The impact of accounting reform on accounting quality: Evidence from Nigeria

The effectiveness of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is dependent on the strength of enforcement of accounting standards in a given country. This study explores the implications of the adoption of IFRS in Nigeria after the enforcement of accounting standards was strengthened. The strengthening of accounting standards enforcement, and the subsequent adoption of IFRS in Nigeria, was recommended by the World Bank to improve the country's regulatory outlook after a capital market crisis in 2007/2008 that was triggered by widespread accounting irregularities. Results indicate that accounting quality declined in Nigeria following the adoption of IFRS; while earnings management increased, timely loss recognition and earnings persistence reduced. Our study contributes to the burgeoning literature on IFRS adoption and concludes that the effect of IFRS adoption is contextual. Therefore, accounting regulatory institutions operating in a similar context to Nigeria should localize IFRS.     

Financial soundness of single versus dual banking system: explaining the role of Islamic banks

Portuguese Economic Journal - This paper empirically investigates the financial stability of the countries having both Islamic and conventional banks versus the countries having only conventional...     

Shared autonomous vehicles and their potential impacts on household vehicle ownership: An exploratory empirical assessment

Emerging transportation technologies have the potential to significantly reshape the transportation systems and household vehicle ownership. Key among these transportation technologies are the autonomous vehicles, particularly when introduced in shared vehicle fleets. In this paper, we focus on the potential impact that fleets of shared autonomous vehicles might have on household vehicle ownership. To obtain initial insights into this issue, we asked a sample of university personnel and members of the American Automobile Association as to how likely they would consider relinquishing one of their household's personal vehicles if shared autonomous vehicles were available (thus reducing their household vehicle ownership level by one). For single-vehicle households, this would be relinquishing their only vehicle, and for multivehicle households (households owning two or more vehicles) this would be relinquishing just one of their vehicles. Possible responses to the question about relinquishing a household vehicle if shared autonomous vehicles are present are: extremely unlikely, unlikely, unsure, likely, and extremely likely. To determine the factors that influence this response, random parameters ordered probit models are estimated to account for the likelihood that considerable unobserved heterogeneity is likely to be present in the data. The findings show that a wide range of socioeconomic factors affects people's likelihood of vehicle relinquishment in the presence of shared autonomous vehicles. Key among these are gender effects, generational elements, commuting patterns, and respondents' vehicle crash history and experiences. While people's opinions of shared autonomous vehicles are evolving with the continual introduction of new autonomous vehicle technologies and shifting travel behavior, the results of this study provide important initial insights into the likely effects of shared autonomous vehicles on household vehicle ownership.     

Untangling gender differentiated food security gaps in Bhutan: An application of exogenous switching treatment regression

Using nationally representative data from Bhutan, and applying an exogenous switching treatment regression model, this study assessed the food security status between male‐headed households (MHHs) and female‐headed households (FHHs). The study demonstrates that there is no significant difference between MHHs and FHHs in terms of food security, but when MHHs are compared with de jure FHHs, the food security is significantly lower among the de jure FHHs. The food security gap between MHHs and de jure FHHs is due to the differences in both observable and unobservable characteristics of the households. The food security gap between de facto and de jure FHHs can be explained by the influence of connections and wider access to off‐farm income. Most of the previous studies consider all FHHs as a homogenous entity and ignore the concept of de jure FHHs (i.e., a household run by single, widowed, or divorced woman) and de facto FHHs (i.e., a household where there is a husband, but he is not physically present because of his work off‐farm). As the present research takes this into account, the econometric findings from our study, thus have important implications in formulating special food security policies targeting the most vulnerable FHHs.     

