Idiosyncratic risk and stock price crash risk: The moderating role of discretionary income smoothing

Poverty and income inequality are extreme issues that still exist in Malaysia. Any rise in poverty and income inequality definitely affect economic growth. There are many great efforts taken by the government of Malaysia to eradicate poverty and to reduce the gap of income inequality which occurs since 1970’s. The incidence of poverty and income inequality is higher in rural areas compared to urban areas. This paper is mainly to study the level of poverty and income inequality in Malaysia together with government intervention to develop Malaysia’s economic growth. The research is focused among the working people at Ipoh, Perak. In this paper, questionnaire forms are being distributed to get information regarding the issue of poverty and income inequality. It also looks into the strategies taken by the government of Malaysia to eradicate poverty and income inequality. Few recommendations are given in terms of education policy, financial aid and assistance from government and non-government organization (NGO) to upgrade the standard and quality of living among the poor and lower-income group of people.

The risk of virus contracting during the COVID-19 pandemic has changed consumer preference for online shopping to meet their daily needs than shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Online shopping presents a different environment, atmosphere, and experience. The possibility of ethical violations is higher during online than face-to-face transactions. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the influence of perceived health risk and customer perception of online retail ethics on consumer online shopping behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving seven variables, namely perceived health risk, security, privacy, non-deception, reliability fulfillment, service recovery, and online shopping behavior. The data were collected through an online survey by employing the purposive sampling technique to a consumer who has shopped online during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. 315 valid responses were obtained and analyzed through quantitative method using SEM-Amos. The results showed that perceived health risk and four variables of online retail ethics including security, privacy, reliability fulfillment, and service recovery affected online shopping behavior. Meanwhile, non-deception was found to have an insignificant effect. The coefficient value proved perceived health risk to be more dominant in influencing online shopping behavior than the variables of online retail ethics. Thus, consumers pay more concern for their health during online shopping. However, positive consumer perceptions of the behavior of online retail websites in providing services also can encourage consumers to shop online during this pandemic.

The article deals with eSports as a perspective kind of commercial activity. The research urgency is determined by the fact that, given the active increase of eSports market with growth rates of more than 30% per year, the types of commercial activities in this field and in scientific papers are not studied in an adequate degree.

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the commercial activity development in eSports and to determine the perspectives for its further growth in Ukraine. In order to determine the key types of commercial activity in eSports, the main sources of revenue in this area compared to sports were investigated, which showed a large unrealized potential for increasing revenues from the sale of tickets to competitions, the realization of broadcasting rights and merchandising. The study also showed that the largest number of income sources in eSports is at the stage of cyber-tournaments, which can be explained by a large consumer audience at this stage. However, unlike the esports world practice, computer game producers and well-known manufacturers of consumer goods in Ukraine do not finance domestic competitions, and, therefore, this stage of commercial activity remains at a low level. In modern conditions, among the types of eSports activities in Ukraine, only the computer games production and the cyber-racers game are properly developed.

According to authors, to improve the eSports development in Ukraine, creating the national system of regular eSports competitions is needed, which will form the basis for the development of most types of commercial activities that are part of the cyber-tournaments. To do this, one needs to create appropriate platforms, as well as improve communications with fans in social networks and at amateur competitions. All this will make eSports a highly profitable business in Ukraine.