The relation between R&;D intensity and future market returns: does expensing versus capitalization matter?

The Australian accounting environment provides an ideal setting for examining the impact of different accounting treatments of firms’ R&D activities on their subsequent returns. Unlike US firms, which can only expense R&D, Australian GAAP permits firms to either expense or capitalize their R&D expenditure. We examine separately the market impact of the R&D intensity of all R&D active firms, ‘capitalizers’ and ‘expensers’. Our results suggest that firms with higher R&D intensity perform better, regardless of the accounting method used, consistent with the resource-based view of the firm. We also find some evidence that firms which expense R&D outperform those which capitalize R&D after controlling for R&D intensity.

Bank ownership and cost efficiency: New empirical evidence from Russia

This paper investigates the cost efficiency of Russian banks with regard to their heterogeneity in terms of ownership form, capitalization and asset structure. Using bank-level quarterly data over the period 2005–2013, we perform stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and compute cost efficiency scores at the bank and bank group levels. We deduct from gross costs the negative revaluations of foreign currency items generated by official exchange rate dynamics rather than by managerial decisions. The results indicate that the core state banks, as distinct from other state-controlled banks, were nearly as efficient as private domestic banks during and after the crisis of 2008–2009. Foreign banks appear to be the least efficient market participants in terms of costs, which might reflect their lower (and decreasing over time) penetration of the Russian banking system. We further document that the group ranking by cost efficiency is not permanent over time and depends on the observed differences in bank capitalization and asset structure. We find that foreign banks gain cost efficiency when they lend more to the economy. Core state banks, conversely, lead in terms of cost efficiency when they lend less to the economy, which can result from political interference in their lending decisions in favor of unprofitable projects Private domestic banks that maintain a lower capitalization significantly outperform foreign banks and do not differ from the core state banks in this respect.     

自然资源资本化研究

可持续发展是21世纪的主题。我国要实现可持续发展,就必须从自然资源和管理的现状出发,认真分析国情,改变现在的资源利用和管理方式,从根本上解决我国资源可持续利用问题,同时为实现国家对自然资源的所有权,必须要对自然资源进行资本化。     

School quality and housing prices: Empirical evidence from a natural experiment in Shanghai,China

The endogeneity of education quality and quantity accounts for difficulties in appropriately identifying the causal relationship between education and housing prices. To determine how education quality is capitalized into housing prices, we deal with endogeneity bias by employing a natural experiment occasioned by China’s education reforms. Based on monthly panel data for 52 residential areas in Shanghai, we conducted a natural experiment based on the exogenous designation of specific high-quality schools as Experimental Model Senior High Schools (EMSHS). Our natural experiment proved useful in analyzing how new information affected housing prices in China’s developing housing market. We found evidence that housing prices included allowances for these new EMSHS designations. In general, the presence of an additional EMSHS (of the best quality) per square kilometer increases housing prices by 17.1%. If one additional, previously non-designated high school is designated as EMSHS in a residential area, housing prices will be 6.9% higher.     

Futures markets and real estate public equity: Connectivity of lumber futures and Timber REITs

This paper investigates connectivity between lumber futures contracts, Timberland REITs, the FTSE NAREIT U.S. REIT index, spot prices, and timberland capitalization rates, and contributes to this tranche of research by empirically linking the price discovery process of Timberland Real Estate Investment Trusts to lumber futures. We employ VEC and GARCH models, providing evidence that lumber futures have a positive significant long- and short-run equilibrium relationship with publicly traded Timber REIT prices, connecting a specific futures commodity with its theoretically entwined real estate equity index. As such, exogenous factors that influence Timber REIT prices are documented leading to possible diversification/risk reduction strategies.     

Accounting for expenditure on software development for internal use

The methods accepted by Australian, International, U.S. and U.K. Accounting Standards for the treatment of expenditure on software development are inconsistent, and permissive. A host of methods for recording capitalized software in terms of those standards is identified by reference to an illustrative case study. It is questionable whether many in-house developed software applications satisfy the professionally endorsed definition of 'asset'. Moreover, even if accounting standards significantly reduce the range of options for capitalizing expenditure on software development, there would still be many values which could be assigned to capitalized software. That suggests that those 'measures' are not reliable, so that it would be inappropriate initially to recognize software expenditure as an 'asset'. It is contended that expensing all outlays on software development as they are incurred (accompanied by reporting that expenditure as a line item in statements of financial performance, and expanded disclosures in notes) is likely to provide a clearer and more useful report on business operations than the alternative of capitalization, amortization and subsequent assessments of whether or not recorded values should be adjusted for 'impairment'.     

浅谈资本弱化及其税制

资本弱化既是一个国际问题也是一个国内问题。造成资本弱化的原因有经济发展的不平衡、制度的缺陷和差异以及经济人的功利性等。综合诸多因素,笔者认为我国应建立相对完备的资本弱化税制,但应暂缓在中西部地区执行。     

民族文化资本化的政府政策创新——以广西百色为例

丰富独特的民族资源要转化为现实的生产力,需要政府政策的保驾护航。政府的产业政策对文化资本化的健康发展具有重要的作用。本文在对百色民族文化资本化现状和存在问题进行分析的基础上,又对推动百色民族文化资本化发展的政策现状和存在问题进行了分析,从而提出了加强百色民族文化资本化政策创新的几点建议。     

财富资本化的新视角——基于供给锁定型市场结构研究

新的财富观将财富的内涵拓展为投资以获取未来收益。本文在新的财富观念下,基于供给锁定型的市场结构,阐述投资品价格的运动机理及特征。并对处于供给锁定型市场结构当中的投资品从政府、投资者个人以及其他市场参与者等几个角度给出了规避和控制财富资本化风险的建议。     

An Actuarial Analysis of Participating Life Insurance

An actuarial model is developed to reveal the intrinsic nature of participating life insurance. The basic safe-side criterion is examined. It is established how the first-order prospective net premium reserve includes safety margins or bonus loadings, and it is demonstrated how the bonus loadings are currently released. It is demonstrated how surplus may be distributed and accumulated as a terminal bonus in an equitable way. The level premium is divided into a variable recurrent single premium and a variable natural premium, and an alternative to the prospective net premium reserve is examined. A capitalization of future safety margins or bonus loadings, which are related to past premiums and the paid-up benefit, may allow the insurance company a considerable increase in investment freedom. The theory is illustrated by numerical results.