Issue #2 (Volume 13 2016)

s. The authors analyze the factors causing dividend policy by utilizing agency cost theory of dividend and transaction cost of dividend by using blue chips companies stock listed in the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) from 2004-2013. They also examine the transaction costs of bid-offer spread and commission as the proxies with agency cost factors of insider ownership and shareholder dispersion. The authors observe that the independent variables affected the dividend policy simultaneously. In addition, they find that the bid-offer spread as a new proxy also had significant effects on the dividend policy

This research substantiates the expediency of introducing the instruments of neural network theory to the economic practice, since it appears to be a strong mathematical instrument and an alternative to the mathematical approaches currently known. The article suggests and presents a neural network model to forecast the innovative and scientific-technical development of the Ukrainian economy. The computerized modeling of the adapted neural network has been performed on the basis of Statistica Neural Networks (StatSoft Inc.) package. Taking into consideration the development of the leading countries of the world and Ukraine, this neural network model is based upon the indices reflecting basic results of the state social and economic, innovative, scientific and technical policy within the period of 2000-2013. The suggested technique allows determining the factors that have the greatest influence on the GDP of the country and predetermine its economic development. Among the considered factors, the greatest influence on the GDP growth is made by the amounts of Research and Development (R&D) financing. Not less important for the economic growth is the increase of investments in the basic capital. Among the factors, the least influence on GDP is made by the national budget expenditures on the innovative activity of enterprises. The received predictive data may provide the basis for working out a strategy of the innovative development of the country and regions, investment and innovative programs and budgets

This paper measures the degree of long-memory or long-range dependence in asset returns and volatility of two stock indices in Ghana and Nigeria. The presence of long-memory opens up opportunities for abnormal returns to be made by analyzing price history of a particular market.
The authors employ the Hurst exponent to measure the degree of long-memory which is evaluated by a semiparametric method, the Local Whittle estimator.
The findings show strong evidence of the presence of long-memory in both returns and volatility of the indices studied, suggesting that neither of the markets in Ghana and Nigeria is weak-form efficient

This study attempts to measure the financial performance of the food industry taking the top three JSE listed companies Pioneer Foods, Tiger Brands and RCI for the period of 2013-2014. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, ratios such as return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA) have been calculated by applying the DuPont analysis. The DuPont analysis is an important tool to measure the operating performance of a firm (Sheela and Karthikeyan, 2012). The volatility of the stock market makes investment decisions a controversial issue for most investors. Investments of huge amounts of money need proper analysis in order to make an informed decision. Financial statements are indicators of the profitability and financial sustainability of the business. Ratios are tools used to quantify the risk element before making any strategic decisions, more especially, investment decisions. It has been reported to be one of the most important financial ratios, because it provides investors with a more comprehensive measure of performance (Demmer, 2015). A detailed financial analysis of all three companies using the DuPont system shows that investing in Tiger Brands would generate a higher return to shareholders than Pioneer Foods or RCI

This study provides evidence on the investment performance of real estate relative to bonds and common stocks in the U.S. Using quarterly total return data over the years 1978-2012, the analyses show that, over this period, on a risk-adjusted basis real estate was the top performing asset class, outperformed both bonds and stocks. Real estate, in the Eastern U.S., was the top performer, outperforming both bonds and stocks. The results also show that real estate provided a partial hedge against actual and expected inflation, and that, in combinations with bonds and stocks, it made up a major share of optimal portfolios constructed for various target returns within the Markowitz optimization framework

Since deregulation of the energy market in Norway, there has been a number of mergers and acquisitions of electric utilities. In all these transactions, the companies have been valued. Many of the transactions have sparked significant controversy (by politicians, consultants and others) who claim that the companies have been sold too cheaply, especially concerning hydropower generating companies. How can business valuation of these enterprises be explained? Real option theory is, in this study, applied in order to explain the value beyond a traditional approach. The residual income model proposed by Feltham and Ohlson (1995) is considered.
The empirical analysis shows that an enhancement in explanatory power of 100% is brought about through the introduction of independent variables based on real option theory. This supports the use of real options in helping to explain values in this industry

