Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Accurate Are Retirees’ Assessments of Their Retirement Risk?

Retirees with limited financial resources face numerous risks, including out-living their money (longevity risk), investment losses (market risk), unexpected health expenses (health risk), the unforeseen needs of family members (family risk), and even retirement benefit cuts (policy risk). This study systematically values and ranks the financial impacts of these risks from both the objective and subjective perspectives and then compares them to show the gaps between retirees’ actual risks and their perceptions of the risks in a unified framework. It finds that 1) under the empirical analysis, the greatest risk is longevity risk, followed by health risk; 2) under the subjective analysis, retirees perceive market risk as the highest-ranking risk due to their exaggeration of market volatility; and 3) the longevity risk and health risk are valued less in the subjective ranking than in the objective ranking, because retirees underestimate their life spans and their health costs in late life.
Pore Structure Characterization of the Lower Permian Marine-Continental Transitional Black Shale in the Southern North China Basin, Central China

The Carboniferous-Permian Taiyuan-Shanxi coal-bearing formations, as the most promising shale-gas reservoir in North China, comprise a typical shale-gas system developed in a transitional environment. To investigate the pore structure of the Taiyuan-Shanxi shale in the Southern North China Basin, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), low-pressure nitrogen adsorption (LNA), and high-pressure mercury intrusion (HMI) were employed to characterize the pore type, volume, and size distributions of 11 shale samples from the Mouye-1 well. Organic-matter-hosted pores, interparticle pores, intraparticle pores, and shrinkage cracks were observed in the FE-SEM images. Compared to matured marine shale, the number of organic-matter-hosted pores within the Taiyuan-Shanxi shale was much smaller, probably because of the high content of inertinite. The nitrogen total pore volume was found to range from 20.36 × 10–3 to 31.23 × 10–3 mL/g, whereas the mercury total pore volume was found to range from 2.1 × 10–.
Online Appendix to 'Brexit' and the Contraction of Syndicated Lending

This online appendix to "Brexit" and the Contraction of Syndicated Lending presents further robustness tests of the Brexit effect, cross-sectional results of the Brexit effect for UK firms, further results on the type of the shock the Brexit represents, the Siamese Twins matching methodology as well as the UK market share decomposition.
Determinants of Internal Audit Function Outsourcing Among Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Lagos State

Micro, Small and Medium Scale enterprises (MSMEs) are recognized globally as the bedrock of meaningful development in any economy. MSMEs significantly contribute to employment and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in emerging economies. Sequel to the economic recession, the Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) established a N75billion survival fund to revitalize the MSMEs in the county. Consequently, and to ensure effective utilization of the fund, the study examines the key factors influencing the outsourcing of internal audit function (IAF) among MSMEs in Lagos State. The study adopted survey research design, using purposive sampling technique to select 170 respondents among registered MSMEs by SMEDAN in Lagos. An adapted structured questionnaire was used to collect data, validated using Cronbach alpha with 85% percent response rate. Descriptive and inferential analysis revealed that factors influencing (IAF) outsourcing include asset specificity (3.35), environmental uncertainty (3.53) and cost of auditing (3.43) mean value. This implies that insufficient in-house knowledge, availability of external service providers and cost benefit analysis are major reasons for IAF outsourcing by MSMEs in Nigeria. The study recommended that owners and managers’ of MSMEs should ensure that audit functions are outsourced to external professionals in order to achieve high audit quality at a reduced cost.
Microfinance Can Raise Incomes: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in China

This study evaluates the impact of a randomized control trial (RCT) in China that introduced externally funded village credit funds in poor, rural villages. In contrast to recent RCT-based studies that have failed to find evidence of significant increases in income from microfinance interventions, we find that the Chinese program significantly raises household income and reduces poverty. We explore possible explanations as to why the estimated impacts may be greater in China: lump-sum repayments, lower interest rates, less access to formal credit before the program, and greater potential returns from off-farm employment opportunities that are credit-constrained.
International Equity and Debt Flows to Emerging Market Economies: Composition, Crises, and Controls

Standard models of capital flows to emerging market economies focus on debt flows and a pecuniary externality. However, by offering better risk sharing, international equity flows can render such externality unimportant, yet many economies fail to attract equity investment in a large quantity. We propose a theory of endogenous composition of capital flows that highlights two asymmetries. In our model, poor institutional quality leads to an inefficiently low share of equity financing as well as an inefficiently high volume of total inflows. Somewhat surprisingly, a social planner would often impose taxes on both equity and debt inflows. Our story differs in important ways from an alternative narrative focusing on collateral constraint.
Multimarket Competition

