bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
An Experimental Study of Auditor Analytical Review Judgements
Authors: Lin Kenny Z. , Fraser Ian A. M. , Hatherly David J.
Published: March 2003

This paper provides evidence as to how five factors highlighted in the current UK auditing standard are taken into account by auditors in analytical review (AR) judgements. While the relative importance of particular cues was generally found to be consistent with the standard, certain factors were taken into account only to a marginal extent. Little evidence of configural cue usage was identified. The study also provides evidence of a tendency towards conservatism in the way auditors approach AR. The results suggest both that the potential to substitute AR for other substantive procedures may be realised only imperfectly and that the issue of configural reasoning should be addressed in the auditing standard.
A New Stochastic Duration Based on the Vasicek and CIR Term Structure Theories
Authors: Wu Xueping
Published: March 2003

The stochastic duration based on the Vasicek and CIR models is theoretically superior to Macaulay’s duration. However, empirical tests on bond immunization performance have so far failed to show its superiority. Within the one‐factor framework, this paper proposes to use a longer zero‐curve yield instead of the original instantaneous interest rate as a proxy for the relevant risk source(s). We prove that the new duration becomes larger, increasing with bond maturity, than the original duration. Bond immunization using Belgian data shows that the new duration definitely beats the original duration and can in some cases outperform Macaulay’s duration.
Valuation and Cost of Capital Formulae with Corporate and Personal Taxes: A Synthesis Using the Dempsey Discounted Dividends Model
Authors: Dempsey Mike
Published: March 2003

This paper advances expressions for the firm's valuation and cost of capital as a function of leverage. The framework is arrived at by introducing leverage in Dempsey's (1996 and 1998) cost of capital framework and is applicable in the context of both classical and imputation tax systems. The framework reveals that both the historical stability of corporate leverage and the firm's choice of financing structure as revealed by the Pecking Order hypothesis are consistent with a tax‐based explanation.
The Effect of Earnings Permanence, Growth, and Firm Size on the Usefulness of Cash Flows and Earnings in Explaining Security Returns: Empirical Evidence for the UK
Authors: Charitou Andreas , Clubb Colin , Andreou Andreas
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the relative information content of earnings and cash flows for security returns using a methodology incorporating contextual factors which may affect earnings and cash flow response coefficients. For our UK dataset, we provide evidence that the earnings coefficient is related to earnings permanence, growth and firm size and that the cash flow coefficient may be related to growth. Although our results emphasise the value relevance of earnings, they also suggest that both contemporaneous and prior period cash flow are positively related to security returns and that market‐to‐book and market value of equity have predictive power for returns.
Professionalism vs Commercialism: The Association Between Non‐Audit Services (NAS) and Audit Independence
Authors: Sharma Divesh S. , Sidhu Jagdish
Published: March 2003

The implications of the provision of NAS to audit clients on audit independence have attracted considerable regulatory and research attention. This study contributes to this topical issue by investigating the association between NAS and audit independence using actual fee data and a more appropriate context that enables a proper ex post assessment of the correctness of the auditor's opinion decision. The results are consistent with the notion that auditors exhibit low propensity to issue a going‐concern qualification to clients generating higher proportions of NAS fees to total fees and raise independence implications regarding the joint provision of audit and NAS.
Political and Regulatory Risk in Water Utilities: Beta Sensitivity in the United Kingdom
Authors: Buckland Roger , Fraser Patricia
Published: March 2003

UK utilities are generally regulated by the periodic setting of a price cap (the RPI‐X mechanism). To establish these caps, regulators must determine what returns are appropriate on the capital employed by utilities. This paper addresses the issue of the level of risk inherent in investment in the equity of regulated water utilities in the UK. It uses the techniques of the Kalman Filter to estimate daily betas for the major utilities in the period from privatisation to mid‐1999. The paper demonstrates that water utilities' risk is time‐variant. It demonstrates, also, that there have been significant political and regulatory influences in the systematic risk faced by water utility shareholders. It finds beta to display little evidence of cyclical variation across the regulatory review cycle. The paper also confirms that significant excess returns have been generated over the history of the privatised water sector and suggests that over‐estimation of systematic risk faced by investors in the sector may imply further excess returns in the next regulatory review period.
Analysts' Forecasts and the Broker Relationship
Authors: Hodgkinson Lynn
Published: March 2003

Analysts' ability to forecast earnings per share has been the subject of considerable debate. A concern highlighted in previous research is the agency problem which may arise when analysts have a close working relationship with the firms for which they are providing forecasts. This paper provides evidence that this relationship does not improve the accuracy of the earnings forecasts, but stimulates optimistic forecasts. In addition, the paper examines whether firm size is a factor in forecast accuracy or bias.
The Impacts of LBOs on the Performance of Acquired Firms: The French Case
Authors: Desbrières Phillippe , Schatt Alain
Published: March 2003

