How different is Japanese corporate finance? An investigation of the information content of new security issues

This article studies the shareholder wealth effects associatedwith 875 new security issues in Japan from January 1, 1985,to May 31, 1991. The announcement of convertible debt issueshas a significant positive abnormal return of 1.05 percent.There is an abnormal return of 0.45 percent at the announcementof equity issues that is off-set by an abnormal return of 1.01percent on the issue day. Abnormal returns are negatively relatedto firm size, so that large Japanese firms have abnormal returnsless different from those of U.S. firms than small Japanesefirms. Our evidence is consistent with the view that Japanesemanagers decide to issue shares based on different considerationsthan American managers.     

Indonesia'S Rapid Economic Growth: 1968–81

The paper provides some estimates of the sources of Indonesia's rapid growth in the period 1968–81. This rapid growth was partly due to the improvement in the terms of trade, especially because the improvement in the financial position of government raised the investment rate. But part of it was also due to a high rate of technical progress, especially in agriculture, and to the expansionary domestic fiscal policy of government.     

Book Reviews

Richard Higgott and Richard Robison (eds), Southeast Asia: Essays in the Political Economy of Structural Change, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985. £18.00 (cloth)

John Wong, The Political Economy of China's Changing Relations with Southeast Asia, London: Macmillan Press, 1984, pp. xvi + 246.

Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, Perdagangan dan Industri dalam Pembangunan [Trade and Industry in Development], Jakarta: LP3ES, 1985, pp. 133.Thee Kian Wie

Masyarakat Indonesia, 12(3), Jakarta: LIPI, December, 1985. Special issue edited by Thee Kian Wie, entitled 'Kaitan-Kaitan Vertikal Antar-perusahaan dan Pengembangan Sistem Subkontraktor di Indonesia: Beberapa Studi Kasus' [Vertical Linkages between Firms and the Development of the Subcontracting System in Indonesia: Several Case Studies].

D. B. G. Denoon, Devaluation under Pressure: India, Indonesia and Ghana, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1986, pp. xi + 260. US$28.75

John W. Mellor and Gunvant M. Desai (eds). Agricultural Change and Rural Poverty, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, pp. xix + 233. US$27.45.

'Indonesia's Transmigration Programme: A Special Report', The Ecologist, Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 1986. £4.00