PREDICTING PRIVATE COMPANY FAILURE

Private company failure is a significant problem that is not fully addressed by existing research. This study develops a discriminant model from data on 107 private companies. The model predicts success and failure, based on six ratios obtained from the two immediately prior years' publicly available accounting reports. Based on a hold-out sample of 40 companies a prediction with 85% accuracy was achieved. This prediction was made one year ahead. The model indicates that the retained earnings/total assets, total liabilities/total assets, and shareholders funds/total liabilities ratios are the three major predictors of bankruptcy. Overall the model's coefficients are, as expected, substantially different to those of public company models.     

Termination of distressed residential mortgages: An empirical analysis

A sample of 209 distressed mortgages is used to analyze the terminations of distressed mortgages. An option-based model is compared to a traditional default model. Results show that the traditional model is statistically superior. However, the model's ability to identify a default is similar to that of the simpler option-based model. Alternative measures of borrower's equity are compared. Measuring borrower's equity using total debt more accurately explains default than using either the mortgage balance or the mortgage value.     

Statistical properties of returns: Financial assets versus commercial real estate

This study examines the distribution of commercial real estate returns by region (east, midwest, south, and west), by property type (office, retail, R&D office, and warehouse) and in the aggregate, and compares their distributions to those of financial assets. Nominal and real returns are examined for quarterly, semiannual, and annual periods. The quarterly nominal returns on the financial assets are mostly normal with very little indication of autocorrelation. In contrast, non-normality and autocorrelation are present in most of the nominal quarterly real estate series. The non-normality is greatly reduced when semiannual or annual returns are considered or when the quarterly series are corrected for autocorrelation. The non-normality is also lower for real returns than it is for nominal returns.     

Towards a cohesive curriculum tourism: The case for a distinct discipline

This paper addresses a controversial topic in tourism scholarship which is simultaneously a problem and an opportunity in tourism education: the philosophical issue of academic disciplines and specifically, the question of a distinct discipline in tourism studies. It is argued that the orthodox approach to tourism education, multi-disciplinary studies, has become an impediment. It is suggested that a new discipline can be created by organizing the existing body of knowledge and that such a discipline can become the core of an inter-disciplinary approach. Certain characteristics of an embryonic discipline are outlined and innovations in this area at Sydney Technical College are discussed.     

The Distributional Impact of Selected Commonwealth Outlays and Taxes and Alternative Commonwealth Grant Allocation Mechanisms

This article examines the redistributive impact of Commonwealth outlays and taxes (including outlays directed through and to the States)and two possible alternative systems of distributing Commonwealth funding amongst the States.     

Is Africa integrating? Evidence from product markets

This paper presents a price-based assessment of product market integration in Africa using disaggregated retail prices for 91 products and 12 African cities from 1991 to 2008. We find evidence of substantial deviations from the law of one price ? product price differences between the cities averaged 76% over the period – a result that is consistent with the presence of large barriers to trade in the continent. Mean price differences across cities fell by close to a quarter over the period, but the decline was concentrated in the early 1990s with little progress subsequently, despite the regional trade policies implemented by the countries. Gravity-style estimates reveal that reductions in external tariffs and global trends towards price convergence in the early 1990s are the key contributors to the trend in price integration amongst the African cities.     

Aquatic resources and recreation behavior

While substantial effort has been undertaken to understand the consequences of industrial and agricultural uses for the environment, concern has also been expressed about its other uses, including recreation. Little is known about the relationship between recreational behavior and an environmental resource base. The present paper focuses upon participation in a specific outdoor recreation activity or activity‐cluster and dominant resource base where participation occurs. Resource bases identified were river, lake, ocean, swamp/marsh, forest/mountain, range/ farm and city/town. Emphasis is placed upon aquatic environs and participation in water‐based recreation. Water activities constituted from 14–30 percent of all outdoor activities taking place at those resource bases identified. Aquatic environments provided the resource base for 38 percent of all recreation participation events, water‐ and non‐water based, occurring during one reporting period. While participation in water‐based activities requires a water resource, the array of participation patterns reported suggests that resource bases defined as recreation places provide a wide range of opportunities for non‐resource‐dependent recreation activities. One conclusion is that resource bases cannot be distinguished by the recreation activities occurring on them. Resource bases in fact facilitate a wide range of recreation activities, some holding little direct connection with the resource base, nor are the conditions of the resource sufficient to predict behavioral outcomes.