Dividend Policy at Firms Accused of Accounting Fraud

Recent studies and some policy experts have posited that dividends indicate higher‐quality earnings. In this study, we test this conjecture by comparing the dividend policies of firms accused of accounting fraud to those of firms not accused of accounting fraud. Specifically, we examine whether alleged fraud firms are as likely to be dividend payers as non‐fraud firms, and whether managers of dividend‐paying fraud firms increase dividends at the same rate as managers of non‐fraud firms. Our data reveal that dividend paying status is negatively associated with the probability of committing accounting fraud. In addition, we also find that, during the alleged fraud period, the earnings–dividends relation is weaker for the alleged fraud firms relative to firms not accused of fraud. Finally, using propensity score match tests, the data provide evidence that managers of alleged fraud firms increase dividends less often than managers of firms not accused of fraud, consistent with the alleged fraud firms not being able to match the dividend policies of firms not accused of fraud. Overall, our results suggest that dividends, especially dividend increases, are associated with higher earnings quality.     

Decentralizing Indonesian City Spaces as New ‘Centers’

Since the introduction of regional autonomy legislation in 1999, Indonesia has embarked on the world's biggest experiment with democratic decentralization. The intertwined processes of democratization and decentralization have dismantled Indonesia's centralized authoritarian system and reordered its governmental structures. These conjoined processes have set in motion conditions for the transformation of a number of Indonesia's secondary cities into regional ‘centers’ through the influx of new peoples, funding and ways of interacting within localized contexts and with the outside world. In this article I consider Indonesia's decentralization processes through the lens of the city, focusing on three key areas in the rising profile and development of urban centers. First, I look at the framing of Indonesian cities within contemporary urban discourses to highlight the array of urban spaces that coexist in the era of decentralization. Second, I describe how Indonesia's decentralization laws have structurally privileged cities by bypassing the provincial level and devolving most state powers directly to sub‐provincial administrations. Third, I explore how Indonesian cities compete and cooperate over limited state resources under the decentralized system and why some cities have been able to reinvent themselves as new centers in planning, practice and innovation, and why others continue to lag behind.     

The ageing of Europe: Demographic scenarios of Europe's futures

This paper explores the demographic futures of Europe by presenting two scenarios. The ‘silver century’ scenario is based on the continuation of current demographic trends and policies. In this scenario, Europe's population will continue to age and immigration will be limited. As a result younger people will increasingly tend to concentrate in urban areas while the retirees, who are able, will settle in suburban and rural spaces. In the ‘open borders’ scenario, the EU and most of the member states will introduce an open and actively promoted immigration policy. Most immigrants will concentrate in large metropolitan areas. At the same time there will also be some countries and regions with very limited immigration from abroad. At the local scale immigration will contribute to social and spatial segregation. Hence, without the regulation or at least management of types and destinations of immigration, demographic imbalances will not be addressed at the regional level. Furthermore while the freedom of movement may have some macro-economic benefits and address population imbalances in some (mainly metropolitan) areas, pre-existent trends undermining both socio-economic cohesion and sustainable patterns of development are unlikely to be resolved.     

Social marketing: Conceptual and pragmatic observations from a current Australian campaign

In this paper the authors discuss the meaning of social marketing and its essential differences from “conventional” marketing. Further, by reference to a current campaign which seeks to maximize adoption by medical general practitioners of an “early intervention” package to prevent development of alcohol‐related problems in patients, the authors discuss the merits of the application of social marketing principles to such a public health campaign. The difficulties experienced in both the application of social marketing principles to this campaign and in empirically assessing the effectiveness of this and similar campaigns are also discussed. The authors conclude that, although the validity of social marketing as a theoretical construct is unimpeachable, there is much further work to be done in establishing empirically the effectiveness of the application of the principles of social marketing as a social change strategy.     

