdings for 11 Asian economies using firm‐level data from the Oriana Database for the 2002–2011 period. We find some evidence that cash flow has a positive impact on the change in cash holdings (i.e. that the cash flow sensitivity of cash is positive) and that the positive impact of cash flow on the change in cash holdings is larger and more significant in the case of smaller and presumably more constrained firms than in the case of larger and presumably less constrained firms in both developed and developing economies. Both of these findings corroborate the importance of financial constraints in Asian firms. In addition, we find that the cash flow sensitivity of cash declined after the global financial crisis and that Tobin's q has a positive impact on the change in cash holdings, especially in the case of larger and presumably unconstrained firms.     

Country Differences in Material Deprivation in Europe

This paper assesses to what extent differences in the characteristics of individuals (micro‐level perspective) and country‐specific factors (macro‐level perspective) can explain country differences with respect to material deprivation levels. Thus, our work aims to simultaneously consider the macro dimension and the predominantly individually‐oriented study field of material deprivation using multilevel techniques. We make use of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. Our results show that country‐specific factors seem to be much more relevant than individual effects in explaining country differences in material deprivation. We estimate that the introduction of country‐specific factors reduces the proportion of total variance due to between‐country differences in deprivation by 72.7 percent, while individual‐level variables reduce this proportion by only 9.4 percent. We also show, through interaction variables, that the effect of sociodemographic characteristics can be shaped by institutional and structural factors, especially by the level of GDP.     

Why Do Firms in Customer–Supplier Relationships Hold More Cash?

A firm is in customer–supplier relationships when its business depends on a small number of major customers/suppliers. In this paper, we provide evidence that relationship‐specific investments undertaken by firms in customer–supplier relationships are associated with high cash holdings in these firms. The evidence is consistent with the prediction of Titman's stakeholder theory that a firm relying on relationship‐specific investments maintains a high cash reserve as a cushion to sustain its relationship‐specific investments when negative shocks occur. Our findings suggest that relationship‐specific investments are important determinants of the precautionary motive to hold cash.     

LGBT Neighbourhoods and ‘New Mobilities’: Towards Understanding Transformations in Sexual and Gendered Urban Landscapes

In this article we apply insights from ‘new mobilities’ approaches to understand the shifting sexual and gendered landscapes of major cities in the global North. The empirical context is the purported ‘demise’ of traditional gay villages in Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia, and the emergence of ‘LGBT neighbourhoods’ elsewhere in the inner city. We reinterpret the historical geography of twentieth century LGBT lives and the associated ‘rise and fall’ of gay enclaves through the lens of the ‘politics of mobility’. In this reading, it is apparent that multifaceted movements — migration, physical and social mobility, and motility — underpin the formation of gay enclaves and recent transformations in sexual and gendered landscapes. After the second world war, LGBT communities in the global North were embedded in specific historical geographies of mobility and we trace these in the Canadian and Australian contexts. The ‘great gay migration’ from the 1960s to the 1980s has been joined by new LGBT constellations of mobility in the 2000s, and these have imprinted upon the sexual and gendered landscapes of Toronto and Sydney.     

进口油气管道技术谈判要点透析——基于《中俄东线管道供气购销协议》前期技术谈判经验

2014年5月21日,中国石油天然气集团公司和俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司签署了《中俄东线管道供气购销协议》,标志着跨越近20年的中俄天然气谈判尘埃落定.分析该协议的前期技术谈判要点,包括进口油气管道技术谈判应充分发动集团公司整体力量,打造强有力的谈判阵容,建立高效的沟通机制和快速的响应机制,选择雄辩的首席谈判代表、得力的发起人和具备实战经验的翻译员.谈判准备期间应充分借鉴类似管道谈判经验,并充分调研国外基本情况;谈判策略要抓大放小,既要放眼国际环境又要立足技术细节,必要时可将多项技术条款“捆绑”;谈判技巧需灵活应对,既坚持原则又不乏折中变通,争取双赢.总结中俄东线天然气管道前期技术谈判经验,为今后中俄西线及其他进口油气管道前期谈判提供参考和借鉴.     

财政分权增加了政府环境治理效率吗?——来自我国31省市的证据

现有文献主要讨论地方政府的整体效率或某类公共品供给效率。如果将环境质量看作是公共物品,将地方政府视为环境质量的提供者,那么财政分权是否提高了政府环境治理效率?基于我国31省市1998~2010年的环境治理支出数据,利用数据包络分析法和面板Tobit模型计算并分析了影响政府环境治理支出效率的因素。回归结果表明,财政分权与环境治理支出效率呈负相关关系,腐败降低了地方政府的环境治理支出效率。     

Frequency and Motives for Stock Dividends in a Unique Environment

We investigate the possible differences in the information content of stock dividends between firms that distribute stock dividends frequently (frequent distributors) and firms that distribute stock dividends infrequently (infrequent distributors) using a unique data set from Oman where the market microstructure frictions are either absent or limited. We find that infrequent stock dividend distributors have higher postdistribution operating performance relative to frequent distributors. We also find that the illiquidity measure is significantly related to the announcement effect only for frequent stock dividend distributors, whereas short‐term performance is significantly related to the announcement effect only for infrequent distributors. Our findings indicate that infrequent stock dividends are used mainly to convey favorable private information about the firms’ future prospects, and frequent stock dividends are used to reduce stock price to an optimal trading range in order to improve trading liquidity. JEL classification: G14, G35.