The Level and Persistence of Growth Rates

Expectations about long-term earnings growth are crucial to valuation models and cost of capital estimates. We analyze historical long-term growth rates across a broad cross section of stocks using several indicators of operating performance. We test for persistence and predictability in growth. While some firms have grown at high rates historically, they are relatively rare instances. There is no persistence in long-term earnings growth beyond chance, and there is low predictability even with a wide variety of predictor variables. Specifically, IBES growth forecasts are overly optimistic and add little predictive power. Valuation ratios also have limited ability to predict future growth.     

Industry work experience and inventive capacity of South African academic researchers

The inventive capacity of South African universities and researchers is investigated through analysis of university patent applications. Patent applications to the South African Patent office from 1996 to 2006 are used as an indicator of inventive capacity. The investigation determines, for the first time, patenting activities of local universities at the South African Patent Office for the past 10 years and it identifies the performance of faculties and departments. We suggest that patent analysis of local patent offices in developing countries provides a more comprehensive picture of inventive activity than the analyses in the main patent offices in USA and Europe.The assertion that industrial experience affects the inventiveness of academic staff is also investigated. The study finds that most inventors or co-inventors held at least one position in industry, or in some cases, specialized parastatals (non-university institutions) prior to patent application. The study supports the idea that experience and the professional trajectory of scientists through migration from industry to university leads to an increase of researchers’ scientific and technical human capital which is convertible into high performance or inventive capacity. We argue that this linkage is valid equally in developed and developing countries (like South Africa) and that universities internationally wishing to improve their entrepreneurial character should aim to employ academic with industrial prior experience.     

China＇s Pattern of Growth： Moving to Sustainability and Reducing Inequality

I. Introduction China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has averaged 9.4 percent per annum since1978. As a result of this impressive growth, millions of people were lifted out of poverty. Economic reforms implemented over the last 25 years have certainly been instrumental in the remarkable growth performance, leading to higher productivity growth than in the pre- reform period. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed that China’s growth during this period has been resource intensive, drawing…     

Technology and the creation of value in services: a conceptual model

In this paper, a model to visualize service delivery processes is proposed — mostly by pulling together concepts and relationships explored in varions functional areas. It is based on the notion of value chain and emphasizes the connectedness — both internal and external — of activity nodes. Productivity, service quality, job enlargement and enrichment and quality of worklife all hinge on how activities are grouped and on the nature and extent of interaction between nodes. Through its dual emphasis on internal and external client interfaces and on focused activity nodes, the model may be a useful tool for service and service delivery process (SDP) designers trying to explore new and innovative ways to compete. It may be of particular assistance in the defensive or proactive assessment of the most complex impacts of information technology.     

Is the Term Premium a Risk Premium?

This paper explores whether excess holding period returns on long vis-a-vis short-term securities behave in a manner that is consistent with (1) market efficiency, (2) the time-varying-term-premium variant of the expectations hypothesis, and (3) theories of the term premium that view it as a reward for risk bearing. Both traditional and modern theories of the term premium imply that it should evolve fairly slowly over time as attitudes toward risk and/or perceived covariances with wealth or consumption change. This implies that this period's term premium should have some predictive ability for next period's. However, we find that this quarter's ex-post term premium has zero predictive ability. For monthly rates and returns, the evidence is less clear cut, but again the implied term premia do not behave in a manner consistent with existing theories.     

Optimal insurance contracts when establishing the amount of losses is costly

The problem of establishing the amount of losses covered by public and private insurance is often characterized by asymmetric information, in which the claimant already knows the extent of a loss but this can be demonstrated to the insurer only at a cost. It is shown that a simple arrangement, which provides greater coverage whenever individuals demonstrate high losses, gives claimants an excessive incentive to establish the amount of their losses. This paper determines what insurance claims process, consistent with the form typically employed in existing insurance arrangements, is optimal.     

Competitive advantage the Toyota way

For a firm to experience long-term sustained competitive advantage it must invest in human resources and deploy its scarce assets in the core areas that can most effectively provide the underpinning of a sustained competitive advantage. Gary R Fane, M Reza Vaghefi, Cheryl Van Deusen and Louis A Woods say that Japanese car maker Toyota is a supreme example of a company that has done just that.     

An Algorithm for the Consistent Inclusion of Partial Information in the Revision of Input-Output Tables

TRAS is a natural extension of RAS that utilizes information in addition to row and column totals to produce updated matrices that are consistent with known cells and aggregates of known cells. This paper provides a simple restatement of the TRAS algorithm developed in Gilchrist & St. Louis (1999) and then tests its effectiveness by applying TRAS to the matrices obtained after RAS adjustments have been completed. The incremental gains from the TRAS adjustments were statistically significant.     

Global ranking of accounting programmes and the elite effect in accounting research

We provide a global ranking of accounting research and examine the elite degree and elite affiliation effect. Based on 24 accounting journals during the period 1991–2005, the top 5 most productive countries in accounting research are in the following order: the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong. We find a significant elite degree effect, indicating that authors who graduated from elite accounting programmes have a disproportionate share of publications in top‐notch journals. The same conclusion is also supported by the elite affiliation effect in which leading accounting journals have higher concentration of authors who are affiliated with elite institutions.