Introducing XBRL through a financial statement analysis project

In this project, we introduce business and accounting students to the application of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) through the use of interactive data. Students study the basic concepts and potential benefits of interactive data and XBRL. Students learn to extract the financial reports of two companies in the same industry. Then, using traditional financial analysis techniques (ratio analysis) students can compare the performance of these companies. Thus, the project accomplishes two important objectives: it introduces students to the benefits and features of XBRL-tagged financial reporting and interactive data, and it shows how this medium can be used to facilitate the analysis of financial statements. The project uses free, publicly available interactive data tools to accomplish these objectives.This project is appropriate for any level of financial accounting course in which students use public company financial statements to generate financial ratios and conduct analysis on them. We aim the project at MBA-type introductory accounting courses. In addition, we show how it can easily be expanded to be applied to higher level financial statement analysis courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The project provides some background into how XBRL-tagged financial reporting is generated, while the main focus is on application of interactive data and not the technology itself. Since XBRL is now mandated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for most reporting entities, it is critical for today’s business students to be familiar with this method of communicating financial information.     

Is the US Dollar a Suitable Anchor for the Newly Proposed GCC Currency?

Responses of inflation and non‐oil output growth from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to monetary policy shocks from the United States (US) were estimated to determine whether there is evidence to support the US dollar as the anchor for the proposed unified currency. A structural vector autoregression identified with short‐run restrictions was employed for each country with Fed funds rate as the US monetary policy instrument, non‐oil output growth and inflation. The main results suggest that for inflation, the GCC countries show synchronised responses to monetary policy shocks from the US which are similar to inflation in the US, and for non‐oil output growth, there is no clear indication that US monetary policy can be as effective for the GCC countries as it is domestically. Consequently, importing US monetary policy via a dollar peg may guarantee only stable inflation for the GCC countries – not necessarily stable non‐oil output growth. If the non‐oil output response is made conscientiously – and there are concerns over the dollar’s ability to perform its role as a store of value – a basket peg with both the US dollar and the euro may be a sound alternative as confirmed by the variance decomposition analysis of our augmented SVAR with a proxy for the European short‐term interest rate.     

Nonparametric analysis of financial time series by the Kernel methodology

This paper aims to study, in the most recent historical time period, the efficiency of the Paris Stock Exchange market. We test its weak form while analysing the stock exchange returns series by nonparametric methods, using kernel methodology in particular. In doing so, our approach extends the traditional view treating the observed cyclical fluctuations on this market.     

Strategic interaction and aggregate incentives

We consider a model of interdependent efforts, with linear interaction and lower bound on effort. Our setting encompasses asymmetric interaction and heterogeneous agents’ characteristics. We examine the impact of a rise of cross-effects on aggregate efforts. We show that the sign of the comparative static effects is related to a condition of balancedness of the interaction. Moreover, we point out that asymmetry and heterogeneous characteristics are sources of non-monotonic variation of aggregate efforts.     

Parametric Value-at-Risk analysis: Evidence from stock indices

We evaluate the performance of several volatility models in estimating one-day-ahead Value-at-Risk (VaR) of seven stock market indices using a number of distributional assumptions. Because all returns series exhibit volatility clustering and long range memory, we examine GARCH-type models including fractionary integrated models under normal, Student-t and skewed Student-t distributions. Consistent with the idea that the accuracy of VaR estimates is sensitive to the adequacy of the volatility model used, we find that AR (1)-FIAPARCH (1,d,1) model, under a skewed Student-t distribution, outperforms all the models that we have considered including widely used ones such as GARCH (1,1) or HYGARCH (1,d,1). The superior performance of the skewed Student-t FIAPARCH model holds for all stock market indices, and for both long and short trading positions. Our findings can be explained by the fact that the skewed Student-t FIAPARCH model can jointly accounts for the salient features of financial time series: fat tails, asymmetry, volatility clustering and long memory. In the same vein, because it fails to account for most of these stylized facts, the RiskMetrics model provides the least accurate VaR estimation. Our results corroborate the calls for the use of more realistic assumptions in financial modeling.     

Excess control,agency costs and the probability of going private in France

The current study investigates the determinants of going private (GP) in France. It contrasts a sample of 161 firms that went private between 1997 and 2009 with a propensity-score-matched sample of firms that remained public during the same period. The results indicate that, unlike for firms that remain public, the largest controlling shareholders (LCSs) of GP firms control their firms using an incommensurately small fraction of ultimate cash flow rights. This is consistent with the view that agency problems between large and minority shareholders make public firms less attractive to investors, which reduces the benefits of staying public and encourages the LCSs to take their firms private or accept takeover offers. Additional results show that GP firms have more undervalued stock prices and higher free cash flows than non-GP firms. Expected interest tax shields, low growth opportunities, and pre-GP takeover interest do not seem to affect the probability of GP.