Issue #2 (Volume 16 2019)

The study investigated the factors that determine fiscal behavior in Nigeria. The vulnerability of fiscal policy framework in Nigeria to different shocks and the attendant effects on the behavior of fiscal policy are parts of the reasons that prompted this research work. Annual data between 1980 and 2015 on core fiscal variables such as government revenue, government expenditure, fiscal balance, public debt, as well as other variables such as oil price, exchange rate, and inflation rate commodity price among others, are used. The Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag ARDL estimating technique is used to analyze both the long-run and short-run effects of these variables on fiscal behavior in Nigeria. Findings from the study show that fiscal policy in Nigeria is highly vulnerable to shocks from these variables mostly in the short run. Notwithstanding, variables like government revenue, government expenditure, regime of administration, oil price and commodity price volatilities all have sustained effects till the long-run periods. It was discovered that oil price movements is not the only external factor that has pronounced effects on fiscal behavior, but commodity prices volatility generally constitutes an important influential factor in determination of fiscal policy behavior in Nigeria.

The purpose of this study is to utilize the Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS) of the simultaneous equation estimation approach to revisit the possible cross relationship between IPO initial returns and aftermarket risk. A structural form equation system of IPO initial returns and aftermarket risk equations is estimated first to obtain the structural form coefficients. The analytically derived reduced form coefficients are then calculated to analyze the net effects of each exogenous variable on two endogenous variables. Major findings of this study are as follows. First, the signs of net effects of all exogenous variables on IPO initial returns and aftermarket risk are the same. In other words, any change in exogenous variables, IPO initial returns and IPO aftermarket risk will change in the same direction, i.e., the higher (lower) the IPO initial returns, the higher (lower) the IPO aftermarket risk. Second, the less the degree of corporate governance, the higher the IPO initial returns and aftermarket risk. Third, the higher the market risk or return before IPO, the higher the IPO initial returns and aftermarket risk.

Inflation is an important macroeconomic issue that has continued to dominate discussions at major economic fora over time. Governments all over the world are concerned about its rising trend because of its pervasive effect on economic performance. One intriguing fact about inflation is that it is both the cause and effect of certain policy actions of government. Several studies have been conducted on the effect of inflation on economic activities in developing and developed nations, but studies on its cause, particularly in developing nations, are scant. This paper aims at identifying major factors that cause inflation in Nigeria. Based on the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimation method, the study shows empirical support for significant impact of external debt, exchange rate, fiscal deficits, money supply and economic growth on inflation. It further shows previous period or lagged inflation rate as a significant determinant of current inflation rate. However, the study produced no evidence of significant longrun impact of interest rate on the rate of inflation in Nigeria. The study recommends economic reforms that target foreign exchange inflow through increased export trade, as well as a paradigm shift away from deficit budgeting. There is also a need for infrastructural and institutional reforms to eliminate or, at least, minimize the impact of structural inequity on output prices.

Supervisory board plays an essential role to implement good governance in firm. If this governance is implemented well, the increase in firm value will occur. Related to this statement, the main question that appears is about the number and independence rate of supervisory board members needed to enhance firm value. Besides supervisory board, debt policy holds an important role for firm because of bankruptcy issue. Firm with good governance tries to avoid this issue by decreasing the amount of its debt to create high value.
The aim of this study is to test and analyze the effect of board governance, consisting of size and independence of supervisory board, and debt policy on value of non-financial firms forming the Kompas 100 Index on Indonesia Stock Exchange. To be able to generalize results on all non-financial firms forming this index, stratified random sampling method is used to take firms as the sample from the population. Method of data analysis used is fixed effect regression model.
This study infers that the number of supervisory board members has no effect on firm value, whereas board independence and debt policy have the effect on firm value: firm with high portion of supervisory board independence and the amount of debt significantly tends to have low value.

