Sediment flux from Lesser Zab River in Dokan Reservoir: Implications for the sustainability of long‐term water resources in Iraq

Prudent management of Iraqi water resources under climate change conditions requires plans to be based on actual figures of the storage capacity of existing reservoirs. With the absence of sediment flushing measures, the actual storage capacity of Dokan Reservoir (operated since 1959) has been affected by the amount of sediment delivered during its operational life leading to an undetermined reduction in its storage capacity. In consequence, there has not been an update on the dam's operational storage capacity curves. In this research, new operational curves were established for the reservoir based on a recent bathymetric survey undertaken in 2014. The reduction in reservoir capacity during the period between 1959 and 2014 was calculated by the mean of the difference between the designed storage capacity and the storage capacity which was concluded from the 2014 bathymetric survey. Moreover, the rate of sediment transported to the reservoir was calculated based on the overall quantities of accumulated sediment and the water discharge of the Lesser Zab River into the reservoir. The results indicate that the dam capacity is reduced by 25% due to sedimentation of an estimated volume of 367 million cubic metres at water level 480 m.a.s.l. The annual sedimentation rate was about 6.6 million cubic metres, and the sediment yield was estimated to be 701.2 t?km^?3?year.     

Evidence on the efficacy of interest-rate risk disclosures by commercial banks

This paper documents evidence on the efficacy of maturity-gap disclosures of commercial banks in indicating their net interest income that is exposed to interest-rate risk. For the large sample of banks that filed call reports from 1990 to 1997, a period that includes a wide range of interest rate movements, we find that (i) one-year maturity gap measures are significantly related to the one-year- and three-years-ahead change in net interest income, (ii) fixed-rate and variable-rate instruments differ in explanatory ability, and (iii) the one-to-five-year aggregate gap measures also have some power in explaining three-year-ahead changes in net interest income. These findings hold after controlling for the ex post growth in assets as well as the amount of rate-sensitive assets and liabilities (a competing set of explanatory variables). Because the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s [Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), (1997). Disclosure of accounting policies for derivative financial instruments and derivative commodity instruments and disclosure of qualitative and quantitative information about market risk inherent in derivative financial instruments, other financial instruments, and derivative commodity instruments. Release Nos. 33-7386; 3438223; IC-22487; FR-48; International Series No. 1047; File No. S7-35-95 (January 31, 1997), Washington, DC] tabular disclosures are finer than maturity-gap data, our findings mitigate concerns about the usefulness of the SEC's market-risk-disclosure requirements. Furthermore, they suggest contrary to the claims of certain banks that the omission of prepayment and early withdrawal risk from gap measures does not totally compromise the ability of gap data to indicate interest-risk exposures.     

Déjà Vu: The Effect of Executives and Directors with Prior Banking Crisis Experience on Bank Outcomes around the Global Financial Crisis

We investigate the effect of executives and directors with prior banking crisis experience on bank outcomes around the global financial crisis (GFC). Executives and directors with previous experience leading banks through a bank crisis may have been uniquely able to understand the risks, recognize the warnings signs early, and thus respond more effectively to the GFC. Controlling for other executive, director, and bank‐level characteristics, we examine whether bank performance, risk taking, and accounting quality in the period immediately before and during the GFC are affected by having executives or directors who previously served as bank executives or directors during the 1980s/1990s banking crisis (80s/90s crisis). Overall, we find that banks led by these crisis‐experienced executives and directors exhibit stronger performance, lower risk taking, and higher accounting quality in the period around the GFC. These effects are strongest among bank leaders for whom the 80s/90s crisis was most salient. Results are robust to propensity‐matched samples and other analyses performed to rule out alternative explanations. Our results suggest these individuals were able to learn from prior crisis experience.     

Does insurance‐growth nexus hold for Malaysia?

The study investigates the impact of insurance activities on economic growth in Malaysia over the period 1990–2015. Combined cointegration in the presence of identified structural breaks was used to confirm the existence of long‐run relationships among economic growth, insurance activities, human capital, physical capital, and industrial production. The findings indicate feedback effects between insurance activities and economic growth in the long run. The study provides new insights for policymaking to enhance economic growth via insurance activities.     

