Given that most emerging stock markets are inefficient, it is more reliable to test the observable benefits of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), in terms of improving market efficiency in general, rather than the value relevance of the information produced by the IFRS as it has been addressed in previous studies of emerging stock markets. The purpose of this study is to investigate the possible impact of the adoption of IFRS on market efficiency in the Saudi stock market as a general indicator of the improvement of the informational content. The study uses the autocorrelation test and three unit root tests on the daily stock returns of three sectors, Banks and Financial Services, Petrochemical and Insurance sectors, from 2005 to 2014.The results reveal that the adoption of IFRS may have no impact on market efficiency in emerging stock markets. This highlights the importance of other institutional constituents of the stock market which could mitigate the possible benefits of adoption of IFRS for emerging economies.

A survey of 150 firms in Australia and 150 firms in Sri Lanka are used in this study to evaluate the influence of national development level on the choice and application of capital budgeting-techniques (CBT). It was found that Australian firms rely heavily on sophisticated CBT and, while small Sri Lankan firms tend to rely on pay-back-period, large Sri Lankan firms tend to be as sophisticated as their Australian counterparts. Thus, the overall conclusion drawn from this study is that, in terms of CBT, the nature of firms tends to swamp-out the nurture of the environment in which the firms are embedded.

The aim of this study was to examine the impact and association between accounting students’ age and their academic performance when studying Cost Accounting. Correlation and ttest analyses using a sample of 232 students from the College of Business Studies in Kuwait during 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 academic years were used to test the study's hypotheses. The results indicate that there was a statistically significant and positive association between accounting students’ age and their academic performance in Cost Accounting, which explained the superiority of the performance of non-traditional (older) accounting students over the performance of traditional (younger) accounting students. The study concludes by considering the implications of these findings for accounting instructors and recommends further research in this area to include other accounting subjects and different research environments.

The study analyzes the short and long term relationship between Indian and World major stock market. Secondary data was considered for the study which covers the daily closing prices from the period of 2003 until the end of 2013. We used Jarque Bera Test, Dickey Fuller Test, Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test, Phillips- person (PP), and Ganger causality Test and co integration test to identify the normality, long/short run relationship and interdependency exist between National and International stock market. The study found that the Indian stock market is highly correlated with Singapore stock market on the other hand the return time series are found to be non-stationary at the zero level and the first order difference the return series are found to be stationary. The Ganger Causality exists between Indian stock market with Malaysia and Taiwan stock index. Finally, it was found that there is no Ganger causality exists between Indian stock market and USA, Indian stock market and Singapore.

This paper investigates culture’s impacts upon investment behavior and stock market volatility. The aim is to identify how cultural dimensions influence investment behavior and affect stock market volatility. A Markov regime-switching GJR-GARCH model is estimated using Maximum Likelihood algorithm based on fifteen financial market indices ranging from July 5th 2006 to May 16th 2014 with daily frequencies; the volatility model evolves across two regimes in terms of low volatility state and high volatility state; the volatility dynamics switches between the two regimes according to a Markov transition probability matrix which is estimated using a multinomial regression upon cultural dimensions. The forecasting performances of the models are evaluated using root mean squared errors. Cultural dimensions’ impacts upon the evolution dynamics of the autoregressive parameter, moving average parameter and the leverage effect parameter of the model are compared between high volatility state and low volatility state. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing triangular relationship between cultural dimensions, individual decision making and aggregate stock market volatilities. This paper not only gives portfolio managers insights into balancing risk and return in financial markets with different cultural characteristics, but also sheds light on policy makers’ decision making in designing financial market rules which suit market participants from different cultural backgrounds. This paper concludes that cultural dimensions influence the transition probabilities between the low volatility state and the high volatility state, that cultural dimensions affects the sensitivity of stock market index volatility to volume volatility, and that cultural dimensions tend to generate more significant effects upon the GJR-GARCH model’s parameters in the high volatility state than in low volatility state.

This paper analyses the determinants and the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth of Bangladesh. The study uses the time series regression model over the period from 2004 to 2013 to test the hypotheses. The study employs an OLS method for the analysis, and to determine the macroeconomic variables that influence FDI inflow in Bangladesh for the sample period. We find evidence that inbound FDI is positively correlated with the gross capital formation, imports of goods and political stability. This finding suggests that FDI inflow is directly related to the political stability of Bangladesh and, gross capital formation and imports increases during the stable political situation. Further, we also find evidence that corruption rate, good governance and unemployment rate are negatively correlated with the inbound FDI. This finding provides evidence that higher corruption rate and the unemployment rate are bad for the macroeconomic development and provide a negative signal to foreign investors. Our research is aligned with the previous research finding. Our research findings have implications for the government of Bangladesh to stabilize the political situation and standardize the inflation rate so that the FDI inflows enhance and influence the economic growth.

Given the nature of shareholder activism in France, some policies and strategies adopted in Anglo-Saxon countries may not be relevant. Therefore, it is important to study the strategies used by shareholder activists in France and understand how they are involved in French companies’ governance. The purpose of this paper is to outline the control mechanism used by activist shareholders in French companies through shareholder proposals. This form of activism is currently one of the most common practices in France. We focus on the impact of shareholder proposals on firm performance pertaining to resolutions’ submission. The results show that there is no significant market reaction following the announcement date of an activist campaign. The cumulative average abnormal returns are statistically insignificant over different event window. These findings are important for activist investors who consider investing in French listed companies.

This paper aims to assess the level of tax knowledge among the non-accounting undergraduates in public and private universities in Malaysia; and to determine whether there is any significant difference in their level of tax knowledge. A questionnaire was administered to non-accounting undergraduates from four universities. Results show that most respondents have positive attitudes towards paying taxes. Results also indicate that almost 40% of the respondents possessed low level of basic tax knowledge and this results somewhat indicate that the majority of the respondents was not well-informed about the basic tax knowledge. However, a further analysis indicate that there is no significant difference between undergraduates from public and private universities in terms of knowledge about taxation and desire to learn taxation.

Floating rate bonds are coupon-paying instruments generally indexed to interest parameters. At the trading date, the payment dates and indexation rules are known, while the value of future coupons is uncertain. In this perspective, floating rate bonds are generally seen as a portfolio of zero coupon bonds. Therefore, at each coupon payment date, the bond should be quoted at face value and its duration should match the maturity of the replicating zero coupon bond. However, the empirical evidence based on historical prices of real floating rate bonds shows that such an instrument is not systematically quoted at parity and its market risk profile could differ from that of the replicating zero coupon bond. The aim of this work is to study the duration of a floating rate bond using a partial modified duration approach after decomposing the floating rate bond into its main building blocks. The final goal is to capture the effective risk factors of these instruments in real financial markets in order to define synthetic risk measures that should be able to reflect the instrument’s effective risk profile.

I compare the real investment behavior of diversified and focused firms using rich ex post project-by-project data for a comprehensive sample of projects in the movie industry. If diversified firms allocate resources more competently than focused firms because of the larger internal capital markets accompanying diversified firms, returns of projects by diversified firms would be more favorable than those for similar projects by focused firms.  On the other hand, the reverse would hold if diversified firms are beset by inefficiencies that arise due to agency problems.  My findings are consistent with theories in which diversified firms are plagued by agency problems, leading to distorted investment behavior by diversified firms relative to focused firms.