Previous event studies find that going concern opinions (GCOs) convey significant information to the market when the audit reports appear to be unexpected. Using the value relevance method, this paper examines the differential impact of expected and unexpected going concern opinions on the market value of US firms for the 2000–2006 time period. The results suggest that while both firms receiving expected and unexpected GCOs suffer a drop in their average market value, the decrease is larger in the case of firms with unexpected GCOs. It is also observed that the market tends to shift the weight they place on earnings to the book value of equity in valuing firms with unexpected GCOs. Specifically, the decrease in the pricing multiple of earnings is larger for the case of unexpected GCOs. This result suggests that GCOs are more informative when they are unexpected. The study complements existing work by exploring whether expected GCOs have any differential valuation impact than unexpected GCOs instead of looking at the informativeness of GCOs alone.

Signaling theory assumes that it is necessary to signal investors to how they perceive company’s prospects. One of them is dividend announcements. The announcement of dividends is predicted to be a signal for investors in the investment decision making process. This study aims to determine and analyze the effect of dividend announcements, both increases and decreases in dividends, on stock returns. This study is intended to find empirical evidence about market reactions based on signaling theory in Indonesia Stock Exchange on the period 2017. The analysis of this study uses the event study method and hypothesis testing carried out using different test paired sample t-test. The results of this study prove that the market reacts to the announcement of dividends. The market reaction is indicated by the value of abnormal returns, namely abnormal returns in the positive direction when the announcement of dividend increased and abnormal returns in the negative direction when the announcement of dividend decreased. The value of abnormal returns in a positive direction reflects the company’s performance in good condition, and vice versa. This result indicates that dividend announcements are a signal and contain information relevant to investors in the investment decision making process.

This study investigates whether the value relevance of accounting information was changed after IFRS adoption in South Korea. Related prior studies have found mixed empirical evidence depending on research methodologies or research periods. Moreover, the effect of IFRS adoption on value relevance can be different between Korean stock markets (KSE and KOSDAQ) because they have different characteristics. Also, the main financial statements reported by Korean firms had changed from individual financial statements to consolidated financial statements after IFRS adoption. Thus, this study analyzes the effect of IFRS adoption on the value relevance of individual and consolidated accounting numbers expanding research periods (5 years before and after IFRS adoption) and comparing changes in explanatory powers of Ohlson (1995) model on each listing market. The empirical results indicate that the value relevance of Korean listed firms generally decreased after IFRS adoption. However, the value relevance of KSE listed firms decreased, while the value relevance of KOSDAQ listed firms increased after IFRS adoption. In addition, it was found that the effects of IFRS adoption on value relevance of individual and consolidated financial information were different depending on listed markets. This implies that different level of demand for information environment may induce differential effects of IFRS adoption on value relevance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cost behavior of research and development (R&D) expenditures. R&D costs can be divided into capitalized R&D expenditures and expensed R&D expenditures. The authors examine the cost behavior of total R&D expenditures, as well as the cost behavior of capitalized and expensed R&D expenditures. In addition, it is investigated how the cost behavior varies depending on company management performance. Research results document that the total cost of R&D and capitalized R&D expenditures are not affected by changes in sales. While the cost of expensed R&D has a positive relationship with sales changes, asymmetric cost behavior does not exist. However, when combined with such factors as successive declines in sales, performance, and economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), asymmetric cost behavior emerges. In addition, the authors found that companies with high management performance smooth their earnings by expensing R&D expenditures as incurred rather than capitalizing them. For firms with high earnings, cost behavior of total R&D expenditures and capitalized R&D expenditures moves in the opposite direction of sales. That is, companies with high performance have low capitalization ratio of R&D. The results of this study are significant in that they expand the understanding of managers’ behaviors regarding R&D expenditures.