This paper investigates the financial characteristics and changes in performance of French companies involved in a leveraged buy–out. The empirical study covers a sample of 161 MBOs in France from 1988 to 1994. The acquired firms outperform their counterparts in the same sector of activity before and after the buy–out. However, unlike findings concerning LBOs in the USA and the UK, the performance of French firms falls after the operation is completed. This downturn in performance seems to be less detrimental to former subsidiaries of groups than to former family businesses.
The EU as an International Actor: The Protection of the Ozone Layer
Authors: Oberthür Sebastian
Published: March 2003

Striving for a common foreign environmental policy, the European Union (EU) has developed from a laggard in the mid‐1980s to a partial leader in the 1990s in international co‐operation on protection of the ozone layer. Factors specific to the EU which impact on its performance in this area point to more general constraints on EU foreign environmental policy‐making. The EU has had difficulties in leading on issues not firmly established on its policy agenda. On subjects for which European legislation existed, coherent EU leadership at the international level has been more frequent. Implementation problems, however, undermine the international credibility of the EU.
The Concept of Social Exclusion in the European Union: Context, Development and Possibilities
Authors: Atkinson Rob , Da Voudi Simin
Published: March 2003

In recent years the term ‘social exclusion’ has come to occupy a central place in the discussion of social policy and inequality in Europe. While the notion has acquired important strategic connotations, by stressing structural and cultural/social processes, the precise meaning of the term remains somewhat elusive. This article focuses on the reason for and the manner in which the notion of social exclusion has developed within the EU social policy discourse, aiming to provide a clearer understanding of its origins, functions and multiple dimensions. Whilst adopting a critical approach to the notion of social exclusion, the article suggests that the concept has played a positive role in keeping issues such as inequality and poverty on the policy agenda. The article also suggests possible ways in which social exclusion might be developed in a climate which has become less conducive, if not hostile, to an autonomous, activist EU social policy.
Transboundary Risks: The First‐Comers/Late‐Comers Dilemma in International Environmental Agreements
Authors: Castells Nuria , Nijkamp Peter
Published: March 2003

This paper investigates global, or transborder, environmental disruption risk from the perspective of the potential policy solution to be brought about by international negotiations. Particular attention is given to the First‐Comers/Late‐Comers dilemma. The Spanish case is used as an illustration for the argument that information provision and acceptance are critical factors.
Anatomy of Organizational Crises
Authors: Hwang Peter , Lichtenthal J. David
Published: March 2003

As the business environment gets more complex, the crises faced by management are more frequent and, potentially, more devastating. Previous research on crises looks at specific cases, typologies and definitions of crises. This paper argues that crises are better understood through the way they develop. Based on the theory of punctuated equilibria in biology, two types of crises are proposed: abrupt versus cumulative. An organizing framework based on a punctuated equilibria view of crisis is presented. In addition, the key concepts and mechanisms of the framework that provide management with a broadened view for coping with the ubiquitous nature of crises are discussed.
Crisis Management in France: Trends, Shifts and Perspectives
Authors: Lagadec Patrick
Published: March 2003

The object of this article is to give an idea of crisis management in France. I will look at two principal axes: firstly, a simplified outline of the system as it has evolved over the years and with regard to the major changes it is undergoing today; secondly, an overview of the efforts recently made by the most progressive actors in the field.

Traditionally, all analyses of this type have concentrated on the French exception, that is, a centralised country answering to a strong state, largely influenced by past references, doctrines, hierarchical rules, and technical dispositions. Although this image is still very accurate in many respects, France has been progressively losing its ‘classicism’. This has come about as a result, first and foremost, of the growing number of crises which contradict the logic of long–standing references. Uncertainties, multiplicity of actors, masses of information, major surprises, cross–over events and abrupt changes are but some of the elements which are increasingly difficult to absorb within pre–established historical models. With the profusion of new actors and networks of people unaware of former royal or Napoleonic regulations, the cards are largely being dealt between the public and the private, the central and the local, the national and the international, and so on. Transformation is continuously occurring by the accumulation of new laws (e.g. decentralisation) or specific adjustments (e.g. critical infrastructures). International markets and new information technologies also play a key role in this transformation. But perhaps the most powerful motor for change are crises. More often than not, crises lead to a loss of faith in yet unquestioned references, with regard to legitimacy, credibility and responsibility.