Bangladesh’s trade partners and the J-curve: an asymmetry analysis

Separating currency appreciations from depreciations and using non-linear models in recent literature have improved discovering significant link between the trade balance and the exchange rate. We add to this growing literature by considering the experience of Bangladesh with 11 trading partners. When a linear model was used, support for the J-curve effect was present only with one small partner. However, when a non-linear model was used, support increased to three countries including the largest partner, the United States, which accounts for more than 12% of Bangladesh’s trade. Furthermore, the non-linear models supported short-run asymmetry adjustment as well as short-run asymmetry effects of exchange rate changes in most cases. However, long-run asymmetric effects were limited to a few.     

How does religion discipline the consumer subject? Negotiating the paradoxical tension between consumer desire and the social order

ABSTRACT

In this article, we revisit Russell Belk, Guliz Ger and Soren Askegaard’s study on consumer desire. We do so in an effort to further advance the extant understanding of desire in consumer research. Specifically, informed by Lacanian psychoanalytic thought and sharing much affinity with Foucault’s central argument in The History of Sexuality, we consider how the institution of religion functions as a disciplining force by which to mediate the (potential) conflict between human desire and the social order. For the purposes of this article, we focus our analytical gaze on how consumption practices have the disciplinary effect of regulating desire. That is to say, we illuminate how religion (and religious ideology) dictates certain consumption practices, which ultimately perform to ensure that the pursuit of desire does not contravene the pre-existing social order that structures society and organises social relating. To animate our theoretical claims, we draw on a qualitative study of the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic sub-culture originating in South Asia. This article builds on extant sociological and anthropological studies that have captured the nexus between religion and the workings of the marketplace. However, unlike past studies, the question posited at the crux of this article concerns desire and, particularly, how desire becomes subjected to the discourses pertaining to religiously prescribed consumption practices.     

The impact of firm strategy and foreign ownership on executive bonus compensation in Japanese firms

Building on information-processing perspectives and the Japanese contextual factors, this study investigates the relationships between firm strategy and executive bonus pay as well as the moderating role of foreign ownership on the strategy-compensation relationship in Japanese firms. We focus on R&D investment and product diversification as strategy variables and investigate their direct effects on executive bonus pay. Further, we examine the moderating effects of foreign ownership on the strategy-pay sensitivity. The results, based on a sample of the 148 largest industrial firms in Japan for the 1990-1997 period, show that both R&D investment and product diversification are positively related to executive bonus pay. Our findings also indicate that foreign ownership negatively moderates the relationships between the strategy variables and executive compensation, suggesting that foreign investors play an active monitoring role, reducing cash bonus payments when their invested firms choose to increase R&D or pursue diversification strategy.     

Estimating national road crash fatalities using aggregate data

Injuries and fatalities from road traffic crashes have emerged a major public health challenge in Pakistan. Reliable estimates of road crash fatalities (RCF) of a country, is a vital element needed for identification and control of key risk factors, road-safety improvement efforts and prioritizing national health. Reliability of current annual RCF estimates for Pakistan becomes highly questionable due to serious underreporting. This study aimed to predict annual RCF for Pakistan using data from World Health Organization and International Road Federation sources. An ordinary least square (OLS) regression model that relates fatality rate with different explanatory variables was developed. RCF were predicted for Pakistan for year 2012 and 2013, and results were compared with national police reported estimates. Study results indicated that there is serious underreporting of RCF in Pakistan and immediate measures are needed to improve the existing road crash recording and reporting system at the national and subnational levels.     

Foreign IPO capital market choice: Understanding the institutional fit of corporate governance

While product market choices have been central to strategy formulation for firms in the past, the integration of financial markets makes the choice of capital markets an equally important strategic decision. We advance a comparative institutional perspective to explain capital market choice by firms making an IPO in a foreign market. We find that internal governance characteristics (founder‐CEO, executive incentives, and board independence) and external network characteristics (prestigious underwriters, degree of venture capitalist syndication, and board interlocks) are significant predictors of foreign capital market choice by foreign IPO firms. Our results suggest foreign IPO firms select a host market where the firms' governance characteristics and third party affiliations fit the host market's institutional environment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.