This research explores the influence of foreign ownership on non-financial public shareholding firms in the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). The study involved an investigation into the connection between non-Jordanian ownership and the company growth opportunity, stock liquidity, leverage, dividend policy and business output. The results highlight that foreign ownership can provide improved corporate governance practices by playing a decisive role in increasing the growth opportunity and enhancing the firms’ market valuation, as measured by Tobin’s Q. Moreover, the findings indicate that companies with foreign board membership have better operating performance and higher firm value. The rewards were reaped by foreign investors based on their superior monitoring ability, which affects the decisions made and actions taken by management.

The paper examines market liquidity and size of 396 US firms engaged in mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The announcement-period returns are estimated using Carhart’s four-factor model and estimated using two regression specifications. The results suggest that the return continuation depends on the degree of liquidity and the firm size. The positive and significant cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) under both the specifications with exception to the acquiring firms are found. Under the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model due to Glosten et al. (1993), hereafter, GJR-GARCH, the pre-event CARs are significant and persistent in contrast to the estimation based on the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. This suggests possible leakage of information prior to an event announcement and further lends support to the contract theory of information asymmetry and signalling. It is also found that the target firms exhibit positive and significant post-event CARs for the mid-cap stocks. Whereas, for the acquirer firms, the post-event CARs for the small trading volume stocks are positive and significant. The results are robust to bootstrapping simulations.

Nowadays, there is a constant need for managing large amounts of information in public finances to identify existing and prevent future cases of illegal use of financial resources of citizens. The openness of information of key public finance authorities has a powerful anti-corruption effect and has a beneficial effect on economic development, while transparency of public finances is a factor in the successful implementation of the reform of all spheres of the economy.
The purpose of the article is to develop a methodology for assessing the institutional and political transparency of the leading public finance authorities in Ukraine and its practical application on the example of the Ministry of Finance and the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine. The methodology includes six main stages, based on which the transparency index of public finance authorities was calculated. Constant calculations of the index will motivate the interaction of stakeholders and non-governmental organizations to increase the openness of public finance authorities in public finances, and the digital data settlements themselves can be used to develop recommendations to increase the level of transparency of the activities of key public finance authorities. Approbation of the developed transparency index of public finance authorities on the example of the Ministry of Finance and the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine made it possible to calculate the percentage of openness of data published by the indicated institutions. Based on quantitative calculations, practical recommendations were made for improving the completeness, reliability, availability and timeliness of published information.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play a strategic role in the Indonesian economy. In Indonesia, SOEs have contributed around 16.41% for the Indonesian state budget. Many Indonesian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have listed their stocks on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. However, the study on the performance of SOEs’ stocks is still relatively limited and tends to use indicators such as Sharpe Index, Treynor Ratio or Jensen Index. In addition to using indicators such as Sharpe Index, Treynor Ratio or Jensen Index, this study examines the performance of SOEs’ stocks using Adjusted Sharpe Index, Adjusted Jensen Index and Sortino Ratio that can measure the downside risk of those stocks. The objective of this study is to analyze the performance of the SOEs’ stocks in Indonesia. The sample in this research were 19 SOEs’ stocks listed on Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period from January 2013 until April 2019. The result of this research indicated that INAF (PT Indo Farma) stocks had the best performance when measured by using all measurement methods. The performing stocks came from the construction sector and the pharmaceutical sector. Therefore, investors are suggested to give more attention to SOEs from the pharmaceutical sector and the construction sector.

This paper analyzes price gaps in the Ukrainian stock market for the case of UX index over the period 2009–2018. Using different statistical tests (Student’s t-tests, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney test) and regression analysis with dummy variables, as well as modified cumulative approach and trading simulation, the authors test a number of hypotheses searching for price patterns and abnormal market behavior related to price gaps: there is seasonality in price gaps (H1); price gaps generate statistical anomalies in the Ukrainian stock market (H2); upward gaps generate price patterns in the Ukrainian stock market (H3) and downward gaps generate price patterns in the Ukrainian stock market (H4). Overall results are consistent with the Efficient Market Hypothesis: there is no seasonality in price gaps and in most cases there is no evidences of price patterns or abnormal price behavior after the gaps in the Ukrainian stock market. Nevertheless, the authors find very strong and convincing evidences in favor of momentum effect on the days of negative gaps. These observations are confirmed by trading simulations: trading strategy based on detected price pattern generates profits and demonstrates overall efficiency, which is against the market efficiency. These results can be interesting both for academicians (further evidences against market efficiency) and practitioners (real and effective trading strategy to generate profits in the Ukrainian market market).