Reforming the Urban Water Supply and Sanitation (UWSS) Sector in Yemen

In the early 1990s, Yemen suffered from low service coverage and national tariffs that were too low to cover public expenditure, as well as an inadequate level of service provided by the centralized National Water and Sanitation Authority. In 1996, a reform study recommended that the UWSS sector should embrace a policy of decentralization, corporatization, commercialization, the separation of service delivery and regulatory functions, as well as public-private partnerships. The government approved this reform agenda as a Council of Ministers Decree in 1997. Awareness campaigns and consensus-building among stakeholders and political leaders and local demand supported the reform process. Currently, 95% of the total urban population related to utility towns is attended by independent utilities.     

How costly is the Sarbanes Oxley Act? Evidence on the effects of the Act on corporate profitability

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was intended to protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures. However, critics have argued that the costs of SOX far outweigh its intended benefits. Prior studies based on stock-price reactions to SOX-related events document mixed evidence on the expected impact of SOX. In contrast, we provide evidence on the net realized costs of SOX by examining its impact on operating profitability. We find that average cash flows decline by 1.3% of total assets after SOX. These costs are more significant for smaller firms, for more complex firms, and for firms with lower-growth opportunities. Annually, these costs range from $6 million for smaller firms to $39 million for larger firms. Further, we document that net SOX-related costs are not limited to one-time expenses associated with internal-control design and implementation. In aggregate, for the 1428 firms in our sample, these costs amount to about $19 billion per year. Profitability is lower for up to four years post-SOX. To our knowledge, ours are the first estimates of the realized net costs imposed by SOX.     

Scales of measurements: An introduction and a selected bibliography

Stevens' (1946) distinctions among nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio measurements have had a marked influence on researchers of social, psychological and statistical sciences. This paper reviews those distinctions and includes some comments concerning the applicability of different statistical techniques to each scale. A detailed bibliography is also provided.On study leave from Department of Statistics, University of Karachi, Karachi-32, Pakistan.     

Public-Private Partnership in the Water Supply and Sanitation Sector: The Experience of the Republic of Yemen

The objective of this paper is to provide information on the institutional development of the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector in Yemen, its achievements, challenges and constraints. In 1997 the government of Yemen approved its water supply and sanitation reform agenda in the form of a Council of Ministers decree and since then the implementation of the reform agenda has started with technical and financial assistance from Germany, the Netherlands, the World Bank and other donors in addition to the contribution from the government of Yemen. The main principles of the reform agenda are these: the separation of the executive from the regulatory functions; decentralization of service provision and corporatization through the establishment of autonomous WSS corporations; the establishment of a regulatory agency; capacity building and human resources development; and public-private partnership (PPP). This paper gives a summary of what has been achieved in the implementation of the reform agenda in general and concentrates on the pilot case of the first PPP initiative in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen. The paper takes us through the stages of PPP option study right through to the preparation of the request for proposals, which was completed in August 2002.     

An empirical analysis of the effects of monitoring intensity on the relation between equity incentives and earnings management

Prior studies suggest that equity incentives inherently have both an interest alignment effect and an opportunistic financial reporting effect. Using three distinct proxies for earnings management we find evidence consistent with the incentive alignment (opportunistic financial reporting) effect of equity incentives increasing as monitoring intensity increases (decreases). Furthermore, using the accrual-based earnings management and meet/beat analyst forecast models we find that the opportunistic financial reporting effect of equity incentives dominates the incentive alignments effect for firms with low monitoring intensity. Using proxies for real earnings management, we find that the incentive alignment effect dominates the opportunistic financial reporting effect for high and moderate monitoring intensity firms. However, for low monitoring intensity firms the opportunistic reporting effect mitigates, but does not completely offset, the benefits of the incentive alignment effect. Overall, these findings are consistent with the level of monitoring affecting the relation between equity incentives and earnings management.