Overlaps of Private Sector with Public Sector around the Globe: Volume 31

We examine the link between oil production and bank deposits in North Dakota’s Bakken oil formation. We find that oil production is positively related to bank deposits, even in the presence of gas production, farm production, the level of interest rates, and the term premium of interest rates. The effect is significant even when we “purge” the effect of the other variables from oil production, which indicates a strong relationship between oil production and bank deposits.

This paper develops a Bayesian real options model to determine the optimal amount of sampling information to acquire before project activation. The approach is then applied to evaluate parts manufacturing approval (PMA) licenses for an aerospace firm in the maintenance, repair, and overhaul industry. The model explicitly accounts for project and sampling uncertainty, estimated cash inflows, capital outlays, and sampling costs. Upper and lower thresholds for delay option inputs are identified for immediate project activation and indefinite delay scenarios. In general, it is shown that high sampling costs encourage and low sampling costs postpone project activation, the magnitude of which dependent upon sampling reliability, project uncertainty, and moneyness of the delay option.

The importance of corporate governance was recognized aftermath the major corporate scandal and regulators all over the world tightened regulations. When Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, President of United States George W. Bush proclaimed that “the era of low standards and false profits are over.” Following the path, SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) introduced clause 49 to the listing agreement to enhance transparency and integrity to financial statements. Adequate disclosures thus ensure good governance. The concept of corporate governance is more than a decade old in India. Following Satyam Scandal, Indian Industry groups and regulators advocated a number of reforms which led to MCAs (Ministry of Company Affairs) Corporate Governance Voluntary guidelines 2009 to encourage and guide companies to adopt superior practices like appointing board committees, the appointment and rotation of external auditors, and creating a whistle blowing mechanism. The new Companies Amendment bill made the corporate governance disclosures even more stringent. Hence this is an attempt on our part to construct an objective overall corporate governance score to reflect the whole firm governance practices as per the disclosure requirements of clause 49 of the listing agreement of SEBI as well as the insights from the various academic studies to score each element of corporate governance and study the impact of governance on corporate performance represented by Tobin Q.

This study takes a broad approach to the relationship between political risk resolution through democracy and stock market development. Specifically, it examines the empirical relationship between the degree of democracy (ranging from non-democracies or autocracies to well-established “mature” democracies) and stock market size and liquidity. Using the random effects Generalized Least Squares methodology on a sample of 22 African countries and spanning the period 1985–2011, this study finds (i) the greater the degree of democracy, the greater the liquidity of the stock market but the impact on the size of the market is insignificant; (ii) the relationship between military leadership and stock market development is statistically insignificant; (iii) having constitutional limits on the number of years a chief executive is allowed to serve promotes stock market development; and (iv) a higher degree of political competitiveness has a significantly positive impact on both stock market size and liquidity.

This study investigates the ex-dividend day stock prices of the firms listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) where the tax rate is higher on dividends than on capital gains. The results help to explain what impact taxes have on the ex-day stock prices behavior in an emerging market.

To examine the tax effect on the ex-day stock prices behavior, this study considers after-tax dividends and computes the raw price ratio, market-adjusted price ratio, raw price drop, market-adjusted price drop. The market-adjusted ex-dividend day abnormal returns and relative trading volume are also examined to determine the direction of investor trading around the ex-day.

The main hypotheses examine whether the mean (median) differs from its theoretical value by using a t-test and nonparametric sign-rank test. The findings suggest that the drop of stock prices on the ex-day on the DSE is not due to taxes or transaction costs but to valuation assumptions made by investors in determining the equilibrium stock price.

Findings of this study will be useful for investors and traders in their valuation assumption to trade around the ex-dividend day.

Market participant’s preference of dividends, and exempted tax and its ultimate contribution to the equity value explain the ex-day stock prices behavior in the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

The internal factors that influence the decision to change dividend growth rates include two competing models: the earnings and free cash flow models. As far as each of the components of each model is considered, the informative and efficient dividend payout decisions require that managers have to focus on the significant component(s) only. This study examines the cointegration, significance, and explanatory power of those components empirically. The expected outcomes serve two objectives. First, on an academic level, it is interesting to examine the extent to which payout practices meet the premises of the earnings and free cash flow models. The latter considers dividends and financing decisions as two faces of the same coin. Second, on a professional level, the outcomes help focus the management’s efforts on the activities that can be performed when considering a change in dividend growth rates.

This study uses data for the firms listed in two indexes: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA30) and NASDAQ100. The data cover quarterly periods from 30 June 1989 to 31 March 2011. The methodology includes (a) cointegration analysis in order to test for model specification and (b) classical regression in order to examine the explanatory power of the components of earnings and free cash flow models.

The results conclude that: (a) Dividends growth rates are cointegrated with the two models significantly; (b) Dividend growth rates are significantly and positively associated with growth in sales and cost of goods sold only. Accordingly, these are the two activities that firms’ management need to focus on when considering a decision to change dividend growth rates, (c) The components of the earnings and free cash flow models explain very little of the variations in dividends growth rates. The results are to be considered a call for further research on the external (market-level) determinants that explain the variations in dividends growth rates. Forthcoming research must separate the effects of firm-level and market-level in order to reach clear judgments on the determinants of dividends growth rates.

This study contributes to the related literature in terms of offering updated robust empirical evidence that the decision to change dividend growth rate is discretionary to a large extent. That is, dividend decisions do not match the propositions of the earnings and free cash flow models entirely. In addition, the results offer solid evidence that financing trends in the period 1989–2011 showed heavy dependence on debt financing compared to other related studies that showed heavy dependence on equity financing during the previous period 1974–1984.

Largay and Stickney (1980) was hugely consequential for the accounting and financial community as it demonstrated through the W. T. Grant bankruptcy the importance of operating cash flow to the firm. While there is no dispute about the result, their analysis is not statistical and relies primarily on graphical interpretation of the data. This paper employs a lagged correlation model to test the W. T. Grant data for the 10-year period before bankruptcy. The results of this paper confirm Largay and Stickney, not only as to the existence of a lagged association between OCF and share price but also as to the length of the lag.

In this paper, we search to evaluate the systemic risk of the Moroccan banking sector. Indeed, we concentrate on the analysis and the evaluation on transverse dimension of the systemic. From this point of view, two approaches were used. First is based on the estimate on value at risk conditional allowing to measure the systemic importance of each banking institution. In addition, the second approach uses the heteroscedasticity models in order to consider the conditional correlations, making it possible, to measure the dependence between the Moroccan banks and with the whole of the financial system. The results obtained with through these two approaches confirm that ATW, BMCI and the BMCE are the most systemic banks in Moroccan banking system and who can initiate a systemic crisis. On another register and by using the conditional correlations of each bank we built an index of systemic risk. Moreover, a macrofinancial model was developed, connecting the index of the systemic risk and the principal macroeconomic variables. This model affirmed that the contagion dimension of systemic risk is procyclical.

Volatility has become a traded commodity, and the value of extricating the implied volatility for a given underlying asset’s market value from observed option premia has long been recognized. This contribution offers a least-squared error approach based on Standardized Options that offers the potential to overcome the well-known problem of “smiles and frowns.”