This study aims to contribute to the emergence of the literature focusing on exploring the factors influencing the financing decision, as well as examining the relationship between the firm size, profitability and firm growth towards the corporate debt. Questions such as how relevant firm size, profitability and firm growth to debt are, quantitatively, had not been fully answered in the business literature. The purpose of this study is to fill this large gap by examining the role of the firm size, profitability, investment and firm growth for the corporate debt. This study tries to examine the determinants of debt in the financial literature which include size, growth, business risk, and profitability in accordance with the capital structure theory, in manufacturing firms in Indonesia. The sample contained financial data from 150 firms for the period 2012–2017. The results showed that the manufacturing firms in Indonesia had high debt levels, especially the size, profitability, firm growth and profitability had proven to be the debt determinants, which also confirmed the Pecking Order Theory. This study also found that the management preference of manufacturing firms in Indonesia for risk was the risk-seeker or risk-neutral ones. This finding implies that the choice of funding sources originating from debt still provided greater returns compared to the capital cost needed due to business uncertainties.

Retracted on August 17, 2020 by the Journal’s owner and Publisher. Type of retraction – plagiarism.
There wasn’t a request for this retraction, but the reason for investigation of plagiarism fact was the Russian Academy of Sciences Committee’s report “Predatory Journals at Scopus and WoS: Translation Plagiarism from Russian Sources”: https://kpfran.ru/wp-content/uploads/plagiarism-by-translation-2.pdf” dated August 12, 2020. The publishing house has familiarized itself with the report. The article by Alexey Mikhaylov, Natalia Sokolinskaya and Evgeniy Lopatin (2019). Asset allocation in equity, fixed-income and cryptocurrency on the base of individual risk sentiment. Investment Management and Financial Innovations, 16(2), 171-181. doi:10.21511/imfi.16(2).2019.15 was mentioned in this report. It is noted that translation plagiarism was detected in this article - http://wiki.dissernet.org/wsave/IMFI_2019_2_1publ.html.
Due to this the publishing house carried out an investigation on possible cases of plagiarism of all articles of these authors (Alexey Mikhaylov, Natalia Sokolinskaya and Evgeniy Lopatin) published in “Business Perspectives” journals.
When the manuscript "Asset allocation in equity, fixed-income and cryptocurrency on the base of individual risk sentiment" was submitted to the Journal for consideration, the authors signed the Cover letter and attested to the fact that their manuscript is an original research and has not been published before. Then, the manuscript was accepted for consideration by the Managing Editor and was tested for plagiarism using the iThenticate and Unicheck programs. Plagiarism was not detected. On August 12, 2020 the Russian Academy of Sciences Committee’s presented the report. Editorial staff decided to re-test all articles of mentioned authors for plagiarism using the iThenticate and Unicheck programs – the programs didn’t show the plagiarism, then the articles were tested for translation plagiarism by the experts of “Business Perspectives” and plagiarism was detected (plagiarism and paraphrases from Russian-language sources).

According to the results of the investigation, the Publisher and owner of the journal decided to retract this article because of plagiarism on August 17, 2020.
The authors were notified of such a decision.

This study examines whether a suitable control environment increases the value relevance of earnings by providing greater assurance on the reliability of financial reporting. Specifically, the level of suitable control environment is assessed by considering the quantity and quality of IC personnel, which are closely related to the personnel integrity/ethical values, competence, and authority/responsibility. Using a sample of 1,834 firm-year observations of Korean listed companies covering 2005–2010, the author finds that earnings are more value relevant when the increase in the average work experience of IC personnel is greater. However, no evidence is found that the value relevance of earnings is positively associated with the increase in the proportion of IC personnel. The findings suggest that a suitable control environment, established by deployment of qualified IC personnel with more work experience, improves the IC effectiveness and, thus, provides greater assurance on the reliability of financial reporting to market investors.