This article provides an introduction to multimarket competition and the research stream that examines it. Multimarket competition occurs when firms meet their competitors in multiple markets and compete with them by coordinating their strategies across those markets. In this article, we present a concise exposition of the theoretical foundations of the literature on multimarket competition and illustrate how empirical research projects are typically designed in this literature. We also provide some directions for future work in this area and discuss implications for research in organization design.
The Discount Rate of Normal and Residual Earnings

We extend the original idea of the residual income model and decompose the firm’s cost of equity capital into its two elementary components: The discount rate of normal operating earnings (kNE) and discount rate of residual operating earnings (kRE). The first part of the paper identifies the analytical relation between the firm’s cost of capital, kNE and kRE for the un-levered firm in steady state conditions. The second part of the paper empirically tests this relation by exploiting the cross section of firm’s operating profitability (RNOA) and enterprise price-to-book ratio (PNOA/NOA). Our findings support the idea that residual earnings are the less risky component of income.
Managerial Attitude Towards Financing Capital Expenditure

Free cash flow has been subject of discussions in the last few decades. Central to these discussions is how best free cash flows should be utilized. This paper examines the link between free cash flow and debt; on capital expenditure. An unbalanced panel data was obtained from audited annual financial statements of twenty-six companies listed in the Malta Stock Exchange. The data covered an eight-year period, from 2012 to 2019, and was analysed using STATA14 and Microsoft Excel. F-test was initially conducted to choose between random effect and fixed effect models but result of the estimates was found unreliable, hence Hausman test was employed. Other diagnostic tests, including Durbin-Watson and Breusch-Pagan, were equally conducted. Our results showed a significantly negative association between the free cash flow – capital expenditure dyad, and a significantly positive association between debt and capital expenditure. These suggest that firms rely more on debt to finance capital expenditure, than free cash flow. Recommendations were also proposed concerning the efficient utilization of free cash flows available to firms.
Wildfire Crime and Social Vulnerability in Italy: A Panel Investigation

In this paper, we analyse the socio–economic determinants of wildfire crime in Italy through panel data at the regional level. Using fixed-effect Poisson models and fixed-effect quantile panel regression analysis, it is found that social vulnerability factors such as poverty, organised crime and inequality in income play an important role in driving wildfire crime. The quantile regression analysis highlights a significant heterogeneity of the effects of driving factors across the Italian peninsula. Finally, we also extend our analysis to investigate the effect of economic downturns on wildfire crime and we find a positive correlation between a deterioration of per capita income and wildfire crime. <br>
Barriers to Charitable Giving

Donating to charity requires time, effort and attention. If the costs to give are perceived to be large, charities may lose out on donations. We develop a nonparametric test for the presence of these general nuisance costs and conduct a large-scale field experiment to show that costs to give are sizable and impactful. Potential donors were offered a 5:1 fixed match if their donation met or exceeded a minimum amount (e.g. $1, $5 or $10). Absent nuisance costs, the probability of donating should decrease as the minimum amount increases. We find the opposite. Eliminating these costs would double donations in our sample.
An Empirical Investigation on Decisiveness and Usage of Revenue Management Techniques in Hotel Industry in Sri Lanka

Revenue Management is an integrated systematic approach widely accepted in the global hotel industry to achieve optimum revenue of service organizations through the manipulation of various strategies. Based on the industry specific characteristics, location, and availability of resources the applications of revenue management in different setups are profoundly varied. The solicitation of revenue management has more strategic and technologically driven practice and hence selecting a most appropriate display for the hotel revenue management in competitive business environment is controverted over the years. This study was conducted to understand and critically evaluate the revenue management practices and techniques, comparative to the hotel demographics and use of pricing and non-pricing revenue management tools in star graded hotels in Sri Lanka to deliver an overview of the application of this global concept in the local context. A self-administered questionnaire consisted with seven sections was distributed among the top managers responsible for revenue decisions of each star graded hotel in Colombo district and collected responses from 27 hotels (represented 82% of intended population). Descriptive statistics was used to identify the level of application of diverse practices while t-Test and ANOVA were used to identify the differences. The results were congregated the demographic data of the sample, various revenue-generating services in in each hotels, revenue management tools applied at the hotel, revenue management team, RM software and distribution channel management, revenue management process, level of knowledge and application of different metrics and forecasting methods used for revenue management. The findings of the study provide ample indications for policy makers and hoteliers to intensify the importance of different revenue management tools and techniques in the hotel industry to meet the expected revenue hallucinations.
Can Money Buy Happiness? Subjective Wellbeing and Its Relationship with Income, Relative Income, Monetary and Non-monetary Poverty in Bangladesh

