Unilateral liberalisation and WTO GATS commitments: the telecommunications sector in selected countries

This paper examines how unilateral liberalisation of the telecommunications sector affected WTO Member countries' commitments in the GATS of the WTO. It is argued from observations and interviews that unilateral liberalisation provides a basis for making WTO commitments. The differing objectives of WTO Members, their attitudes towards reform (strong reformer or lukewarm supporter of reforms), and country-specific sensitivities appear to be factors responsible for the observed differences between unilateral reforms and GATS commitments in the telecommunications sector.     

Business Ethics in New Zealand Organisations: Views from the Middle and Lower Level Managers

This study is carried out to assess the state of business ethics in New Zealand organisations from the point view of middle and lower level managers. The survey results clearly indicate that companies in New Zealand give low priorities to ethics with other values in the corporate culture. A significant number of respondents also believe that pressures from the top to achieve results and the organisational climate and ruthless competition help create an unethical environment. A greater emphasis on ethical content in the business curricula has been overwhelmingly supported by the respondents. Moreover, the majority of respondents also think that the ethical standard in New Zealand businesses has declined in the past decade.Finally, a number of suggestions have been put forward by the respondents to develop and maintain a high standard of ethical environment. These include mandatory moral/ethical education both in the educational institutions and in commerce and industry, commitment of top management and written and published code of ethics.     

Conservatism,SEC investigation,and fraud

We present evidence on the relationship between firms that have engaged in fraudulent financial reporting and accounting conservatism. We empirically investigate the extent to which US firms identified by the SEC in their Enforcement Releases demonstrate higher levels of conditional conservatism in order to mitigate information asymmetry and agency problems. Specifically, by assessing the timing of changes in the litigation risk environment for fraud firms, we document how differences in heightened legal liability guide changes in conservative accounting behavior. Compared to a matched non-fraud control sample, we document that fraud firms have significantly lower levels of accounting conservatism in the pre-fraud period. Consistent with changes in potential legal liability, we find an increase in accounting conservatism for fraud firms during the SEC investigation period. Subsequently, during the public discovery of fraud, any increases in accounting conservatism are marginal and appear to converge back to lower levels compared to the SEC investigation period. Overall, our findings suggest more temporary changes in conservative reporting in the short-term for fraud firms. We also document that increased levels of accounting conservatism for fraud firms are not due solely to the passage of the SOX Act. Our findings aid in explaining fraud firms’ incentives and opportunities for accounting conservatism and lend support for why standard setters, regulators and auditors should continue to monitor and re-evaluate conservatism’s short-term effects that are conditioned on changes in a firm’s risk environment.     

Trade Reform Dynamics and Technical Efficiency: The Peruvian Experience

Markets around the world are becoming more competitive becauseof changing operating and regulatory environments. One suchchange—the loosening of trade restrictions— is amacroeconomic policy shift that should have a microeconomicimpact on industrial efficiency. Specifically, competitive pressureshould discipline or eliminate inefficient producers. This articleexplores whether or not there is such a dynamic link. It usesa previously unexploited data set to gauge the impact of the1990 Peruvian reform on plant-level technical efficiency. Theresults support the argument that the degree of protection andthe level of efficiency are inversely related.     

Information Asymmetry and Valuation Effects of Debt Financing

This study demonstrates that under conditions of information asymmetry, shareholders earn positive returns around the shelf registration date of straight debt. The results provide evidence to support Miller and Rock's conclusion that new expected financing by firms can result in positive returns to shareholders and Blazenko's contention that positive returns around the announcement date of straight debt issuance may be found by studying firms with asymmetric information. Firms with reported research and development expenses are assumed to have a higher level of asymmetric information and a greater chance of requiring new outside financing. Research and development expense intensity and abnormal earnings in future periods are found to be significant in a cross-sectional regression explaining abnormal returns for days surrounding the announcement period.     

Some notes on work ethos and economic development

These notes suggest a methodology that may lead to an ordinal ranking of societies, economies and ethic groups, either in the past or in the present, on the basis of their work ethos. These rankings may then be employed to test my thesis that work ethos has had an important influence on the pace of economic development in LDCs. As a suggestive exercise, I have presented some evidence to compare the work ethos in Colombia with some Far Eastern economies.     

A structural approach to projecting the occupational profile: Some results with Indian data

Projecting demand for various occupations on the assumption that their shares will remain fixed in the total employment over the entire period of projection might not be empirically justifiable. Further, it overlooks the complementarity and substitution possibilities between different occupations. An attempt is made in this paper to relax some of these unrealistic assumptions. Using a first-order Markov chain relationship between vectors of occupational proportions, we demonstrate, with Indian data, that this method may be used as a first approximation to the evolution of occupational structure at the aggregate level. An added justification of this formulation—in particular for the developing economies—is its modest data requirements. It may, however, be noted that a complete adjustment mechanism visualized here for the occupational structure is best viewed as a starting point for a more general formulation posited on a partial adjustment mechanism which allows for the interoccupational differences in their educational and training requirements.     

Stock Option Measures and the Stock Repurchase Decision

The major purposes of this study are two fold. First, we investigate whether or not the dilutive effect from stock options on the denominator of earnings per share is associated with the incurrence of stock repurchases. We use the FASB dilution and the economic dilution as the direct dilution measures and examine their relationship with stock repurchase decision. Second, we explore which of the extant measures of stock options can better explain the incurrence of stock repurchases. Six extant measures of stock options from previous studies are used: (1) the FASB's treasury-stock EPS dilution method, (2) the economic dilution measure based on Core, Guay and Kothari (2002), (3) the number of employee stock option exercises, (4) the number of stock option grants, (5) the number of total stock options outstanding, and (6) the number of exercisable stock options.Using a pooled cross-sectional sample from 1996–2000, we find a positive association between the likelihood of stock repurchases and the FASB dilution as well as the economic dilution in EPS, respectively. Thereby providing support for the undo-dilution hypothesis. The highest incremental explanatory power is found when we add the number of stock options exercisable to the baseline model. However, further analysis does not support the option-funding hypothesis suggested by Kahle (2002). We provide two explanations for why exercisable stock options better explain the stock repurchase decision.