The role of financial innovation on economic growth in developing countries has not been actively pursued. Stemming from the finance-growth nexus, literature suggests that financial innovation has a relationship to growth, which could be either positive or negative. Implicitly, financial innovation has a good and a dark side that affects growth. This study establishes the causal relationship between financial innovation and economic growth in Zimbabwe empirically. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds tests and Granger causality tests on financial time series data of Zimbabwe for the period 1980-2013, the study finds that financial innovation has a relationship to economic growth that varies depending on the variable used to measure financial innovation. A long-run, growth-driven financial innovationis confirmed, with causality running from economic growth to financial innovation. Bi-directional causality also exists after conditionally netting-off financial development. Policies that enhance economic growth inter-twined with financial innovation are essential, if developing countries, such as Zimbabwe, aim to maximize economic development

In this paper, the author develops an econometric framework to analyze the effect of access to credit on the economic welfare of households in Vietnam. The findings confirm that household credit contributes positively and significantly to the economic welfare of households in terms of per capita expenditure, per capita food expenditure and per capita non-food expenditure. The positive effect of credit on household economic welfare is observed regardless of whether they are poor or better-off households. The author also finds that credit has a greater positive effect on the economic welfare of poorer households and finds that the age of the household head, the household size, land ownership, and savings and the availability of credit at village level are key factors that affect household borrowing. Some policy implications are drawn

It seems that most small farmers focus on technical skills rather than on conceptual skills, as technical skills are seen to contribute most to the performance of the small farm. The need for this research came from this perception and, therefore, the aim of this article is to determine the small farmers’ managerial skills level in the Tshwane area of Gauteng. A quantitative survey was conducted amongst 50 small farmers in the Tshwane area of Gauteng.
The conducted research established that most small farmers focus on technical skills rather than on conceptual skills. Small farmers also indicated that they need training in marketing and financial management which are conceptual skills

This study employs a parsimonious model of economic growth to investigate the impact of intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection on the economic growth of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member countries. The growth model is estimated in the context of the Hausman-Taylor estimation technique in an annualized panel data framework. The principal finding suggests that IPRs per se are not an important factor in explaining the economic growth of OPEC member countries. However, the interaction between IPRs and trade has exerted a positive and significant impact on the economic growth of OPEC member countries

The short-run market performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) indicates that the prices are often underpriced. This is widely accepted as a universal phenomenon. To find out whether Australian IPOs are underpriced, this paper analyzes the short-run market performance of 254 IPOs by industry, listing year and issue year. To measure the performance, the first-day returns are divided into the opening price primary market and the closing price secondary market, and the post-listing returns are also examined.
The study found that, overall, Australian IPOs were underpriced by 25.47% based on abnormal returns and 26.43% on raw returns on the first-day primary market, which was statistically significant at the 1% level. However, analysis of the secondary market indicates that the Australian IPOs were overpriced by 1.55% and 1.54% on abnormal and raw returns, respectively, which was statistically significant at the 5% level. The examination of post-listing returns shows that Australian IPOs were underpriced based on cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) on the 3rd, 6th, and 10thdays by 24.63%, 24.06%, and 23.34%, respectively. The primary and post-listing analysis shows that IPOs in the industrial sector are more attractive to investors, whereas those in the chemical and materials sector are less attractive compared to other sectors. As far as the investors’ wealth is concerned, the study concludes that the short-run market performance analysis should consider both the first-day and post-listing returns

In this paper, the authors use the method of quantile regression to analyze the effect of different ownership structure and organization stability on the performance of biotechnology company. Data from the 2004 and 2015 Taiwan listed biotechnology companies are the research samples to find out the relationship of ownership structure, organization stability and corporate performance. The results show that the ownership structure and the organization stability have a positive effect on firm performance