The purpose of the article is to study the current problems of investment processes in the conditions of transformation of the Ukrainian economy. The relevance of the research was due to significant changes in political, economic and social processes of Ukraine. The research was conducted using general scientific and special methods and methods of research, such as theoretical analysis and synthesis, methods of grouping, modeling, comparison, as well as methods of systematization and scientific synthesis, in particular on materials: Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, research conducted by the Doing Business Group of the World Bank, rating of Moody’s Investors Service, rating of Global Competitiveness Index 2017/2018 and of European Business Association. The most actual factors of influence of political, economic, criminal and legislative processes on investment potential of Ukraine were analyzed. It was defined that the economic of Ukraine is characterized by the deficiency of capital, progressive technologies, mutual integration of scientific and industrial spheres, developed management and high-tech production and the recommendations to create favorable conditions for investment were made. Positive changes were noted in creating a legal framework for the promotion, protection of investments and intensification of investment activity in Ukraine.

Do good corporate governance practices affect the amount of intermediated debt used by corporations and their dividend payout decisions? This study addresses the direct effects of corporate governance practices on both the indebtedness and the dividend pay-outs in corporations listed on the Bratislava Stock Exchange in 2015–2017 in Slovakia. Because of the relatively weakly developed stock market, the hypothesis is set only to found whenever there is a correlation between those variables. For analyzing the data, Spearman’s rank correlation was used because of the absence of normal distribution. Furthermore, authors adjusted the data set specifically in both cases to reflect more precisely the situation and increase the significance of the models. The most important result of this paper is the finding that the application of the corporate governance principles affects financial decisions of companies. There is a correlation between the responsible application of corporate governance principles and the total debt of companies. Also, there is a correlation between the responsible application of corporate governance principles and the amount of dividends paid to shareholders.

The authors investigate the firm’s capital structure in the dynamic framework and adjustment speeds toward target leverage among Indonesian firms from 2005 to 2016. The sample firms are 407 non-financial listed companies and classified into 8 sectors based on Jakarta Industrial Sector Classification (JASICA).
The explanatory variables consist of firm-level variables viz. size, growth opportunity, profitability, asset structure, liquidity, and firm risk; as well as industry-specific variables viz. industry concentration, munificence, and dynamism. By using dynamic adjustment model, it was found Indonesian firms have target leverages, and they tend to adjust toward their desired debt ratio. Based on country-level analysis, adjustment speeds toward target leverage are from around 30.20% to 36.97% per year. Meanwhile, on sector-level analysis, paces of adjustment indicate variety of adjustment speeds across sectors ranged from 26.00% to 48.32% per year.
The authors also demonstrate that industry-specific variables have substantial influences on adjustment speeds toward target leverage. Industry concentration and industry munificence positively affect adjustment speeds, whereas however industry dynamism fails to show significant effect.

Behavioral components of Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) prospect theory (PT) were applied to derive an adjusted Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in the estimation of merger and acquisition-intensive firms’ expected returns. The premise was that the CAPM – rooted in expected utility theory – is violated by the behavioral biases identified in prospect theory. Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory (1979) has demonstrated that weaknesses abound in the viability of classical utility theory predictions. For mergers and acquisitions, firms appear to be isolated from and immune to human error, yet decisions which involve the undertaking of capital-intensive projects are delegated to senior management. These individuals are prone to cognitive biases and personalized risk appetites that may (and often do) compromize attitudes and behavior when it comes to pricing risky ventures. Having established that beta estimates using linear regression are inferior, the CAPM was implemented utilizing beta estimates obtained from the Kalman filter. The results obtained were assessed for their long-term market price predictive accuracy. The authors test the reliability of the CAPM as a predictor of price, observe the rationality of human behavior in capital markets, and attempt to model premiums to adjust CAPM returns to a level that more appropriately accounts for firm specific risk. The researchers show that market participants behave irrationally when assessing M&A firms’ specific risk. Logistic regression coupled with the development of a risk premium was implemented to correct the original Kalman filter returns and was tested for improvements in predictive power.

