A view on Bhattacharyya bounds for inverse Gaussian distributions

Shanbhag (J Appl Probab 9:580–587, 1972; Theory Probab Appl 24:430–433, 1979) showed that the diagonality of the Bhattacharyya matrix characterizes the set of Normal, Poisson, Binomial, negative Binomial, Gamma or Meixner hypergeometric distributions. In this note, using Shanbhag (J Appl Probab 9:580–587, 1972; Theory Probab Appl 24:430–433, 1979) and Pommeret (J Multivar Anal 63:105–118, 1997) techniques, we evaluated the general form of the 5 × 5 Bhattacharyya matrix in the natural exponential family satisfying f(x|q)=fracexp{xg(q)}b(g(q))y(x){f(x|theta)=frac{exp{xg(theta)}}{beta(g(theta))}psi(x)} with cubic variance function (NEF-CVF) of θ. We see that the matrix is not diagonal like distribution with quadratic variance function and has off-diagonal elements. In addition, we calculate the 5 × 5 Bhattacharyya matrix for inverse Gaussian distribution and evaluated different Bhattacharyya bounds for the variance of estimator of the failure rate, coefficient of variation, mode and moment generating function due to inverse Gaussian distribution.     

Corporate social responsibility performance,financial distress and firm life cycle: evidence from Australia

This study examines the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and financial distress and additionally the moderating impact of firm life cycle stages on that association. Based on a sample of 651 publicly listed Australian firm‐years’ data covering the 2007–2013 period, our regression results show that positive CSR activity significantly reduces financial distress of the firm. In addition, the negative association between positive CSR performance and financial distress is more pronounced for firms in mature life cycle stages. Our results are robust to alternative proxy measures of financial distress, CSR performance and life cycle stages.     

Regional Integration in East Asia: Achievements and Future Prospects

Economic integration in East Asia has been largely market driven. Attempts in the late 1980s to establish an East Asian regional economic grouping failed to materialize for a number of reasons. The financial crisis in 1997–1998 has strengthened the realization of regional countries that they need to have some self‐help mechanisms to overcome that crisis and to prevent future crises. This led to the development of several functional integration programs, including the network of bilateral swap arrangements known as the Chiang Mai Initiative. However, progress remains slow. The question that has arisen is how far these efforts need to be supported by institutional integration. Should the ASEAN Plus Three, the main regional cooperation process in East Asia involving the 10 South‐East Asian countries plus China, Japan, and South Korea, be deepened institutionally? Meanwhile, the region has seen the establishment of a new process, the East Asia Summit, involving the above 13 countries plus Australia, India, and New Zealand. How will these different arrangements contribute to East Asia's economic dynamism and prosperity as well as peace and political stability?     

Determinants of App Stores Continuance Behavior: A PLS Path Modelling Approach

Prior research has mostly examined the satisfaction, intention, and behavior of users toward technology and systems in general, and little research has been dedicated to understanding apps commerce and app stores. Drawing upon the extended model of IT continuance and theory of information overload as a theoretical foundation, the aim of this study is to examine consumer satisfaction, continuous intention, and behavior toward apps shopping. A total of 347 valid questionnaires were collected from experienced consumers with app stores to statistically test the theoretical model using the partial least squares path modelling approach, a structural equation modelling technique. The results show that apps self-efficacy, post-usage usefulness, disconfirmation, facilitating conditions, perceived information overload, apps satisfaction, and apps continuance intention can be used to predict and explain 75.7% of variance in consumer’s continuance behavior in using app stores. The negative and positive causal relationship between constructs, managerial implications, and limitations are discussed.     

Expert Judgments Regarding Risks Associated with Salmon Aquaculture Practices in British Columbia

Making sound decisions about managing ecological risks necessarily involves relying on judgments by technical specialists informed by the best available scientific evidence. Yet, organizing those judgments in ways to assess the relative risks of different components of a technology, and considering priorities in managing those risks, is a difficult and under‐explored aspect of environmental management. In this study, we elicited the judgments of scientists associated with the salmon aquaculture industry in British Columbia in order to learn their expert viewpoints of potential risks. This paper presents survey results regarding structured judgments provided by scientists engaged in studies associated with aquaculture or preserving wild stocks of Pacific salmon species. There were statistically significant differences regarding judgments of the risks of various current aquaculture practices on wild salmon stocks. It was possible to rank the means of scientific judgment scores to prioritize these risks. Differences in rankings were location and context specific.     

An assessment of the impact of watershed programmes on agricultural sustainability in Hamedan province,Iran

This paper assessed the effects of watershed programmes (WPs) on the sustainability of agro-ecosystems in Hamedan province, western Iran. This research was a causal–comparative study, and various techniques were used to collect data, such as survey data, archival data, observations, and face-to-face interviews with key informants. The causal–comparative method requires a comparison of agro-ecosystems with and without WPs. Therefore, a survey was conducted using a stratified random sampling to select 136 households in agro-ecosystems with and without WPs. Nine indicators were selected to evaluate sustainability. Significant differences were found between the two agro-ecosystems in biodiversity, soil quality management, hydrological processes, energy-use efficiency (EUE), access to public services, farm management practices, and social capital. No significant variation was found in the indicator of quality of life, even though that indicator was found to be slightly higher in the agro-ecosystem that had WPs. Results revealed that the agro-ecosystem with WPs, with the exception of the social capital, productivity, biodiversity, soil quality, EUE, farm management, and hydrological processes as well as access to public services had significantly higher values than the agro-ecosystem without WPs. Therefore, it can be concluded that despite WPs' positive impact on biodiversity, soil quality, hydrological processes, EUE, farm management, productivity, and access to public services, it had a negative impact on social capital. The findings suggest that WPs affected the agro-ecosystem by increasing the stability and economic viability of the agro-ecosystem and decreasing social dimensions. A new approach, including demand-driven WPs rather than supply-driven ones to cater to the specific needs of local people, was recommended for the promotion of the social acceptability of WPs.     

Investor Response to Cash Flow Information

In this study the usefulness of cash flow data as required by the UK standard, FRS1 , is evaluated and cash flow per share is investigated as a possible specification of cash flow data that may contain information value for security markets. Recent innovation in earnings response models are used to test the robustness of the results and provide further insights into the time series properties of cash flow numbers. The findings indicate that the disaggregation of cash flow as required under FRS1 contains information beyond aggregate cash flow but that the required disaggregation is not optimal from an information standpoint. There is little evidence of any incremental information value of cash flow per share over cash flow numbers.     

Indonesia's Crisis: Implications for the Region

What began as a currency crisis in Indonesia in the third quarter of 1997 rapidly turned into a deep financial crisis with wide-ranging economic and social impacts, and finally became a serious political crisis that exploded in May 1998, forcing President Soeharto to resign. Soeharto's departure, however, did not resolve the crisis. He left behind an economy in shambles, a serious political vacuum and a highly polarised society. The issues to be dealt with are wide-ranging, including the loss of Indonesia's position in the international system, the domination of industry by foreign capital and the imposition by the IMF of a certain model of economic development. Regional and international aspects of the crisis have not become an issue in the public debate and policy discourse in Indonesia. This article looks at these implications.