France offers a highly contrasted scene as a country still resisting inevitable change. Although there is growing disorder, new opportunities are arising. Wishing to take a dynamic approach to these questions rather than a descriptive one, I have sought to distinguish the main themes and their interactions. I will particularly look at: problems raised by new crises in complex societies; the means necessary for ensuring progress (Boin; Lagadec 2000); resistance to these measures; and, finally, some of the most promising initiatives. The vocation of the European Crisis Management Academy is to share past experience as well as questions and answers in an area of great instability and critical stakes.
The quality of the caregiving environment and child developmental outcomes associated with maternal history of abortion using the NLSY data
Authors: Coleman Priscilla K. , Reardon David C. , Cougle Jesse
Published: March 2003

Background: Studies suggest that experiencing a perinatal loss may leave women vulnerable to mental health problems and may compromise parenting. Unfortunately, compared to miscarriages and stillbirths, very little research has examined the potential for grief and feelings of loss associated with elective abortion. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the quality of the childcare environment and children's development among children of mothers with a history of abortion prior to childbirth (n= 672) and children of non post‐abortive women (n=4,172). Method: Data were derived from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), with comparisons based on two assessments of the caregiving environment and scores on four child outcome variables. The sample was divided into three child age categories: 1–4 years (n=1,502), 5–9 years (n=2,121), and 10–13 years (n=1,524). Results: After controlling for numerous potentially confounding socio‐demographic variables, lower scores were observed for the post‐abortion group relative to the level of emotional support in the home among first‐born children in the youngest age category. Further, among 5–9‐year‐olds, more behavior problems were revealed for the children of women with a history of abortion. Finally, no main effects were detected between the abortion history groups relative to the level of cognitive stimulation in the home. Conclusion: Although it is widely recognized that at least 10% of post‐abortive women experience negative psychological consequences, the potential effects of negative subjective experiences on parenting need more systematic attention.
Depression scale scores in 8–17‐year‐olds: effects of age and gender
Authors: Angold Adrian , Erkanli Alaattin , Silberg Judy , Eaves Lindon , Costello E. Jane
Published: March 2003

Background: The excess of unipolar depression in females emerges in adolescence. However, studies of age effects on depression scale scores have produced divergent estimates of changes from childhood to adolescence.

Method: We explored possible reasons for this discrepancy in two large, longitudinal samples of twins and singletons aged 8–17.

Results: There were no differences between twins and singletons in their scores on the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ), a 13‐item self‐report depression scale. SMFQ scores for boys fell over this age‐range, while those for girls fell from age 9 to age 11 and then increased from age 12 to age 17. The mean scores of girls under 12 and those 12 and over differed by only around one‐fifth of a standard deviation. However, given the non‐normal distribution of the scores, a cut point that selected the upper 6% of scores created the expected female:male ratio of 2:1.

Conclusions: Implications for future research on adolescent depression are discussed.
Childhood adversity, parental vulnerability and disorder: examining inter‐generational transmission of risk
Authors: Bifulco A. , Moran P.M. , Ball C. , Jacobs C. , Baines R. , Bunn A. , Cavagin J.
Published: March 2003

Background: An investigation of intergenerational factors associated with psychiatric disorder in late adolescence/early adulthood was undertaken to differentiate influences from maternal disorder, maternal poor psychosocial functioning and poor parenting, on offspring.

Method: The sample comprised an intensively studied series of 276 mother–offspring pairs in a relatively deprived inner‐city London area with high rates of lone parenthood and socio‐economic disadvantage. The paired sample was collected over two time periods: first a consecutively screened series of mothers and offspring in 1985–90 (n = 172 pairs) and second a ‘vulnerable’ series of mothers and offspring in 1995–99 (n=104 pairs). The vulnerable mothers were selected for poor interpersonal functioning and/or low self‐esteem and the consecutive series were used for comparison. Rates of childhood adversity and disorder in the offspring were examined in the two groups. Maternal characteristics including psychosocial vulnerability and depression were then examined in relation to risk transmission.

Results: Offspring of vulnerable mothers had a fourfold higher rate of yearly disorder than those in the comparison series (43% vs. 11%, p<.001). They were twice as likely as those in the comparison series to have experienced childhood adversity comprising either severe neglect, physical or sexual abuse before age 17. Physical abuse, in particular, perpetrated either by mother or father/surrogate father was significantly raised in the vulnerable group. Analysis of the combined series showed that maternal vulnerability and neglect/abuse of offspring provided the best model for offspring disorder. Maternal history of depression had no direct effect on offspring disorder; its effects were entirely mediated by offspring neglect/abuse. Maternal childhood adversity also had no direct effect.

