Reconciling Alternative Theories for the Safety of Owner–Operators

Motor carrier safety is an important concern of shippers, carriers, policy makers, consignees, insurance providers, and the motoring public. One aspect of carrier safety that has garnered substantial attention is whether carriers making greater use of owner–operators are more or less safe vis‐à‐vis carriers making greater use of employee drivers. Currently, conflicting theoretical predictions exist regarding the direction of this relationship. In this article, we offer a reconciliation of the alternative theoretical predictions by developing a coherent theory that merges sociological rational choice theory and theory regarding motor carrier safety. We subject our theory to empirical testing by fitting a series of seemingly unrelated regression models to a vector of safety measures tracked as part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, and Accountability program. Our results are consistent with our proposed theory of owner—operator safety and provide meaningful theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.     

How do economic policy uncertainty and geopolitical risk drive Bitcoin volatility?

We investigate how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risks (GPR) impact Bitcoin volatility with respect to factors related to type and nationality of uncertainty, investigated period, relationship horizon and extreme conditions. Applying ARDL model and quantile regression for monthly data from August 2010 to September 2021, we reveal that June 2014 corresponds to a key date that marks a reversal in the investigated relationship. Furthermore, we show that the relationship between uncertainty and bitcoin volatility changes according to different factors. US uncertainty has short run effects on Bitcoin volatility, while China’s uncertainty has rather long run effects. Moreover, Bitcoin volatility responds in the same manner to US EPU and GPR, while, it responds differently to China's EPU and GPR. In extreme quantiles, we find that Bitcoin hedges against US EPU and GPR. Further, Bitcoin hedges against either individual or joint effects of US uncertainty, but not both.     

Residents’ perceptions of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games

This study examines the perceptions of local residents prior to the 2014 Sochi Olympic and Paralympic Games. A survey conducted amongst residents, 5 months prior to the Games opening, reveals a lower level of support for the Games during the preparation period compared to other Olympic host cities. Socio-demographic data about the residents help explain the varying attitudes towards the Games that were identified. The conclusions suggest that Sochi residents’ perceptions have been largely influenced by their thoughts regarding potential economic and socio-cultural impacts, whether positive or negative. When these opinions are analysed further, three main considerations were found: (1) impacts on urban development and quality of residential life; (2) positive impacts on tourism and the destination’s economy and (3) negative results of hosting the Games. The study also finds, using structural equation modelling, that residents of Sochi, who could receive some benefit from the Games, were involved in the decision-making process or had more information about the upcoming Games, demonstrated more positive attitudes towards hosting the Olympics.     

A note on the Robust Trend and ARARMA methodologies used in the M3 Competition

This brief note describes two of the forecasting methods used in the M3 Competition, Robust Trend and ARARMA. The origins of these methods are very different. Robust Trend was introduced to model the special features of some telecommunications time series. It was subsequently found to be competitive with Holt’s linear model for the more varied set of time series used in the M1 Competition. The ARARMA methodology was proposed by Parzen as a general time series modelling procedure, and can be thought of as an alternative to the ARIMA methodology of Box and Jenkins. This method was used in the M1 Competition and achieved the lowest mean absolute percentage error for longer forecasting horizons. These methods will be described in more detail and some comments on their use in the M3 Competition conclude this note.     

INVARIANCE OF THE UNORDERED BEST ESTIMATOR IN THE T,–CLASS FOR MIDZUNO'S AND FOR IKEDA–SEN'S SAMPLING PROCEDURES

MIDZUNO'S sampling procedure is considered where the first (n – 1) draws are carried out with simple random sampling without replacement and the nth draw with varying probabilities. It is shown that for this scheme, the best estimator in the HORVITZ–THOMPSON (1952) T_t–class of linear estimators exists and rejects the last draw. When MURTHY'S technique of unordering of an ordered estimator is employed, the rejected draw is restored and the unordered estimator is obtained. Surprisingly, this unordered estimator is the same as the unordered best estimator in the T₁–class, derived for IKEDA–SEN'S sampling procedure.     

Enhancing environmental information transparency through corporate social responsibility reporting regulation

This research aims to contribute to the scientific debate about the lack of interlinkages between mandatory non-financial reporting and sustainable business models. For our purposes, a counter-accounting analysis was conducted on the non-financial reports of a sample of 145 Italian firms interested by the Directive 2014/95/EU effects. Specifically, the study adopts an empirical approach to evaluate environmental information transparency, which represents one of the main critical issues concerning the non-financial declarations prepared by European Italian Public Interest Entities (PIEs) to comply with Directive 2014/95/EU. The results highlight that corporate governance and report characteristics affect environmental transparency. Furthermore, the results confirm the overall attitude to avoid the disclosure of unfavourable or unavailable environmental information through impression management strategies. Finally, the analysis underlines the opportunities for policymakers to rethink mandatory non-financial reporting to sustain the ecological transition of European PIEs.     

Optimal monetary policy and the role of hybrid inflation-price-level targets

This study investigates the role of hybrid inflation-price-level targets as a solution to the well-known stabilization bias problem that arises under discretionary policies. The analysis shows that social welfare will be improved by employing a weighted average of inflation and price level as one of the central bank's target variables in addition to the output gap growth target. The reason is that imposing the optimal hybrid target will reduce inflation variability in a highly efficient way. In particular, the optimal hybrid regime outperforms other previously suggested regimes when the degree of inflation persistence is moderate.     

Sustainability of urban mobility projects in the Curitiba metropolitan region

Throughout Brazil as part of the preparations to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup, urban mobility, stadiums, and tourism development projects were proposed. In Curitiba and the surrounding metropolitan area, these mobility works were financed with public resources. A financial institute directly related to the federal government monitors these projects, which are a part of the National Policy of Urban Mobility, instituted in 2012, and yet no criteria to assess their contribution to sustainable development were adopted. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify the sustainability indicators of these projects through a sustainability assessment method. The Urban Mobility Project Sustainability Index (UMPSI) was determined for such projects, as well sub-indices for environmental, social, and economic aspects, in order to verify their contribution in all of the three sustainability dimensions. The values of the UMPSI resulted between 43 and 75%, according to the proposed scale of the index, which has an upper limit of 100%. Finally, minimal benchmarks are suggested to determine the economic viability of mobility enterprises in order to contribute to sustainable urban mobility.     

The Role and Current Status of IFRS in the Completion of National Rules – Evidence from Greece

Abstract

Law 4308/2014 is the main regulation that transposed Accounting Directive 2013/34 of the EU into national law in Greece. This short paper summarises the underlying background and the process followed up to the issuance of this Law. It also outlines the key accounting principles introduced with this Law and how they compare with IFRS. This brief analysis indicates that, to a large extent, Greek accounting standards have now been aligned with IFRS. Given the preceding substantial differences between Greek accounting Laws and IFRS, this Law introduced significant changes to the accounting environment for non-listed companies in Greece, aiming at improving accounting quality and enhancing accounting comparability between listed and non-listed companies.