This study examines the static and dynamic correlations in the ASEAN equity markets. The importance of this research appears from the fact that practitioners can get the benefit if their investments yield the same or higher returns given lower or the same risk in their portfolio. Firstly, this advantage comes from including the assets that decrease volatility of the portfolio. Hence, the correlation between the ASEAN markets should be examined. Secondly, co-movements in market realizations may increase global financial instability. Its existence is important for international investors, financial institutions, and policy makers. The study locates the relationship between ASEAN and its major trading partners, including Japanese, US, and UK markets, in order to find more rational results. This study utilizes alternative multivariate GARCH forms to provide useful information on the dynamic evolution and implications of return volatilities. The results show that the volatilities of all the equity markets under study are persistent over time. The estimates from VEC model indicate that the movements of the US and UK equity market returns have some degree of influence on several of the ASEAN equity markets. The results imply that, first, most of the developing ASEAN equity markets work by its own information with small relation to the developed world. Second, it is still convincing to state that investing in ASEAN equity markets should provide investors a better mean-variance portfolio. And, third, buy-and-hold strategy seems to be more beneficial than readjusting the ASEAN equities portfolio.

The development of the corporate securities market and the effective use of tools for its regulation cannot be achieved without models and methods of economic and mathematical modeling. The aim is to analyze and systematize the structural and temporal characteristics of the corporate securities market in Ukraine by applying economic and mathematical modeling methods. In the paper, linear interpolation is used to assess the temporal characteristics of corporate securities under market uncertainty. Descriptive and simulation modeling methods are also applied to carry out a formal description of the process of evaluating the structural characteristics of securities. The result of the study involves developing a descriptive model to analyze the structural and temporal characteristics of the Ukrainian corporate securities market. The approbation of the proposed model makes it possible to draw the following conclusions. First, Perspektiva Stock Exchange, Ukrainian Exchange and PFTS – the First Stock Trading System, are the most important trading platforms. They are determined by the monthly bidding dynamics and can belong to the same group – active players in the corporate securities market of Ukraine. Second, in terms of endogenous priorities, the development of the corporate securities market is mostly influenced by inflation rates (consumer price index), economic development indicators (key branches production index) and interest rates on alternative financial instruments (new deposit interest rates of deposit-taking corporations). Third, the rate of corporate securities issue and the native currency rate do not significantly affect the corporate securities market development, in particular, the former is characterized by a slight negative impact, and the latter – by a slight positive impact on the price dynamics.

With a purpose to give a deep understanding relating to the manifestation of social responsibilities practices among Indonesian companies, this paper reflects the relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate profitability (CP), value creation (VC) and good corporate governance (GCG). Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini’s (KLD) measurement approach is used in this study to measure the social responsibility practices, as this gives cross-border analysis of social responsibility. Corporate profitability captures return on assets, which is accounting-based measurement, whereas value creation explains the economic value added, which is shareholder-based measurement. Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis is conducted for Indonesian listed companies, which appeared in Corporate Governance Perception Index (CGPI). The empirical result suggests that CSR serves as a tool in assisting shareholders value and performance. Accordingly, firms should incorporate CSR practices to enhance its strategic investment and sustain a strong relationship with its stakeholders. Subsequently, management should also take concern of having good corporate governance in order to improve company’s performance by supervising and monitoring of the company’s operation, ensure the fulfillment to the stakeholder’s interest. This paper presents fresh insights into applications of corporate social responsibility principles and corporate governance in Indonesian context that has not received systematic attention and consideration in the literature.