Conclusions: Results are discussed in relation to psychosocial models of risk transmission for disorder. Maternal poor psychosocial functioning needs to be identified as a factor requiring intervention in order to stem escalation of risk across generations.
‘Democracy’ in Northern Ireland: experiments in self–rule from the Protestant Ascendancy to the Good Friday Agreement
Authors: McGarry John
Published: March 2003

Pierre van den Berghe has argued that democracy in divided societies can take five different forms: Herrenvolk democracy, ethnic democracy, liberal democracy, multicultural democracy and consociational democracy. My article argues that each of van den Berghe’s five versions of democracy, or relatives of them, has been experimented with in pre–partition Ireland and Northern Ireland. While all have clear limits, the one that is most suited to Northern Ireland’s conditions is consociational democracy. The article discusses some limits of the consociational approach in Northern Ireland but also defends it against common criticisms.
The rhythm of the heart in the blink of an eye: Emotion‐modulated startle magnitude covaries with heart rate variability
Authors: Ruiz‐Padial Elisabeth , Sollers John J. , Vila Jaime , Thayer Julian F.
Published: March 2003

Emotion‐modulated startle is a robust phenomenon that has been demonstrated in a wide range of experimental situations. Similarly, heart rate variability (HRV) has been associated with a diverse range of processes including affective and attentional regulation. The present study sought to examine the relationship between these two important measures of affective behavior. Ninety female participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures while exposed to acoustic startle stimuli. The eyeblink startle was recorded both during the affective foregrounds and during intertrial intervals. HRV was assessed during a resting baseline and relationships between HRV and startle magnitudes examined. Results indicated that resting HRV was inversely related to startle magnitude during both intertrial intervals and affective foregrounds. In addition, the participants with the highest HRV showed the most differentiated emotion‐modulated startle effects, whereas those with the lowest HRV, compared to those with the highest HRV, showed significantly potentiated startle to neutral foregrounds and marginally potentiated startle to pleasant foregrounds. The findings are consistent with models that posit that prefrontal cortical activity modulates subcortical motivation circuits. These results have important implications for the use of startle probe methodology and for HRV in the study of emotional regulation and dysregulation.
The Closing Frontier: Agrarian Change, Immigrants and the ‘Squatter Menace’ in Gokwe, 1980‐1990s
Authors: Nyambara Pius S.
Published: March 2003

‘Squatting’ in the communal areas of Zimbabwe has been largely ignored in the literature because it is assumed that it does not exist in a ‘communal’ land tenure system. This article argues that ‘squatting’ in Gokwe villages has become a common strategy by landless immigrants to access land. Gokwe has been a frontier region for many immigrants in search of land since the 1950s with intense pressure on land by the 1990s. As the frontier closed, the question of citizenship in Gokwe villages became more signi?cant than ever before. Those who are not formally registered as residents are de?ned by local government authorities and established villagers as ‘squatters’ who should be evicted. The article traces how local authorities and established villagers have responded to what they perceive as the ‘squatter menace’. It further examines the means used by ‘squatters’ to lay claims to land and to defend those claims in Gokwe villages.
Policy Regimes and Performance of the Agricultural Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean During the Last Three Decades
Authors: Spoor Max
Published: March 2003

In a review of the policy regimes and agricultural output performance in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) during the past three decades, the linear sequence of pre‐reform, crisis and reform, and post‐reform recovery is qualified, focusing on a sample of nine LAC countries. The sector did quite well during the ISI policy regime, criticized for its price discrimination, and does not show the assumed characteristics of the ‘lost decade’ during most of the 1980s, as even agricultural exports (in constant terms) remained important, only to suffer from drops in international prices. Residually treated in the macro‐oriented reforms, it has never regained the growth rates under the SAP policy regime, while it was expected that it would benefit more than others. These unorthodox conclusions are founded on a detailed investigation into agricultural output and export performance, correlating it with a reform index (on a country basis).
Non–Market Interventions in Water–Sharing:Case Studies from West Bengal, India
Authors: Rawal Vikas
Published: March 2003

This paper deals with two issues that are important areas of concern in the recent literature on water management in less–developed countries: forms of ownership of groundwater resources and alternatives to anarchy in the exploitation and use of groundwater. The emergence of a market for irrigation water has been argued to have the potential to provide irrigation water to large numbers of small cultivators in developing countries. The development of free markets for water, however, has also been shown to be associated with the emergence of ‘water–lords’ and with contracts for the purchase and sale of water that are biased against the poor. By contrast, this paper presents two examples of viable non–market interventions in water–sharing – regulation of water markets by village councils and cooperative tubewell groups – from villages in West Bengal, India. These interventions both improved the efficiency of water–use and represented relatively equitable arrangements for water–sharing.
The New History of the Russian Peasantry
Authors: Cox Terry
Published: March 2003

Books reviewed in this article:

Stephen Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856–1914

Judith Pallot, Land Reform in Russia 1906–1917: Peasant Responses to Stolypin’s Project of Rural Transformation

