Awareness of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks' Dangers: Role of Internet Pricing Mechanisms

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks consist of overwhelming a server, a network or a Web site in order to paralyze its normal activity. The additional parameter in Distributed Denial of Service (DdoS) attacks is the distributing strategy. It means that DDoS attacks do not come from a single computer but stem from all accessible channels and servers. Consequences are multiple, ranging from system errors, temporary inability to access the Web site for normal users to challenging the actual reliability of the Internet. Despite this, Internet users show carelessness. The explanation lies in the specificities of DDoS attacks. We explore possibilities to raise users' awareness about the actual amplitude of problems caused by DDoS attacks. We suggest a careful examination of Internet pricing mechanisms and switching from flat to usage-constraining pricing schemes.     

Operations of a Pension Fund after the Asian Crisis: The Thai Experience*

During and after the Asian crisis, institutional investors and pension funds in Asian financial markets have been confronted with a number of difficulties effecting their performance and the way they carry out their role within the national pension system. We analyze these problems by comparing the actual investment policy of an institutional investor with an optimal investment strategy derived from the insights of modern portfolio theory. We also analyze whether the organizational set‐up of a pension fund allows it to adequately perform its role within the pension system. As an example, we examine the operations of the Thai Government Pension Fund (GPF). We find that allowing international investments and reducing restrictions on equity investments while lowering the implicit requirements for investments in government debt would allow the GPF to further diversify its investment risk and to increase its risk‐adjusted return. We also show that some changes in the governance structure of the GPF would lower the occurrence of conflicts of interest for the management and increase the efficiency of the GPF operations.     

China＇s Social Security： Case Studies of the Interest Groups and Policy Monopoly

This section introduces an asymmetric information model to analyze the interest groups and policy monopoly in social security management, mainly focusing on the relation between the interest groups in the social security products market and the social security government institutions at the central level, namely the major social security policy makers.     

虚拟财务管理研究

为了适应全球经济一体化的新形势，使财务管理满足国际化的要求，文章提出了虚拟财务管理概念，阐述了虚拟财务管理的特点及其与传统财务管理的区别，论述了虚拟财务管理的基本内容，分析了实现虚拟财务管理存在的障碍和困难并提出了改进建议。     

Initial Public Offerings: CFO Perceptions

We examine four issues pertaining to initial public offerings (IPOs) using a survey of 438 chief financial officers (CFOs). First, why do firms go public? Second, is CFO sentiment stationary across bear and bull markets? Third, what concerns CFOs about going public? Fourth, do CFO perceptions correlate with returns? Results support funding for growth and liquidity as the primary reasons for IPOs. CFO sentiment is generally stationary in pre‐ and post‐bubble years. Managers are concerned with the direct costs of going public, such as underwriting fees, as well as indirect costs. We find a negative relation between a focus on immediate growth and long‐term abnormal returns.     

The mean-variance investment problem in a constrained financial market

This paper extends the mean-variance analysis and the two-fund separation theorem to a market with some constraints, such as, the incompleteness, prohibition of short-selling, and partial information, with stochastic interest rate, and with stochastic volatility for risky assets. By maximizing a quadratic utility of terminal wealth, we show that the efficient frontier for the problem is a straight line in the mean-standard-deviation diagram. The quadratic utility function exhibits mean-variance efficiency. Our results apply to portfolios of claims in a single period, multiperiod, and continuous time.     

公司财务控制机理:一个基于制度博弈的分析

财务控制的目标是对出资者和经营者之间形成的代理契约的冲突进行管理和协调.以出资者与经营者的制度博弈模型为分析基础,可以清楚表明财务控制机理特征:首先,财务控制本身具有的制度成本(控制成本)是制约控制成效的关键因素;其次,财务控制作为一种制度安排,应具备使经营者违背代理契约的外部成本内部化的功能;最后,财务控制本质是一种契约安排,是出资者和经营者之间多次动态博弈的结果,因此需要不断进行修正完善.     

Are recent segment disclosures of Japanese firms useful?: Views of Japanese financial analysts

Since 1990, the Japanese Ministry of Finance (MOF) has required Japanese firms to disclose segment data in annual financial statements. Using a survey instrument, we examine whether Japanese analysts find these segment disclosures to be useful. Our study finds that analysts perceive that segment data aid them in forecasting consolidated sales and net income. However, results also show that analysts are concerned that Japanese firms do not define segments meaningfully and consistently and are arbitrary in the allocation of common costs. Further, the analysts do not believe that the usefulness of segment data improves when it is audited. These results have implications for investors in Japanese stocks and accounting policy bodies, such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).     

英国养老保险制度浅析

英国是世界上最早建立社会保障制度的国家之一。英国建立的多层次养老体系以及一直贯彻的“普遍性”原则、“最低”原则和“个人责任”原则，值得我们这样一个发展中的经济转型国家研究和借鉴。