Academic literature struggles to explain investors’ attitude towards fees and expenses charged by mutual funds. In general, investors have been found to exhibit a puzzling lack of interest in this non-trivial component of their total return, raising questions of rationality of real-world investor behavior. An emergence of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), their rapid proliferation in the past decades and distinct features, such as more simple expense structure, present a valuable opportunity to contribute to the debate surrounding the pricing of funds. To better understand the expense policy/fund flows dynamics, the authors first test a conjecture that later entrants in the ETF markets face a disadvantage in competition for fund flows. Then, they test whether competitive pressure can be successfully overcome by lowering expenses charged to ETF investors. The results suggest that, though it is not necessary to be a first entrant in a fund category to enjoy competitive advantage, an earlier market entry is beneficial for attracting fund flows. It is also found that later entrants’ to the ETF market successfully use the strategy of reducing their expense ratios. Firms with lower net expense ratios obtain greater investment, as evidenced by greater capitalization and market share, supporting our intuition that investors may acknowledge the merits of low-cost ETFs.

Forecasting companies long-term financial health is provided by Credit Rating Agencies (CRA) such as S&P, Moody’s, Fitch and others. Estimates of rates are based on publicly available data, and on the so-called ‘qualitative information’. Nowadays, it is possible to produce quite precise forecasts for these ratings using economic and financial information that is available in financial databases, utilizing statistical models or, alternatively, Artificial Intelligence techniques. Several approaches, both cross section and dynamic are proposed, using different methods. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) provide better results than multivariate statistical methods and are used to estimate ratings within all the range provided by the CRAs, obtaining more desegregated results than several proposed models available for intervals of ratings. Two large samples of companies ‘public data’ obtained from Bloomberg are used to obtain forecasts of S&P and Moody’s ratings directly from these data with high level of accuracy. This also permits to check the published rating’s reliability provided by different CRAs.

This paper examines the effect of industry-wide factors such as product market competition on corporate tax avoidance. Specifically, the focus is on the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between product market competition and tax avoidance. To conduct an empirical analysis, a sample of public companies that are listed on the Korea Stock Exchange between 2001 and 2016 is used. The empirical analyses provide the following results. First, product market competition is negatively related to tax avoidance. This suggests that competitive markets act as external corporate governance mechanisms and discipline managers to decrease tax avoidance. Second, the negative association between product market competition and tax avoidance is more pronounced for firms with more independent board of directors and firms with audit committee consisting of outside directors. These findings imply that product market competition acts more effectively when the firm has strong internal governance mechanisms such as board independence and audit committee independence. Therefore, we provide evidence on a complementary relationship between internal governance system and product market competition. The results may be of interest to policy makers and regulators like Korea Fair Trade Commission and Financial Supervisory Service who are involved in promoting market competition, monitoring any abuse of market dominance, and supervising financial reporting quality.

The objective of the research carried out is to understand the impact of selected economic variables (such as Crude Oil Price, GDP, Industrial Production, Exchange Rates, and Inflation) on credit rating of Indian companies.
The sample comprises of 120 rating observations during the period 2012–2016 for a total of 24 companies of India.
Measurement of central tendency – descriptive statistics is used where credit rating is used as dependent variable and five economic factors viz. Crude Oil Price, GDP, Industrial Production, Exchange Rates, and Inflation as the independent variables.
Results from the analysis indicate that the credit rating responds in both linear, as well as nonlinear manner, to selected economic factors. Economic factors such as GDP, Industrial Production, and Exchange Rates have a linear relationship to credit rating, whereas Crude Oil price and Inflation have a non-linear impact upon the credit rating.