Yanni Kotsonis, Making Peasants Backward: Agricultural Cooperatives and the Agrarian Question in Russia, 1861–1914

David Moon, The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930: The World the Peasants Made

Judith Pallot (ed.), Transforming Peasants: Society, State and the Peasantry, 1861–1930

Since the end of the 1970s, there has been an upsurge in writing on the Russian peasantry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and some of the most recent examples are discussed here. The work is characterized by its richness of new information and an extension of scholarship into new aspects of peasant economy, society and culture of the period. Much of this new work avoids detailed theorizing, presenting itself as a more grounded and complex understanding than provided by earlier, ‘ideologically driven’ Marxist and neo–populist approaches, while at the same time drawing on concepts introduced by J.C. Scott and others. This essay offers an account of this body of research and explores its implications for an understanding of the period in terms of class analysis and capitalist development.
Introduction: Agrarian Change, Gender and Land Rights
Authors: Razavi Shahra
Published: March 2003

Neo–liberal economic agendas are impacting on rural livelihoods and people's attachment to, and functions of, land in rural and non–rural household economies differently in diverse contexts; the present collection of papers explores the gender specificities of these impacts. With the deceleration of more formal forms of employment, the diversification of rural livelihoods, and the intensification of women's unpaid and casual labour in agriculture and the informal sector, the land question has taken on a new urgency and needs to be posed in a new light. Given women's centrality to diversified livelihoods, and their increasing political agency, their interests in land (both as wives/daughters within male–dominated households and as members of vulnerable social classes and communities that face the risk of land alienation and entitlement failure in the context of liberalization) are more politicized today as well as being more contested. The interface between gender and land is contextually specific and cannot be adequately addressed through all–purpose global policy prescriptions.
What Triggers Abnormal Eating in Bulimic and Nonbulimic Women?; The Role of Dissociative Experiences, Negative Affect, and Psychopathology
Authors: Lyubomirsky Sonja , Casper Regina C. , Sousa Lorie
Published: March 2003

Dissociative experiences and abnormal eating were examined in 92 non-eating-disordered women and 61 age-matched bulimic women. In the nonclinical sample of women, dissociative experiences were associated with abnormal eating attitudes and behavior, even after controlling for other forms of psychopathology; furthermore, dissociation mediated the relationships between abnormal eating and sexual abuse, abnormal eating and emotional distress, and abnormal eating and impulsivity Analyses using both bulimic women and occasional binge eaters among the controls showed that a combination of reported negative affect and dissociative experiences preceding a binge was associated with the highest levels of abnormal eating. Finally, in both bulimic women and occasional binge eaters, feelings of panic appeared to decrease as a binge episode progressed, whereas, in bulimic women only, dissociative experiences appeared to increase during binge eating. The implications for the role of dissociation in combination with emotional distress in triggering and reinforcing abnormal eating in women are discussed.
Performance Related Pay: The Importance of Fairness
Authors: Isaac J. E.
Published: March 2003

Performance related pay (PRP) has been revived as a ‘new idea’ in recent years in connection with workplace reform and enterprise bargaining. Yet it has been tried many times in the past without achieving the increases in efficiency promised by its advocates. The challenge for PRP is to establish a pattern of pay which is seen as fair by employees, which uses reasonably objective measures of performance, which can stand the strain of change, which sustains the object of the system, is not too large a portion of the pay packet and is not too costly to administer. If a ‘conventional’ view of fairness is maintained in relation to PRP, the net returns may not be sufficient for the majority of employees. Much depends on whether a new concept of fairness is emerging which accepts differential increases based on performance rather than the rate for the job.
Trade Unionism in 2000
Authors: Ellem Bradon
Published: March 2003

These remain difficult times for unions in Australia and elsewhere. The fragmentation of work continues apace as does the restructuring of economies and the places in which all these processes play out. Membership numbers continue to decline and the power of capital and the state serve to constrain the union movement’s room for manoeuvre. Many employers have moved to cut out the right to collective representation in industries ranging from iron ore to banking. In many small and lesser-known disputes, employers have been using the lock-out to put pressure on unions and their members. As firms restructure or simply collapse, other workers have been left without jobs and without entitlements. However, the year 2000 saw a number of promising signs for unions. There were shifts in the nature of unionism in terms of both national direction and workplace activity. It appeared that the purpose and in some ways the power of unions was changing and that a new militancy was developing. There was also some evidence that new kinds of workers were being attracted to unionism by new kinds of campaigns.
Employer Matters in 2000
Authors: Sheldon Peter , Thornthwaite Louise
Published: March 2003