De-marketing Tobacco Through Price Changes and Consumer Attempts Quit Smoking

Using panel data from three Canadian provinces, this article examines the relationship between the de-marketing of tobacco products through provincial-level price increases and consumers’ attempts to quit smoking as measured by the uptake of tobacco replacement therapies. We ground our hypotheses in the rational addiction model and the theory of planned behavior. Our analyses suggest a positive, one-month lagged effect of a price increase of tobacco products on the uptake of tobacco replacement therapies. This effect dissipates 3 months later, suggesting that there is a critical period for aggressive de-marketing of tobacco products. We discuss the implications of these results for theory and future research into de-marketing harmful consumer products.     

Scheduling multiple robots in a no-wait re-entrant robotic flowshop

No-wait re-entrant robotic flowshops are widely used in the electronic industry, such as PCB and semiconductor manufacturing. In such an industry, cyclic production policy is often used due to large lot size and simplicity of implementation. This paper addresses cyclic scheduling of a no-wait re-entrant robotic flowshop with multiple robots for material handling. We formulate the problem and propose a polynomial algorithm to find the minimum number of robots for all feasible cycle times. Consequently, the minimum cycle time for any given number of robots can be obtained with the proposed algorithm. The algorithm runs in O(N⁵) time in the worst case, where N is the number of machines in the robotic flowshop.     

Diffusion and management of electronic data interchange: barriers and qpportunities in the uk pharmaceutical and healthciare industries

This paper is based on evidence from a survey, conducted during 1992, investigating the adoption of electronic data interchange (EDI) amog neraly 20 furms in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector within the UK. In particular, it focuses on the factors behind the adoption and diffusion of EDI, and the barriers to its uptake and spread. It also analyzes some of the strategic, organizational and managerial issues behind its implementatio and development. The survey highlights the relatively slow rate of adoption of EDI within this sector and key problems that inhibit its uptake. These include issues of costs, standards and the increasingly fragmented nature of purchasing and logistics that results from reorganization within the UK healthcare system.     

Immigrant earnings returns to post-migration education: Evidence for Canada, 1999–2013

Using the recently created Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database (CEEDD), we analyze the earnings returns to investments in post secondary education by immigrants made after arrival in Canada. Fixed effects estimation results suggest that postsecondary education (PSE) in Canada increases annual earnings of men and women by 21.9% and 32.8%, respectively, for those enrolled full time and by 11.2% and 21.0% for those enrolled part time, respectively. Earnings effects of PSE are larger for immigrants admitted in the skilled worker category relative to family class immigrants and to refugees and are increasing in the level of education of the immigrants at landing. Immigrants from non-traditional source countries generally have larger returns to PSE than immigrants from English-language source countries, such as the US and the countries of Northwestern Europe.     

The changing geography of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in a warmer world

The Olympic Winter Games (OWG) and the Paralympic Winter Games (PWG) are showcases for winter sports. With their high dependence on weather conditions, accelerating climate change poses a challenge to these mega-events. Two indicators are used to assess the climate reliability of locations to host the Games (OWG in February, PWG in March) in the future under a low (RCP 2.6) and high (RCP 8.5) greenhouse gas emission scenario. Climate change will alter the geography of the Games over the twenty-first century. In a low-emission scenario, only 13 of 21 locations remain climate reliable for the OWG in the 2050s and 12 in the 2080s, whereas only 10 are reliable for the PWG (both in the 2050s and 2080s). The impact of a business-as-usual high-emission scenario is far greater, reducing the number of locations reliable for the OWG to 10 in the 2050s and 8 in the 2080s, with even fewer reliable for PWG (8 in the 2050s and only 4 in the 2080s). Adaptive responses are considered, including strengthening the climatological assessment requirements in forthcoming bid processes, the unification of the OWG and PWG (in the month of February), and considering dual host countries/regions.     

Changes in Inequalities of Access to Dental Care in Australia 1977–2005

Information on dental visits, income and demographic variables were drawn from the Australian National Health Survey between 1977 and 2005. Income‐related inequality in access to dental care was calculated using the generalised concentration index (G) and decomposition methods were employed to examine associations with socio‐demographic and policy‐amenable factors. Statistically significant increases in inequality in dental care use were found after 1995. From 0.026 in 1995, G increased to 0.045 in 2005. The associations between increases in inequality and changes in the uptake of private health insurance suggest a contributory role of the introduction of the Commonwealth government's 30 per cent rebate for private health insurance.