The purpose of this study is to examine dividend policy on both the controlling and non-controlling shareholders based on assumptions according to theories of life cycle, and free cash flow.
The sample for this study is 241 listed firm in Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2015. This study divides the sample based on quartiles and analyzes it by conducting logistic regression with significant rate at 0.05.
This study provides the evidences that: (1) firms as dividend payers tend not distribute their dividend for controlling shareholders and non-controlling shareholders while the composition for both shareholders are almost equal; (2) firms as dividend payers also have tendency not to distribute dividend on controlling shareholders when this shareholders have largest percentage of ownership; and (3) firms as dividend payers tend not distribute dividend on non-controlling shareholders while they have lowest retained earnings.
The findings imply that life cycle theory and free cash flow theory can explain the behavior of dividending policy on controlling shareholders and non-controlling shareholders depend on their circumstances.
The study uses alternative measurement for non-controlling shareholders as this variable together with controlling shareholders are moderating the other independent variables for testing the model of dividend policy.

FinTech innovations are one of strategic decisions to increase the profitability of a company. This study determines the level of profitability of companies before and after the emergence of FinTech products. The authors focused on companies that have launched FinTech products and published their financial reports. The study sample consisted of 17 FinTech products from 16 companies in Indonesia. The limited number of the sample was caused by not all of them having published its financial reports, while we have checked 157 FinTech companies. An event study approach using paired sample T-test is utilized. The period used in this study is four years, covering two years before and two years after the company launched FinTech products. Data were obtained from IDX, FinTech.id, and company web-pages. The results clearly showed that there was a significant influence on return on assets (ROA), but no significant difference in return on equity (ROE). This finding gives more contribution to the FinTech industry about the company’s profitability impact of launching FinTech product.

The paper examines the bias introduced by metaorder limit prices when measuring quality of execution services on financial market. While evaluating the quality of execution services, observed execution costs should be adjusted for metaorder participation rate, size and duration to ensure that they are comparable across execution service providers. One of the exogenous factors which may bias measured execution costs are the different metaorder limit prices in the sample. Currently, there are no proposed methods to normalize for this bias. In the research, the difference in execution costs for metaorders with different limit prices was examined by implementing a limit order book simulation model. It was discovered that the difference in metaorder limit prices is a source of significant heterogeneity in the execution cost distribution. However, we were able to prove that when market agents trade with constant intensities, the difference in execution costs for metaorders with different limit prices is fully explained by their realized participation rate. As a result, financial institution may assess quality of execution services for metaorders without any reservations about differences in metaorders limit prices as long as execution costs are adjusted for different participation rates.

Improving the efficiency and performance of microfinance investments is essential to achieve its objectives in terms of economic and social development. One parameter that influences such a performance is the kind of the activity exercised by the micro-entrepreneurs. The aim of this paper is to provide a decision-making guide to help both microfinance institutions and investors to choose the appropriate Islamic banking contract with respect to each sector of activity. To attain this goal, an Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS evaluation is conducted in collaboration with Moroccan Islamic finance experts and practitioners. The proposed approach has the advantage to deal with the lack of quantitative historical data, as well as the uncertainty of the decision makers’ judgments. The suggested work will be helpful for the Moroccan participative banks and for the future Islamic microfinance institutions as well.

In recent years, China’s mutual fund market has grown exponentially. With hundreds of new funds introduced into the market each year, an essential question to ask is whether this voluminous growth promotes funds’ efficiency, as funds compete for investment. To overcome the drawbacks of traditional portfolio performance metrics, this study utilizes a non-parametric model, data envelopment analysis (DEA), to assess the relative efficiency of equity and hybrid funds for 2016–2018. The empirical results show that despite the development in the fund industry, only a small portion of the funds are fully efficient. While efficiency improvement is observed in equity funds, the efficiency in hybrid funds actually deteriorates. On average, equity funds are more efficient and persistent in performance than hybrid funds. The empirical results also indicate that the primary areas of inefficiency are downside risk management and fund fee structures. For hybrid funds, fund size is also related to efficiency performance. The findings of this study offer implications for how to strengthen the development and stability of the Chinese mutual fund market.