In a year of more intense industrial conflict, for some employers and their associations this meant facing vigorous union campaigns. As a result, associations concentrated more on their traditional tasks of coordinating industrial action, legal representation and political lobbying. Pressure for sympathetic legislative change continued and the ‘Work-place Relations Club’ continued to work towards institutional control on behalf of their unitarist vision. Some employers, bent on an adversarial approach to industrial relations, initiated strategies that depended more heavily on lockouts and litigation.
Heaven and Hell: The Macro Dynamics and Micro Experience of Inequality
Authors: Froud Julie , Johal Sukhdev , Williams Karel
Published: March 2003

This paper draws on Rowntree and Keynes to analyse inequality in present day capitalism, by focusing on two current drivers. The first is the link between household income and the value of goods and services that a household can afford to consume, which in turn feeds back into the kinds of jobs created; this is labelled the cheap goods/cheap jobs nexus. The second is the growth of funded savings from some households, which are directed on to stock markets from where these flows may have destabilising effects on corporate decisions and asset prices. In both cases, these drivers of inequality bring new elements of precariousness for individuals and their households, as well as the potential for instability at the macro level. The paper argues that, from a policy perspective, it is important to focus on the role of the household in mediating the consumption and saving choices of individuals and as the unit that bears the risks that arise from labour and capital markets. The paper does not arrive at policy prescriptions, but instead aims to identify the importance of particular flows, links and institutions in late capitalism, as well as the many paradoxes around unequal societies, which need to be recognised before policy can be developed.
Efficient Algorithm for the Constrained Two‐dimensional Cutting Stock Problem
Authors: Amaral Andre R.S. , Wright Mike
Published: March 2003

This paper considers the constrained two‐dimensional cutting stock problem. Some properties of the problem are derived leading to the development of a new algorithm, which uses a very efficient branching strategy for the solution of this problem. This strategy enables the early rejection of partial solutions that cannot lead to optimality. Computational results are given and compared with those produced by a leading alternative method. These results show that the new algorithm is far superior in terms of the computer time needed to solve such problems.
The Three‐Hierarchical Location‐Allocation of Banking Facilities with Risk and Uncertainty
Authors: Min H. , Melachrinoudis E.
Published: March 2003

The location‐allocation of commercial banking facilities often involves providing three layers of services (automatic teller machines, branch bank offices, and main banks) to non‐homogeneous population centers. As such, the bank location‐allocation problem is hierarchical in nature. Nevertheless, the existing literature to date has neglected to consider the internal dynamics and functional dependence of different hierarchies of banking services. To help the commercial banking organization formulate viable location‐allocation strategies in the ever‐uncertain and volatile banking industry, this paper proposes a stochastic, three‐hierarchical location‐allocation model for successively arranging the spatial patterns of banking facilities.
Approximate algorithms for the container loading problem
Authors: Hifi M.
Published: March 2003

In this paper we develop several algorithms for solving three–dimensional cutting/packing problems. We begin by proposing an adaptation of the approach proposed in Hifi and Ouafi (1997) for solving two–staged unconstrained two–dimensional cutting problems. We show how the algorithm can be polynomially solved for producing a constant approximation ratio. We then extend this algorithm for developing better approximate algorithms. By using hill–climbing strategies, we construct some heuristics which produce a good trade–off between the computational time and the solution quality. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated on different problem instances of the literature, with different sizes and densities (a total of 144 problem instances).
On Calculation of the Extended Gini Coefficient
Authors: Chotikapanich Duangkamon , Griffiths William
Published: March 2003

The conventional formula for estimating the extended Gini coefficient is a covariance formula provided by Lerman and Yitzhaki (1989). We suggest an alternative estimator, obtained by approximating the Lorenz curve by a series of linear segments. In a Monte Carlo experiment designed to assess the relative bias and efficiency of the two estimators, we find that, when using grouped data with 20 or fewer groups, our new estimator has less bias and lower mean squared error than the covariance estimator. When individual observations are used, or the number of groups is 30 or more, there is little or no difference in the performance of the two estimators.
The Well–Being of Young Canadian Children in International Perspective: A Functionings Approach
Authors: Phipps Shelley
Published: March 2003

The goal of this paper is to compare the well–being of young children in Canada, Norway and the United States using Sen’s (1992) “functionings” perspective. We compare children cross–nationally in terms of ten “functionings” (low birth–weight; asthma; accidents; activity limitation; trouble concentrating; disobedience at school; bullying; anxiety; lying; hyperactivity). If we compare young children in Canada and the U.S. in terms of their functionings, there is not a clear ranking overall. Canadian children are better off for four of nine comparable outcomes; U.S. children are better off for two outcomes; Canadian and U.S. children are statistically indistinguishable for three outcomes. If we compare child functionings in Canada or the U.S. with those experienced in Norway, it is clear that Norwegian children fare better. There is not a single case in which children in either Canada or the U.S. have better outcomes than Norwegian children.
Indeterminacy in‐decisions – science, policy and politics in the BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) crisis
Authors: Hinchliffe Steve
Published: March 2003

