基于信息通讯技术的开放远程教育——联合国教科文组织的视角

1.构建知识型社会的背景 1.1联合国教科文组织的工作 紧随信息社会世界首脑会议,联合国教科文组织通过了一个为期六年的中期战略计划,总体目标之一是构建具有包容性的知识社会。这一计划无疑是基于联合国教科文组织在信息社会世界首脑会上的倡导提出的。世界信息社会世界首脑会议分为两阶段,第一阶段于2003年在瑞士日内瓦召开,第二阶段于2005年在突尼斯召开。     

Explaining the Role of Perceived Risk,Knowledge, Price,and Cost in Dry Fish Consumption Within the Theory of Planned Behavior

ABSTRACT

The general purpose of this study is to explore the influence of perceived risk, knowledge, price, and cost of dry fish consumption in Bangladesh using the general framework from the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The field experiments were performed in Bangladesh with a convenience sample of 558 respondents. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the relationship among perceived risk, knowledge, price, and cost and TPB constructs. The findings showed that attitude, norms, and procedural knowledge emerge as the key determinants of intention, whereas intention, attitude, norms, and perceived risk have effects on the dry fish consumption frequency. Perceived behavioral control, price, and cost had no significant effect on intention and consumption behavior. The proposed TPB and the extended model both fit the data well and proved the expectations of this study in a promising way. The study found that people are more concerned about potential long-term risk to their family and others. Therefore, management attention should focus on reducing risks which consumers may face through producing safe and hazard-free dry fish.     

Paradigm shift from a liquidation culture to a corporate rescue culture in Malaysia: A legal review

The company law landscape in Malaysia has witnessed a significant change in its insolvency law with the adoption of two new corporate rescue mechanisms, the corporate voluntary arrangement and judicial management under the Companies Act 2016 (CA 2016), which has repealed the Companies Act 1965 (CA 1965). Previously, the insolvency laws under the CA 1965 were based on the traditional pro‐creditor laws of winding up and receivership, which embodied the liquidation culture. This article examines the transition of the insolvency laws in Malaysia from a liquidation culture under the CA 1965 to a corporate rescue culture under the CA 2016. It also reviews the necessary changes to the pro‐creditor laws, which are preserved under the CA 2016 in order to accommodate the pro‐debtor laws with the introduction of the corporate rescue mechanisms, which came into force on March 1, 2018. Through comparative and critical analysis of similar laws in the United Kingdom and Singapore, this article argues that while the corporate rescue mechanisms are regarded as pro‐debtor however the review reveals that the position of secured creditors are impeding its application and reforms ought to be considered.     

The effects of ownership structure,sub-optimal cash holdings and investment inefficiency on dividend policy: evidence from Indonesia

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We investigate how a firm’s decision to hold excessive cash or to overinvest could influence its dividend payout policy in Indonesia....     

Tax planning,corporate governance and equity value

Tax planning by firms is a highly significant activity. After audit fees, tax related services are the largest source of fee income for UK accounting firms. When viewed in terms of its impact, tax planning is the major source of the corporation tax gap amongst large firms (HMRC, 2010). Although traditionally tax planning has been viewed as benefiting shareholders via increased after tax earnings, more recently the underlying motivation has been questioned. Desai and Dharmapala (2006) argue that when an information asymmetry exists between managers and shareholders with respect to tax planning, it can facilitate managers acting in their own interests resulting in a negative association between tax planning and firm value. Using a sample of UK quoted firms from 2005 to 2007 and data drawn from International Accounting Standard 12 Income Taxes (IASB, 2010) Effective Tax Rate (ETR) reconciliations, this paper reports such a negative relationship. Further, the relationship is robust to the inclusion of corporate governance measures which could be expected to moderate the potential implications of a tax related shareholder–manager information asymmetry. An innovation of this paper is in using the ETR reconciliations to examine sub-categories of tax planning activities. The paper contributes to the debate of who determines, and benefits from tax planning conducted by firms. Its findings have direct policy relevance for shareholders and tax administrations in monitoring and controlling firms’ tax planning activities.     

