Impact of board gender diversity on dividend payments: Evidence from some emerging economies

This study investigates the impact of board gender diversity on dividend payments in the context of emerging economies. Using a dataset of listed firms from India, China and Russia over the period 2007–2014, we find strong and robust evidence indicating that board gender diversity is negatively related to cash dividend payments in all emerging economies. Moreover, we find that state-ownership positively moderates the relationship between gender diversity and dividend payments. However, this effect is observed only for China and Russia. In additional analyses, we find that the negative link between board gender diversity and dividend payments is more pronounced during the financial crisis. However, the moderating role of state-ownership does not remain significant during the financial crisis.     

ICT spillovers and productivity in Canada: provincial and industry analysis

Research on the effect of information and communication technology (ICT) on productivity in developed countries is already extensive, but the spillover and time-varying effects of ICT investment across economic activities have been only minimally explored. This paper investigates the impacts of ICT and its spillovers on productivity in Canada, focusing on heterogeneity across provinces and industries over time. The panel data estimation model includes 10 provinces with diverse economic activities for the period 1990–2008, and the two-digit level industries for the period 1981–2008. The findings show that ICT has a positive impact on labour productivity, but the effects vary significantly across provinces, industries, and time. Specifically, while provinces with higher shares of manufacturing and services in their GDP have reaped the benefits of ICT investment, other provinces primarily dependent on natural resources and agriculture are lagging behind. The industry-level analysis also reveals that manufacturing and services industries have benefited from ICT investment much more than primary sector industries. The results further indicate that ICT investment in the USA, a major trading partner, has spilled over to some Canadian provinces and industries and that the overall ICT effects are stabilized in those ICT-intensive provinces and industries.     

Privatizations around the world: economic or political determinants?

The article examines economic, political, and institutional determinants of privatization using a panel of 50 countries over the period of 1988–2006. Our sample includes developed, developing, and transition economies. Privatization activity is measured by the number of privatization deals as well as the revenue raised and analyzed using the negative binomial regression and Tobit regression respectively. Although more privatization activity is usually taking place in countries displaying satisfactory economic performance in some respect, the role of economic factors turns out to be limited. The results identify a number of political and institutional determinants but some effects are specific to a particular type of economy. For example, in developing countries, right‐wing governments are associated with privatizations while new, not necessarily right‐wing governments, are behind privatization in Eastern Europe. The role of financial development is also varied, with sound financial institutions related to successful privatization in developed and developing countries but not in transition economies.     

Scanner Data and the Measurement of Inflation

This paper outlines the potential use of bar-code scanner data from retailers for the measurement of inflation. The source benefits from its extensive coverage in providing data on prices, quantities and values of transactions of each model of a good sold. Relative weights can thus be ascribed to price changes in both base and current months at a highly detailed level which allows us to estimate substitution bias. Methods of adjusting for quality changes can be considered. The dummy variable hedonic approach is compared with a superlative, exact hedonic approach and a matching technique akin to that used by statistical offices.     

Autoregressive Conditional Kurtosis

This article proposes a new model for autoregressive conditionalheteroscedasticity and kurtosis. Via a time-varying degreesof freedom parameter, the conditional variance and conditionalkurtosis are permitted to evolve separately. The model usesonly the standard Student’s t-density and consequentlycan be estimated simply using maximum likelihood. The methodis applied to a set of four daily financial asset return seriescomprising U.S. and U.K. stocks and bonds, and significant evidencein favor of the presence of autoregressive conditional kurtosisis observed. Various extensions to the basic model are proposed,and we show that the response of kurtosis to good and bad newsis not significantly asymmetric.     

Asymmetric impact of oil prices,exchange rate,and inflation on tourism demand in Pakistan: new evidence from nonlinear ARDL

This study scrutinized the asymmetric impact of oil prices, exchange rate, and inflation on tourism demand in Pakistan using [Shin, Y., Yu, B., & Greenwood-Nimmo, M. (2014) Modelling asymmetric cointegration and dynamic multipliers in a nonlinear ARDL framework. In Festschrift in honor of peter schmidt (pp. 281–314). New York, NY: Springer] nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model. The NARDL bounds test examined the existence of cointegration in study variables, including CO₂ emissions, institutional quality, oil prices, exchange rate, inflation, and tourism demand. The evidence proposes that disregarding the intrinsic nonlinearities may misinform inference. The estimated NARDL model affirmed long-run negative and significant effect of CO₂ emissions on tourism demand, while institutional quality was positively associated with tourism demand. Furthermore, the findings of the study also suggested long-run asymmetric relationship between oil prices, exchange rate, inflation, and tourism demand.     

Determinants of corporate social and environmental reporting in Hong Kong: a research note

The patterns and determinants of corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED) in Hong Kong (HK) are examined by analysing 154 annual reports of 33 HK listed companies from 1993 to 1997. The research finds that industry difference has an impact on the amount, content theme and location of CSED. There is a positive correlation between company size and the level of CSED. Utility companies disclose more CSED than property and banking firms.     

Elements of marketing strategy: How important are they from the executive viewpoint?

In formulating a firm's overall marketing strategy, decisions with respect to its various elements must be made. This paper examines the level of importance marketing executives attach to the elements of marketing strategy. The survey results point out some interesting changes in the ranks of different marketing areas since earlier studies. Two such changes are the relative importance associated with pricing and logistics areas of marketing. Reasons for such changes are discussed in the Discussion and Conclusions sections of the study.     

Cyclicality of commodity markets with respect to the U.S. economic policy uncertainty based on granger causality in quantiles

Given the importance of the U.S. in global commodity markets, the goal is to explore whether U.S. economic policy uncertainty impacts the price performance of certain commodities. The analysis uses the Granger causality in quantiles method that allows us to test whether there are different effects under different market conditions. The results document that economic uncertainty impacts the returns on the commodities considered, with the effects clustering around the tail of their conditional distribution. Robust evidence was obtained under alternative definitions of uncertainty.