Increasingly, non‐human geographies have unfastened nature from its foundational moorings. In a parallel development, the benefits of adhering to precautionary and participatory forms of decision‐making have become common place in environmental geography and in government policy. And yet, on closer inspection, there is a danger in these latter approaches that old certainties regarding non‐human natures remain unquestioned. The result can be a tendency to gravitate towards bureaucratic and technical solutions to, or closures on, what are, first and foremost, political and open‐ended problems. This paper uses an empirical engagement with BSE‐related scientific and policy practices, along with insights from non‐human geographies, science studies and poststructuralism to suggest that such certainties and resolutions are misplaced.
Writing travels: power, knowledge and ritual on the English East India Company’s early voyages
Authors: Ogborn Miles
Published: March 2003

Most discussions of the relationships between ‘the East’, ‘the West’ and writing have, following Edward Said, involved interpreting the representations of people and places within travel writing, novels and other literary forms. This paper argues that this restricted engagement with practices of reading and writing limits the ways in which the relationships between people involved in the global geographies constructed since the fifteenth century can be understood. Through presenting a detailed discussion of the role of royal letters within the voyages of the English East India Company in the early seventeenth century, it argues that an analysis of ‘how writing travels’ which concentrates on the production, carriage and use of texts as material objects can foreground the active and collective making of global geographies as a contested enterprise involving multiple agents in a variety of sites. This paper presents writing as a global cultural practice and traces its place in the making of an early modern trading network.
Gender Construction Through Interactions Between the Media and Audience in Japan
Authors: Muramatsu Yasuko
Published: March 2003

This paper traces feminist studies in Japan on mass media texts and the audience's readings since the 1970s in the historical and social context, and reviews them from a perspective of gender identity construction. The four studies referred to examine differences in text readings by audience, and some also explore the audience's livelihood as a background. Methodologically, the studies qualitatively analyse populations consisting of people who have been identified as representative or typical of each audience, based on quantitative surveys. The readings made by audiences are defined by characteristics of Japanese society, historical background including media environment, and living situations. In the 1970s, home–oriented adult women found common values in television dramas and identified their way of living as “woman”. The studies conducted after the 1980s, on hero shows for children and on girl–oriented novels, suggest that media experience, with some momentum towards promoting changes of gender roles, still function dominantly in reproducing the existing gender system through construction of gender–specific identities. In the current era, new studies and activities of media literacy have emerged in order to raise audiences’ critical awareness of text readings.
Option Value to Waiting Created by a Control Problem
Authors: Arya Anil , Glover Jonathan
Published: March 2003

We study a principal‐agent model in which there is an option to defer a capital project approval decision. A control (incentive) problem makes the option to wait valuable when it would not have been valuable otherwise. Deferring the project approval decision has both a cost and a benefit. The cost of waiting is that the agent’s uncertainty regarding future project cost realizations cannot be exploited. However, by delaying the first project’s approval decision, the principal can condition its approval on the agent’s cost report of the second project. Such conditioning can be valuable in the provision of incentives because of a diversification effect.
Mutual Fund Manager Forecasting Behavior
Authors: Willis Richard H.
Published: March 2003

I examine publicly released annual earnings forecasts issued in conjunction with stock recommendations by mutual fund managers of actively managed open‐end mutual funds. I find that mutual fund manager annual earnings forecasts systematically overestimate the earnings number later disclosed at the annual earnings announcement. In further analyses, I attempt to distinguish between two explanations for this forecast bias: an untruthful reporting bias (market manipulation) and a truthful cognitive bias (optimism). These explanations generate different predictions about the timing of changes in fundholdings of forecasted securities between the forecast release and annual earnings announcement dates. I interpret my findings as more consistent with an optimism explanation for mutual fund manager annual forecast bias and less consistent with a market manipulation explanation for this bias. I am, however, unable to eliminate an unobservable selection bias either in the decision of the mutual fund manager to report a forecast publicly or in the media’s decision to publish that forecast as an explanation for my finding that mutual fund manager forecasts are biased.
The Determinants of the Amount of Information Disclosed about Corporate Restructurings
Authors: Bens Daniel A.
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the information voluntarily disclosed about corporate restructurings. In 1995 the FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force reached a consensus opinion about mandatory restructuring disclosures. I use these requirements to construct a statistic that measures the amount of information voluntarily disclosed for a sample of firms from 1990–1993. Disclosure levels increased dramatically when the SEC targeted restructurings as an area for increased oversight in late 1993. Controlling for this SEC action, I document a positive association between the amount of information disclosed and increased monitoring by shareholders, suggesting that monitoring complements disclosure rather than substitutes for it. The amount disclosed is negatively related to the appointment of a new CEO prior to the restructuring, perhaps reflecting the use of the restructuring charge to manage earnings for these firms.
Measuring Value Relevance in a (Possibly) Inefficient Market
Authors: Aboody David , Hughes John , Liu Jing
Published: March 2003