Random walk and breaking trend in financial series: An econometric critique of unit root tests

The present note sheds light on several pitfalls associated with unit root tests that are overlooked by a growing volume of literature in financial economics. Specifically, several studies have confused unit root tests with the Random Walk hypothesis. Unit root tests are not designed for such a task since they aim at investigating whether a time series is difference-stationary or trend-stationary and are not, therefore, predictability tests. Secondly, we emphasize some serious shortcomings associated with the widely used unit root test developed by Zivot and Andrews [Zivot, E. & Andrews, D.W.K. (1992). Further evidence on the great crash, the oil-price shock, and the unit-root hypothesis. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 10, 251–270.]. In particular, we stress that results from the Zivot–Andrews test are sensitive to the methods employed to calculate the critical values and to select the maxim lag k. Furthermore, Zivot–Andrews test imposes a one time structural break in a time series; however recent studies showed that not counting for other true structural breaks may bias the results and may cause a spurious rejection of the unit root null hypothesis. Finally, we support our arguments by an empirical example based on the findings of Narayan and Smyth [Narayan, K.P. & Smyth, R. (2004). Is South Korea’s stock market efficient? Applied Economics Letters, 11, 707–710.] with regards to the efficiency of South Korean stock market. We show that contrary to what the authors claim, the KSE (KOSPI) price index is predictable, and hence the South Korean stock market is not informationally efficient.     

The day-of-the-week effect and conditional volatility: Sensitivity of error distributional assumptions

We test for reliable evidence of the day-of-the-week effect on both the mean and volatility for the S&P/TSX Canadian return index. Unlike previous studies, we permit several specifications for the error distribution — GARCH normal, Student's t, generalized error distribution, and double exponential distribution. Unlike other studies, we find that the day-of-the-week effect in both mean and conditional volatility is sensitive to the particular specification of the underlying distributions. We also find that using a regression analysis assuming a Student's t distribution is a better way to investigate this effect. Our evidence demonstrates the apparent fragility of previous empirical studies on calendar anomalies. Thus, our results serve as a warning that with financial data, the error distributional assumptions are critical to correctly identifying empirical regularities in the data.     

The intellectual structure of the strategic management field: an author co-citation analysis

This paper complements a recent study by Ramos-Rodriguez and Ruiz-Navarro (2004) that investigated the intellectual structure of the strategic management field through co-citation analysis. By using authors as the units of analysis and incorporating all the citations that are included in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index, we trace the evolution of the intellectual structure of the strategic management field during the period 1980–2000. Using a variety of data analytic techniques such as multidimensional scaling, factor analysis, and Pathfinder analysis, we (1) delineate the subfields that constitute the intellectual structure of strategic management; (2) determine the relationships between the subfields; (3) identify authors who play a pivotal role in bridging two or more conceptual domains of research; and (4) graphically map the intellectual structure in two-dimensional space in order to visualize spatial distances between intellectual themes. The analysis provides insights about the influence of individual authors as well as changes in their influence over time. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Measurement of Changes in Product Quality in Marginal Intra-Industry Trade

There is a long established thread of the international trade literature concerned with the measurement of intra-industry trade (IIT). Two distinct strands of the literature have developed: First, measures of marginal IIT that are concerned with the adjustment implications of volume-based changes in IIT; second, measures of vertical and horizontal IIT that are concerned with quality-based differences in IIT. This paper marries the two literatures to provide a new perspective on the smooth adjustment hypothesis debate and suggests the use of the marginal product quality index, a new measure of changes in quality in matched trade changes that complements dynamic measures of volume-based IIT. JEL no.  F19     

LIFETIMES OF MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM DUTCH MANUFACTURING

This paper estimates service lifetimes for capital assets in Dutch manufacturing industries, using information on asset retirement patterns. A Weibull distribution function is estimated using a non-linear regression technique to derive service lifetimes for three selected asset types: transport equipment, machinery and computers. For this purpose, benchmark capital stock surveys for different two-digit industries are linked to annual discard surveys. On average the estimated lifetimes are 6, 9 and 26 years for transport equipment, computers and machinery, respectively. However, these estimates vary across industries. A comparison of our estimates with Canadian, U.S. and Japanese estimates shows notable differences in the lifetimes of all the asset types, with machinery showing the largest difference.