Judgements of significant influence by financial controllers

This study examines the judgement processes of New Zealand financial controllers when determining whether an investor is capable of exercising significant influence over an investee. The results of this study provide evidence that the “20% interest” threshold is the most important factor in these judgement processes. Further, the results indicate a high degree of inter-subject consensus and intra-subject consistency and self-insight which could be attributed to the high weight given to the “20% interest” threshold. Although the “20% interest” threshold is often criticised for being arbitrary, the results of this study suggest that the use of this cut-off as a judgement cue may help achieve greater consistency and comparability in financial reporting.     

An individual level analysis of the mutual fund investment decision

This study investigates the manner in which consumers make investment decisions for mutual funds. Investors report that they consider many nonperformance related variables. When investors are grouped by similarity of investment decision process, a single small group appears to be highly knowledgeable about its investments. However, most investors appear to be naive, having little knowledge of the investment strategies or financial details of their investments. Implications for mutual fund companies are discussed.     

ICT governance: South Africa

Formal ICT governance structures exist although the efficacy of both the regulator and parliamentary oversight committee remain contentious. On the other hand, the Minister of Communications exercises a strong policy oversight that is viewed as not leading to the envisaged growth in competition and investment in the sector. Consumer protection is also weak.     

GARCH inadequacy for modelling exchange rates: empirical evidence from Latin America

This article checks for the adequacy of using GARCH models in exchange rate series. Using the Hinich portmanteau bicorrelation test, we find that a GARCH formulation or any of its variants fails to capture the data generating process of the main Latin American exchange rates. Our results highlight the potential of having misleading public policy when estimates are based in GARCH types of models. This article also complements recent similar findings encountered in European and Asian economies.     

Intra-school competition and student achievement

Within the economics of education literature, numerous studies have investigated the relationship between educational market competition and educational achievement. Educational market competition has been defined as either the availability of vouchers within a community or the number of schools or school districts within the relevant market structure. While these studies have shown that increases in inter-district competition result in increased student achievement, no studies, to our knowledge, have yet investigated the effect of intra-school competition on student achievement. Within this study, a measure of intra-school competition is developed and the findings indicate that increased intra-school competition leads to increased student achievement.     

The Dark Side of International Cross‐Listing: Effects on Rival Firms at Home

We analyse the stock price impact of firms' US cross‐listing on home‐market rival firms. Using an empirical event study approach we find negative cumulative average abnormal returns for the rival firms around both the listing and announcement of listing dates. The evidence suggests both positive and negative spillover effects on rival firms, where the dominant effect is that investors see rivals at a relative disadvantage to the cross‐listing firm. As firms cross‐list in the US and commit to the increased disclosure and investor protection associated with the US listing, they are better able to take advantage of growth opportunities relative to their non cross‐listing counterparts, and this results in negative spillover effects on rival firms. Our results are consistent with the idea that firms cross‐list as a means to reduce agency costs of controlling shareholders and thus are able to exploit growth opportunities as they have better access to external finance.     

The new nurse manager: partner in managing costs and quality

Today's nurse manager is a leader in the 1990s health care delivery system. Collaborating with managers throughout the organization, the nurse manager calls upon skills and advanced education to carry out functions in the areas of clinical systems management, human resource management, environmental management, and financial management. This article describes this health care management role and presents case studies where collaboration with other disciplines was successful.     

Exchange rate management in emerging markets: Intervention via an electronic limit order book

This paper describes and analyzes the implementation of a crawling exchange rate band on an electronic trading platform. The placement of limit orders at the central bank's target rate serves as a credible policy statement that may coordinate beliefs of market participants. We find for our sample that intervention increases exchange rate volatility (and spread) for the next minutes but that intervention days show a lower degree of volatility (and spread) than non-intervention days. We also show for intraday data that the price impact of interbank order flow is smaller on intervention days than on non-intervention days. These stabilizing effects, however, rely on the conditions of large currency reserves and the existence of capital controls; an electronic market seems to support this goal.     

Which Single Currency for Western Europe?

The Maastricht Treaty calls for a single European money in the third and final stage of European monetary integration. The purpose of this paper is to infer the preferred currency from the point of view of economic agents in each EMS country by ranking the realized distributions of returns from holding foreign currencies. These rankings are obtained using the notion of generalized stochastic dominance. The preferred currency varies with time and the portfolio considered. In all cases, the ECU is not supported as a likely dominant money.