Good Governance and Growth in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Regulatory Reforms in the Telecommunications Industry

We investigate whether good governance, measured in terms of the regulatory structure, has a positive impact on the development of the telecommunications industry in developing countries. To this end we construct a data set on a panel of developing countries with information on the number of mainlines per capita and proxies for certain aspects of regulatory structure argued in the literature to be important for optimum development. Our results indicate that if the regulator is given certain functions with which to carry out telecommunications policy, this can enhance growth, but that there is no similar evidence in terms of operational separation of the regulator from the government.     

Measurement and dimension of road fatality in Brunei

In this article, we have investigated the pattern of road fatality in Brunei. It is seen from this analysis that road fatality in Brunei was one of the highest in the world in the early 1990s, but has been significantly reduced over the years, and is now one of the lowest in the world. Preliminary investigation shows that young male drivers are responsible for most road fatalities in Brunei. We have also fitted a linear regression model and found that road fatality is significantly positively related to people aged 18-24 years and new registered vehicles, both of which are expected to grow with the growth of population and economic development. Hence, road fatality in Brunei is also expected to grow unless additional effective road safety countermeasures are introduced and implemented to reduce road toll. Negative coefficient is observed for trend variable, indicating the reduction of road fatality due to the combined effects of improvements of vehicle safety, road design, medical facilities and road safety awareness among road user groups. However, short-term road fatality analysis based on monthly data indicates that the coefficient of the trend variable is positive, implying that in recent months road fatalities are increasing in Brunei, which is supported by media reports. We have compared Brunei's road fatality data with Australia, Singapore and Malaysia and found that Brunei's road fatality rate is lower than Singapore and Malaysia, but higher than Australia. This indicates that there are still opportunities to reduce road fatalities in Brunei if additional effective road safety strategies are implemented like in Australia without interfering in the economic and social development of Brunei.     

An Assessment of Tourism’s Environmental Impact on the Lake Bosomtwe Basin

Using information from interviews with key stakeholders and secondary sources, this article assessed whether Lake Bosomtwe tourism development has negatively impacted its ecology and, if so, what can be done to mitigate the impact. The evidence showed that despite the increase in awareness of the need to protect the lake environment, far greater abuses of the ecology are endemic for two reasons—the mismatch between knowledge and practice of ecologically sustainable tourism development, and the omission from the calculus of the influences that segments of the tourism supply chain have on one another to encourage more environmentally responsible tourism.     

The under-pricing of IPOs in the Gulf cooperation council countries

We document the phenomenon of under-pricing initial public offerings (IPOs) for 47 Gulf firms that went public between 2001 and 2006. The IPOs had, on average, initial abnormal returns of 290 percent, far exceeding those documented for both developed and emerging markets. In aftermarket performance, we find that these IPOs provide investors with negative abnormal returns over a one-year period, which seems to be consistent with findings in other industrial and emerging markets. The empirical models fail, however, to provide us with a satisfactory explanation using the common independent variables employed in the literature. Nevertheless, it appears that country- and industry-specific characteristics, in addition to the timing of the offers, play a key role in explaining IPO behavior in the region. This paper's empirical findings support the hypothesis that investors are initially over-optimistic about an IPO's performance, but grow more pessimistic over time.     

Economic prosperity of the gold-mining industry in Australia and the consequent gold tax

Income from gold mining in Australia was declared tax-exempt in 1924. This tax-exempt status was removed and tax on income from gold mining was imposed in 1988 with effect from 1 January 1991. This paper documents the political process that led to the imposition of this tax. It provides evidence that rapid prosperity of the Australian gold-mining industry in the 1980s led to increased political sensitivity and removal of the industry's tax-exempt status of nearly seven decades.     

Tests of Weak‐Form Efficiency of the Dhaka Stock Exchange

Abstract:   Conflicting evidence on weak form efficiency of the Dhaka Stock Market appears to stem from the use of monthly versus daily data, structural changes after the 1996 market crash, and the use of tests with or without heteroscedasticity adjustment. Heteroscedasticity‐robust tests indicate short‐term predictability of share prices prior to the crash, but not afterwards. Although a heteroscedasticity‐robust Box‐Pierce test was used by Lo and MacKinlay (1989) in their simulations, our study appears to be the first to apply this test to stock prices. Typical rejection of weak‐form market efficiency by the usual autocorrelation tests may be reversed by a heteroscedasticity‐robust test.     

MEASURING CUSTOMERS' PERCEPTIONS OF LOGISTICS SERVICE QUALITY OF 3PL SERVICE PROVIDERS

Despite its importance, with the major exception of Mentzer and colleagues, the development and measurement of the Logistics Service Quality construct (LSQ) has been relatively under researched. This paper reports the testing and validation of the LSQ instrument (Mentzer, Flint, and Kent 1999) in the context of the third‐party logistics industry in the UK. The 3PL setting was considered a logical progression for testing the instrument versus the original in‐house logistics service provider. The study is based on a cross sectional mail survey of the customers of third‐party logistics service providers.     

The effect of near- versus distant-future mindsets on socially responsible investors’ mutual fund preferences

Socially responsible investing (SRI) has seen tremendous growth in recent years. For SRI investors, choosing among potential SRI investments often requires making trade-offs between social responsibility and financial aspects of the investment. In this study, we examine contexts where investors are more versus less willing to make such trade-offs, specifically in the context of SRI-guided mutual funds among Muslim investors. We expect that priming a near-future mindset will make respondents less likely to trade-off social responsibility for financial considerations, whereas priming a distant-future mindset will make respondents more likely to make such trade-offs. Using a discrete choice experimental design among Saudi Arabian adults, we find support for our hypotheses. Managerial implications and directions for future research are discussed.