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the importance of income, relative income, monetary and non-monetary poverty for individual wellbeing or happiness in rural Bangladesh. The study is the first estimate of a wellbeing function for Bangladesh using nationally representative micro-panel data. Employing a linear panel model with individual random effects and a large set of control variables like education, work status and disability, we found a strong and positive relationship between wellbeing and income. Being further below the poverty line—estimated using the depth-of-poverty measure—was found to have a significant negative effect on happiness. On the other hand, the income of the reference group was found to be just as important as one’s own income for an individual’s happiness. Comparisons were found to be asymmetric and upwards. Improvements in a multidimensional poverty index, constructed using indicators of household education, health and living standards, were found to have a positive and significant relationship with happiness in all specifications. Gender-disaggregated analysis reveals that, while the income effect was found to be stronger for male individuals, the effects of relative income, monetary and non-monetary poverty on subjective wellbeing are larger for female individuals. The results thus point towards a need to incorporate such notions into the assessment of individuals’ wellbeing.
Entrepreneurs' Cognitive Ability and New Ventures' Performance

Why do some newly founded ventures succeed, while others fail? To address this fundamental question in entrepreneurship discipline, we investigate the role of founder's cognitive ability and its influence on forming founding team. Using a near-exhaustive sample of Swedish male founders, we fi nd that one standard deviation increase in founders' cognitive ability is associated with about %23 increase in performance measured by venture sales. This effect is larger for founders operating in high-technology industries. The relationship between founders' cognitive ability and venture sales is partially mediated by founding-team size and team collective cognitive abilities. Our study highlights the relevance of resource-based view for entrepreneurship research by demonstrating the dependence of new ventures' performance on founders' cognitive ability, especially through attracting other founding team members with high cognitive ability.
Coalition-proof Ambiguous Mechanism

The paper studies when efficient allocations are implementable via coalition-proof mechanisms. When ambiguous mechanisms are allowed and agents are maxmin expected utility maximizers, we prove that all efficient allocations are implementable via interim coalition incentive compatible mechanisms if and only if the prior distribution of agents’ types satisfies the Coalition Beliefs Determine Preferences (CBDP) property. When the CBDP property holds, these mechanisms can be designed to satisfy additional conditions of interim coalition rationality, interim ambiguity insurance, and ex-post budget balance. When ambiguous mechanisms are not allowed, under every prior, there exists an efficient allocation that is not implementable via interim coalition incentive compatible simple mechanisms. Thus, the paper sheds light on how coalition-proofness may be achieved by engineering ambiguity in mechanism rules.
Health and Safety Compliance in the Readymade Garment Sector of Bangladesh: Practices and Observations

Bangladeshi RMG accounts for the second-largest apparel manufacturer and exporter after China. The readymade garment (RMG) industry is considered as the backbone of Bangladesh’s economy and is one of the key core drivers as far as the strength of the GDP is concerned. The key features of the RMG industry determines three assumptions firstly, that the RMG hub is a strong buyer-driven production chain; secondly, RMG thrives in this part of the world because of greater availability and accessibility of “cheap” labor pool, low wages and reluctance to unionization; thirdly, that the relations between the State and industry are governed to some extent by clientelism. Over the last decades, the growth of the sector has been spectacular. Currently, there are more than 5,000 garment manufacturing firms operating in Bangladesh. The RMG sector is accountable for creating employment for more than 4 million people. The garment industry of Bangladesh has very significant contributions to the country’s development process in terms of foreign earnings, employment opportunities, women empowerment and bringing various other social changes. Despite all of these success and holistic development thanks to the RMG sector there are grey areas which are seldom looked at by the garment owners and policy makers, health and safety procedures are hardly given importance by the policy makers and parties associated to this industry. The working conditions in RMG factories have been repeatedly characterized by the Western media as prone to the workers due to the occurrence of violence and intense workload (Bajaj, 2010; Ethirajan, 2012; Yardley, 2012).
A Study of Innovative Dynamics of Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Trust as Determinants of Loyalty