An interesting question in assessing value relevance of accounting variables is whether measures of value relevance are materially affected by market inefficiencies. We explore this question in two steps: First, we analytically examine the impact of market inefficiencies on the estimation of coefficients in value relevance regressions and derive a procedure that corrects potential biases caused by such inefficiencies. The procedure adjusts contemporaneous stock prices for future risk adjusted price changes, and yields value relevance coefficient estimates that capture both contemporaneous and delayed market reactions. Second, we apply this procedure to three types of studies that have attracted much attention in the accounting literature: 1) the value relevance of earnings and book values; 2) the value relevance of residual income value estimates; and 3) the value relevance of accruals and cash flows. We compare coefficient estimates obtained from conventional value relevance regressions with those from regressions employing our adjustment procedure, and find statistically significant differences in both level and return regression coefficient estimates. The magnitude of differences in coefficient estimates for return regressions is large enough to affect economic inferences. We find that coefficients of lagged price deflated residual income value estimates move significantly closer toward a predicted value of one implying a meaningful reduction of bias. Last, we find that cash flows now have significantly larger coefficient estimates than accruals consistent with their greater persistence.
Incentives, Discretion, and Asset Valuation in Closed–End Mutual Funds
Authors: Chandar Nandini , Bricker Robert
Published: March 2003

This paper studies earnings management using 363 closed–end mutual fund firm–years of data. Closed–end fund assets consist of unrestricted and restricted securities, and realized and unrealized income. While unrestricted securities are not subject to earnings management, restricted security values are largely discretionary. Managerial valuation of restricted securities is modeled as contingent on unrestricted returns relative to a performance benchmark. Four unrestricted performance regions are identified. Known multi–period compensation incentives become the basis for hypothesizing earnings management behaviors in the regions in the form of restricted security valuation. Across several benchmarks, the results are consistent with multi–period maximization rather than simpler single–period compensation maximization or income smoothing. Funds with extreme unrestricted performance show relatively larger income–decreasing earnings management, and funds with slightly–below benchmark returns show relatively larger income–increasing earnings management than those slightly above. These results clarify the relationship between complex earnings management behavior and managerial incentives.
On the Role of Futures Trading in Spot Market Fluctuations: Perpetrator of Volatility or Victim of Regret?
Authors: Darrat Ali F. , Rahman Shafiqur , Zhong Maosen
Published: March 2003

We examine the role of index futures trading in spot market volatility. We use the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) approach to measure volatility, analyze causality and feedback relations between volatilities in the spot and futures markets, and test various hypotheses in the context of a multivariate model that incorporates other macrostate variables. Our empirical results suggest index futures trading may not be blamed for the observed volatility in the spot market. Rather, we find stronger and more consistent support for the alternative posture that volatility in the futures market is an outgrowth of a turbulent cash market. We use the regret (cognitive dissonance) theory to explain our results.
The Effect of Credit Risk on Bank and Bank Holding Company Bond Yields: Evidence from the Post‐FDICIA Period
Authors: Jagtiani Julapa , Kaufman George , Lemieux Catharine
Published: March 2003

In this article we examine whether the federal safety net is viewed by the market as being extended beyond de jure deposits to other bank debt and even the debt of bank holding companies (BHCs). We extend previous research by focusing on the post‐FDICIA period and by examining the risk‐return relation of bonds issued directly by banks, not BHCs. Our results provide evidence that both bank and BHC bonds are priced by the secondary market in relation to their underlying credit risk, particularly for less capitalized issuers, suggesting that proposals requiring banks to issue subordinated debt may enhance market monitoring and discipline and be useful in supplementing regulatory discipline.
The Costs of Issuing Preferred Stock
Authors: Bajaj Mukesh , Mazumdar Sumon C. , Sarin Atulya
Published: March 2003

U.S. firms commonly use preferred stocks to raise external capital. Yet this hybrid security's issuance costs and offer yields have not been previously examined in a systematic manner. We analyze a sample of 3,042 U.S. preferred stocks issued between 1980 and 1999. We find that convertible issues, which are riskier than straight issues, entail higher gross spreads and other direct expenses. Scale, credit rating, and industry effects influence gross spreads and issuance costs. We also compare preferred stocks yields with various bellwether bond yields. Our results support the tax‐based argument that suggests that yields on preferred stocks should be lower than comparable risky bonds.