Determinants of housing price volatility in Canada: a dynamic analysis

This article tries to identify the determinants of housing price volatility and to examine the dynamic effects of these determinants on volatility using quarterly data for Canada. The Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (GARCH) and the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models have been employed to analyse possible time variation of the housing price volatility and the interactions between the volatility and the key macroeconomic variables. We find the evidence of time varying housing price volatility for Canada. Our VAR, Granger causality and variance decomposition (VDC) analyses demonstrate that housing price volatility is affected significantly by gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, housing price appreciation rate and inflation. On the other hand, volatility affects GDP growth rate, housing price appreciation and volatility itself. The impulse response analysis reveals the asymmetric of the positive and negative shocks. The findings of this article have important implications, particularly for those seeking to develop derivatives for housing market prices.     

Implementation and challenges of introducing NPM and accrual accounting in Indonesian local government

This article provides insights into the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) practices in Indonesia, including the introduction of an accrual accounting system for local government. The adoption of NPM practices was part of political, economic and public sector reforms introduced after 1998. The article discusses the background and obstacles to the reforms and the nature of the accrual accounting system adopted by Indonesian local government.

Finally, the authors make recommendations for policy-makers in Indonesia and other developing nations.     

Outsourcing: National‐ and firm‐level implications

As the pace of outsourcing has continued to accelerate, so too has interest in the topic on the part of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. Despite this increasing interest, there remains a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the outsourcing phenomenon. In particular, its effects on organizations and nations remain the subject of intense debate. In this commentary, we address this topic by discussing what constitutes outsourcing, public policy concerns about outsourcing, governmental responses to outsourcing, and a variety of firm‐level issues related to outsourcing. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Relationship Between Ethical Reasoning and the Perception of Difficulty with Ethical Dilemmas in Pharmacy Students: Implications for Teaching Professional Ethics

Teaching Business Ethics - The pharmacy profession, as is the case with much of health carein the United States, is undergoing a paradigm change from a profession that hashistorically emphasized...     

Ethical Cognition and Selection-Socialization in Retail Pharmacy

There is a great deal of support for the contention that the ethical cognition of health care professionals are of consequence to the level of patient care provided. The present study examines the ethical cognition of what has traditionally been deemed a profession of incomplete or marginal status: the retail, or community, pharmacy setting. An empirical examination of ethical cognition compares a systematic random sample of retail pharmacists with pharmacy students. Additional comparisons are made with a baseline of ethical cognition abilities of other health care professionals, such as physicians and nurses.Based on cognitive-developmental theory and using a well-known measure of ethical reasoning, two hypotheses are explored regarding the ethical reasoning skills of retail pharmacy practitioners and pharmacy students. Results indicate that, contrary to cognitive moral development theory, students possess greater ethical reasoning skills than do their practitioner counterparts. In addition, baseline comparisons with other health professional groups reflect unfavorably on the retail pharmacists. It is suggested that the selection-socialization processes inherent in the retail pharmacy setting may result in one or more of the following outcomes: 1) the selection of lower ethical reasoners to the community pharmacy setting, 2) the exodus to other pharmacy settings of higher reasoners, and 3) a possible retrogression in the ethical cognition of community practitioners. Implications for retail practice and limitations are discussed.     

Financial integration, capital mobility, and income convergence

Recent studies have found that capital moves 'uphill' from poor to rich countries, and brings little or no growth dividend when it does flow into poor economies. We show that Europe does not conform to this paradigm. In the European experience of financial integration, capital has flown from rich to poor countries, and such inflows have been associated with significant acceleration of income convergence. Analysing broader samples of countries, we find that 'downhill' capital flows tend to be observed above certain thresholds in institutional quality and financial integration. But Europe remains different even when allowing for such threshold effects, and its experience is similar to that of interstate flows within the United States. Our findings are consistent with the notion that financial diversification reduces countries' incentives to save in order to self-insure against specific shocks.
— Abdul Abiad, Daniel Leigh and Ashoka Mody     

A theory and contractual framework of Islamic micro-financial institutions’ operations

Microfinance is seen as a ‘new paradigm’ for bringing about development and eradicating poverty. Many studies prove that the provision of small amounts of credit to the poor is crucial in this new paradigm. However, these studies mainly focus on the conventional microfinance institutions (MFIs) which have already existed for a couple of decades. Their role in helping the poor to achieve higher income and higher standards of living has been well recognized. Currently, there are quite a few MFIs that are operating based on Islamic principles. Although a few studies have been conducted on this subject, the literature lacks a comprehensive theoretical framework to describe the Islamic microfinance institutions (IMFIs). This article explores the contractual framework in modelling the IMFIs, on the one hand, and discusses the role of IMFIs via various modes of financing in providing capital to micro-enterprises, on the other.     

The Subjective Valuation of Indexed Stock Options and Their Incentive Effects

We analyze the potential role of indexed stock options in future pay‐for‐performance executive compensation contracts. We present a unified framework for index‐linked stock options, discuss their incentive effects, argue that indexation schemes based on the capital‐asset pricing model (CAPM) are the most suitable for executive compensation, and derive a subjective pricing model for the class of CAPM‐based indexed stock options. Contrary to earlier work, executives would not be motivated to take on investment projects with high idiosyncratic risk once their lack of wealth diversification and degree of risk aversion are factored into the analysis.     

Facets of Type A personality and pay increase among the employees of fast food restaurants

Employee satisfaction continues to be a key to an understanding of relatively high turnover rates within the hospitality industry. The present study explores the personality characteristics of employees who receive pay increases in the restaurant industry. One of the two facets of Type A personality ‘achievement striving’ was found to be positively related to all three measures of pay increases but the other facet ‘impatience and irritability’ was not related. The implications of the findings for selection, retention and motivation of restaurant employees are discussed.