The basic purpose of this research is to find the causal relationships betwixt service quality, customer satisfaction and trust with reference to E-Banking services and hence to check the extent to which the service quality, customer satisfaction and trust influence customer loyalty in E-B context. Initially, the questionnaire used to collect the data on the variables was standardised. The data collection sample included respondents of MP Region. Simple Linear Regression Analysis is used to check the impact of above mentioned independent variables on dependent variable. The study had a significant result in E-banking services.
Determinants of Triple Bottom Line Disclosure Practice of Listed Manufacturing Firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange

The study examines the determinants of Triple Bottom Line Accounting Practice of Listed Manufacturing Firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The specific objectives of this study are to determine the relationship between Firm size, Firm liquidity, Firm leverage and triple bottom line disclosure practice of manufacturing firms listed on Nigerian Stock Exchange. Three research hypotheses were formulated for the study. This study adopted the ex-post facto research design. The sample of the study comprises of eighteen (18) manufacturing companies in Nigeria. The study relied on secondary data from annual financial statements of the companies. The formulated hypotheses were analyzed and tested using multiple regression analysis. The analysis was performed with the aid of E-view 8.0. The study revealed that Firms' size, liquidity and leverage have a significant positive relationship with the Triple bottom line Accounting practice of Manufacturing Firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Consequent upon this study, it was recommended among others that triple bottom line disclosure orientation should be cultivated by all firms, irrespective of their size, liquidity and leverage status to make the practice part and parcel of their corporate strategy necessary for long-term business survival.
Social Preferences Under the Shadow of the Future

Social interactions predominantly take place under the shadow of the future. Previous literature on infinitely repeated games has highlighted the primary role of self-interested strategic considerations in explaining outcomes. Using indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games, this paper demonstrates experimentally the importance of social preferences for achieving efficient cooperative outcomes. Sorting agents by their pro-sociality, we find that cooperation is three to four times higher among prosocial players compared to selfish players. We also show that social preferences are less important when individuals interact in mixed populations. This can explain why the influence of social preferences has not been detected in previous studies.
Exploring the Nexus between Financial Flexibility, Managerial Efficiency, Ownership, and Performance: An Interactive Model for Growth, Mature, and Stagnant Companies in Pakistan

After financial crises, regulatory control makes it difficult for firms in acquiring cash flows to sustain financial safety. As a result, many listed companies in Pakistan prone to follow the “new pecking order theory” whereby they prefer equity financing rather than debt financing. Yet, the dynamics between financial constraints, efficiency, and performance are not clear. And whether the firm life cycle affects these dynamics, is still an open question. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether the managerial efficiency of Pakistani firms with financial flexibility is demonstrated differently across firm life cycles. To measure flexibility, we created a modified Financial Flexibility Index (FFI) based on Chang &amp; Ma (2019) methodology. The study employed a sample of 30 firms listed on Pakistan stock exchange and gathered data from the annual reports during the period 2009 to 2018. The fixed effect regression model is applied by using balanced panel data. The result revealed that financial flexibility has a significant and positive effect on firm performance, however firm performance in the stagnant stage of lifecycle does not have a significant effect with financial flexibility, while in the mature and growth stage there is a significant impact of FFI on firm performance. More importantly, managerial efficiency (ME) turns out to be the key factor in affecting firm performance in all the stages of the lifecycle. It seems to have a negative effect. However, a negative complementarity was observed between FFI and ME, meaning higher FFI would decrease the negative impact of ME in performance. This complementarity turns positive in mature companies, as compared to the other two groups. Tobin's q, Dividends and Ownership, and Tangibility have a significant and positive effect overall, However, Tangibility seems to affect negatively growth and stagnant companies. Variables like control power, block holder ownership, Size, and Age doesn’t seem to affect performance. This study has implications for corporate managers, if they want to reduce the chances of financial distress and enhance the firm performance, then they obtain and maintain financial flexibility by keeping the leverage at a low level.
Earnings Management, Managerial Ability, and the Role of Competition

I contribute to the extensive earnings management literature by examining the effect of market competition on the relationship between managerial ability and earnings management. The results show that in the face of increased competition, high quality managers manipulate earnings via accruals rather than more costly real earnings management. As a result, competition amplifies accrual earnings management by superior managers, but does not result in greater amounts of real earnings management. This reaction to the pressure of competition reflects the optimal contracting between firms and more able managers that creates mutual benefits to both parties. The results emphasize the importance of understanding how industry level factors influence managerial decisions at the firm level.