The Influence of Board Composition on Sustainable Development Disclosure

Despite knowing the potential effect of social reporting on firms' continuity, there is limited research into the influence of the composition of boards of directors on CSR disclosure. This paper adds to the emerging CSR literature empirical evidence by examining how board composition relates to a firm's social and environmental disclosure as well as the implementation of social policies. Using a sample of FTSE 350 firms for the period 2007–2012, the results show that higher board independence facilitates the conveying of firms' good citizenship image through enhancing societal conscience. The results also show that female participation on boards is favorably affecting CSR engagement and reporting as well as the establishment of ethical policies. Hence, the research suggests that boards with higher female participation and independence boost the legitimacy of CSR reporting. Board gender diversity and independence facilitates directing part of the firm's scarce resources toward value maximizing social projects and subsequent reporting on these. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Corporate commitment to climate change action,carbon risk exposure,and a firm's debt financing policy

Motivated by the rising consensus that corporate engagement in climate change actions holds the key for society's transition into environmentally resilient economy, the study examines whether a firm's commitment to climate change action and its carbon risk exposure shape the firm's debt financing policy. Based on insights drawn from signaling, corporate reputation, and agency theories, we develop models that link corporate commitment to climate change actions and a firm's carbon risk exposure with its debt financing decisions. Using data drawn from S&P 500 companies, for years 2015 to 2019, we find a robust evidence that firms that engage in higher levels of commitment to climate change actions issue a higher proportion of debt with longer terms to maturity, even after controlling for their carbon risk exposure. However, we do not find a robust evidence corroborating an association between firms' carbon risk exposure and their debt financing policy. These findings are consistent with arguments that high-commitment firms enjoy positive reputation, better credit rating, and reduced agency and information asymmetry costs, allowing them to gain easier access to long-term debt markets.     

A gossip based information fusion protocol for distributed frequent itemset mining

The computational complexity, huge memory space requirement, and time-consuming nature of frequent pattern mining process are the most important motivations for distribution and parallelization of this mining process. On the other hand, the emergence of distributed computational and operational environments, which causes the production and maintenance of data on different distributed data sources, makes the parallelization and distribution of the knowledge discovery process inevitable. In this paper, a gossip based distributed itemset mining (GDIM) algorithm is proposed to extract frequent itemsets, which are special types of frequent patterns, in a wireless sensor network environment. In this algorithm, local frequent itemsets of each sensor are extracted using a bit-wise horizontal approach (LHPM) from the nodes which are clustered using a leach-based protocol. Heads of clusters exploit a gossip based protocol in order to communicate each other to find the patterns which their global support is equal to or more than the specified support threshold. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the best existing gossip based algorithm in term of execution time.     

Vicarious warfare and dynamic efficiency of companies in the aerospace and defence industry

This study explores the economic performance that vicarious warfare can bring for the aerospace and defence industry. First, this study measures the performance of 22 companies using a nonradial dynamic data envelopment analysis model from 2011 to 2017. Second, this study evaluates whether vicarious warfare can influence the performance. The efficiency analysis suggests rooms for improvements meanwhile, the projection analysis suggests that market value should be significantly increased, and the number of employees should be reduced significantly. The regression analysis suggests that the number of times a country takes a side in wars would positively affect the efficiency of companies.     

The Role of U.S. Market on International Risk‐Return Tradeoff Relations

We study the intertemporal risk‐return tradeoff relations based on returns from 18 international markets. We find striking new empirical evidence that the inclusion of U.S. market returns significantly changes the estimated risk‐return tradeoff relations in international markets from mostly negative to predominantly positive. Our results are consistent with the lead‐lag effect between U.S. and international markets in the sense of Rapach, Strauss and Zhou.     

How successfully China has applied the OECD principles of corporate governance: a critical assessment

This paper attempts to critically analyze how successful China has been in applying the OECD principles of corporate governance. In doing so, assessment has been made in light of the six core issues of the OECD principles. A satisfactory level of progress has been noted in China’s legal and regulatory framework since the 1990s. New laws, regulations, and rules have been enacted, existing ones have been amended, and all the required institutions have been built accordingly in order to ensure good corporate governance practices in the country. However, there are still bottlenecks in terms of the enforcement of these laws, regulations, and rules mainly due to the various structural limitations in the Chinese administration and judiciary. The paper argues that China should now move forward with an accelerated enforcement agenda in the area of corporate governance in order to make China Inc. more competitive and sustainable.     

Bayesian and Bühlmann credibility for phase-type distributions with a univariate risk parameter

Credibility theory is a statistical tool to calculate the premium for the next period based on past claims experience and the manual rate. Each contract is characterized by a risk parameter. A phase-type (or PH) random variable, which is defined as the time until absorption in a continuous-time Markov chain, is fully characterized by two sets of parameters from that Markov chain: the initial probability vector and transition intensity matrix. In this article, we identify an interpretable univariate risk parameter from amongst the many candidate parameters, by means of uniformization. The resulting density form is then expressed as an infinite mixture of Erlang distributions. These results are used to obtain a tractable likelihood function by a recursive formula. Then the best estimator for the next premium, i.e. the Bayesian premium, as well as its approximation by the Bühlmann credibility premium are calculated. Finally, actuarial calculations for the Bühlmann and Bayesian premiums are investigated in the context of a gamma prior, and illustrated by simulated data in a series of examples.     

Sustainable resource use,economic development,and public regulation

The role of production technology for sustainable economic growth and resource management in the multispecies renewable resources industries is a neglected issue, particularly in complex tropical ecosystems. Given the still rudimentary understanding of biological interactions among species, even in most temperate ecosystems, the importance of under-standing the technological and economic interactions is heightened for sustainable economic growth and public regulation. This paper evaluates these interactions for the multiproduct gill net fisheries of Peninsular Malaysia. Standard price and quantity controls may have little promise. Gear regulations, a policy of constant escapement, and managing the entire mix of species as a single stock for economic rather than biomass yield appear the most promising management tools given the limited regulatory options.     

A comparative performance of conventional and Islamic unit trusts: Market timing and persistence evidence

It is expected that the returns and resistance of Islamic mutual funds will be different from conventional mutual funds as the former have limited choices for portfolio diversification. This article analyses the performance of conventional and Islamic unit trusts for the period February 1995 to July 2012 in the Malaysian market, one of the most developed Islamic mutual fund markets. The performance analysis is based on four parameters: (i) risk-adjusted returns of unit trusts; (ii) market timing abilities; (iii) selection performance; and (iv) persistence. The results of this study suggest that the returns of both conventional and Islamic unit trusts have outperformed the market throughout the sample period. The results for market timing and selectivity are mostly the same for both categories of funds. However, Islamic unit trusts seem to have better resistance to market downturn than conventional unit trusts. The results of this research can be used by investors to identify funds or create portfolios that are more suitable for a recessionary scenario and for fund managers to better manage their portfolio performance during times when markets are likely to fall. The findings in this article are highly relevant for policymakers, investors and fund managers to determine policy matters, deciding on investment and marketing strategy for Islamic mutual funds.