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1 – 10 of over 11000The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether, and, if so, to what extent, the valuation that nations place on individual personality traits change with economic growth and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether, and, if so, to what extent, the valuation that nations place on individual personality traits change with economic growth and development.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper compares the averages of the cross‐country valuations of eight different personality characteristics for various levels of development, and, in addition, employs cross‐country regression analysis to assess the impact of economic growth on the value placed on these characteristics.
Findings
In general, the findings of both the comparative analysis and the cross‐country regression analysis indicate that the valuation counties place on individual personality characteristics change with economic growth and development, and for certain characteristics, rather dramatically.
Research limitations/implications
A major implication of the findings of the paper is that economic growth may not just act in a neutral fashion by merely providing additional material goods, but may have profound effect on future national identity, on the definition of the type of individual that a nation values.
Practical implications
Since economic growth changes the way personality characteristics are valued by a nation, it is possible that the growth process itself can alter the future growth prospects of a nation, because some personality characterizes are apt to be growth fostering, while others are likely to be growth inhibiting.
Originality/value
The paper should be of interest to anyone interested in the changes brought about by growth and development.
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Viet Anh Hoang, Man Dang, Ngoc Vu Nguyen, Ngoc Thang Nguyen and Darren Henry
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of cross-country characteristics on acquirers' target status choice in cross-border mergers and acquisitions across 41…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of cross-country characteristics on acquirers' target status choice in cross-border mergers and acquisitions across 41 emerging markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first reviews the existing literature and develops the related hypotheses, in conjunction with the objectives of this paper. We then describe the data employed, variable measurement and examine the effects of cross-country characteristics on the acquirers' target status choice in cross-border mergers and acquisitions while controlling for firm-level and deal-specific characteristics. The paper continues to conduct the robustness check on cross-country determinants of target status choices using the difference independent variables rather than target country-level variables only.
Findings
This research found that the likelihood of a public firm acquired relative to private one is higher if the target firm is located in countries with stronger government quality, weaker economic freedom, better financial market development and lower cultural distance between the host and home countries. The results suggest that bidders actively assess cross-country characteristics as part of their acquisition planning.
Originality/value
Rather than commonly analysed determinants in the previous research such as firm- and deal-specific attributes, value creation and shareholder protection, this paper indicates that institutional environments and economic conditions are closely associated with acquisition risks and benefits and have direct influences on bidder firms' acquisition bidding planning and target choice decision-making.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate which cross-country characteristics influence the going-public decisions and how the cultural values of the countries affect initial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate which cross-country characteristics influence the going-public decisions and how the cultural values of the countries affect initial public offering (IPO) firms’ profitability and risk of financial distress.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of privately held and firms that went public on the European and Asian Stock Exchanges between 2007 and 2011, this paper applies probit model and ordinary least squares regression to examine which cross-country characteristics could affect the decision to go public and how cultural values affect the profitability and risk of IPO firms.[AQ1] In addition, to overcome multicollinearity concerns caused by the use of Global Leadership and Organizational Behavioural Effectiveness culture dimensions, this paper factor analyses the dimensions using principal component analysis.
Findings
The results are as follows. First, this paper finds that firms in tradition-oriented countries are less likely to go public, while firms in result-oriented countries are more likely to hold an IPO. Second, this paper finds that country characteristics (i.e. financial deepening and taxation) affect the going-public decision. Third, this paper documents that IPO firms in traditionally and result-oriented countries have positive profitability and less risk of financial distress.
Practical implications
This study is intended for all those European and Asian policymakers and managers who want to improve their knowledge about what different indicators can establish the decision of firms that going-public facing different stages of their lifecycle. Specifically, policymakers wishing to promote IPO-activity in their countries may find it useful to strengthen the set of formal-institutions both to reduce corporate-taxation and to reduce the uncertainty associated with first-time share issuance and investment in such initiatives. This study is also intended for managers of companies that are not yet publicly-traded on their national stock-markets to be helpful to their decision-making processes.
Originality/value
This paper aims to extend the growing literature on the effects of cross-country factors on economic decision-making in finance and particularly adds to research that investigates the influence of these factors on the IPO decision of European and Asian firms.
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Tesfaye Taddese Lemma and Minga Negash
The study aims to investigate the role of institutions, macroeconomic conditions, industry and firm characteristics on firm's capital structure decision within the context of nine…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate the role of institutions, macroeconomic conditions, industry and firm characteristics on firm's capital structure decision within the context of nine African countries.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 986 firms over the period 1999-2008 were analysed using a series of models that link institutional, macroeconomic, industry and firm-specific characteristics, on the one hand, and measures of capital structure, on the other. The paper used system generalized method of moments and seemingly unrelated regression which are robust to data heterogeneity and endogeneity problems to estimate the relationships between variables. Furthermore, the paper checked the robustness of findings using various estimation procedures.
Findings
The paper found evidence that the legal and financial institutions, income level of the country in which a firm operates, growth rate of the economy and inflation matter in capital structure choices of firms in the sample countries. Furthermore, capital structure choice of firms in the sample countries was affected by industry and firm-specific characteristics. These findings signify the role that probability of bankruptcy, agency costs, transaction costs, tax issues, information asymmetry problems, access to finance and market timing play in capital structure decisions of firms in Africa.
Research limitations/implications
As in most empirical studies, this study focused on listed firms. Nonetheless, future studies that focus on non-listed firms could add additional insights to the extant literature.
Practical implications
The findings have practical implications for corporate managers, governments, legislators and policymakers in the African continent.
Originality/value
The study focuses on firms in African countries for which cross-country studies such as this are rare. It also explicitly models industry variable as one of the determinants of capital structure, a marked departure from previous studies on capital structure decision of firms.
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Yong H. Kim, Bochen Li, Hyun-Han Shin and Wenfeng Wu
It is documented that companies and government agencies in the USA invest more in the fourth fiscal quarter without having higher investment opportunities. While previous studies…
Abstract
Purpose
It is documented that companies and government agencies in the USA invest more in the fourth fiscal quarter without having higher investment opportunities. While previous studies focus on the agency conflicts and information asymmetry within organizations, this study is motivated by Scharfstein and Stein's (2000) two-tiered agency model and aims to examine how firms' external business environment affects the “fourth quarter effect.”
Design/methodology/approach
The authors implement this study in a sample of 41 countries and observe similar seasonality in firm investment as documented in the US market.
Findings
More importantly, using country characteristics, this study finds that firms from countries with better investor rights and protection, and more developed financial markets show less severe over-investment in the fourth fiscal quarter.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature of law and finance, and the internal capital market, by investigating the quarterly investment patterns of firms from 41 countries. The authors find that similar to the results in earlier studies on the US market, firms in the global market increase their capital expenditure in the fourth fiscal quarter, indicating that the internal agency conflicts between the headquarters and divisional managers are widespread across the world. The authors also find that firms that operate in countries with higher investor rights and protection, and more developed financial markets, tend to show less severe “fourth quarter effect”.
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Compares labour market transitions of young people in Germany and Italy using panel data from the GSOEP and the SHIW. The aim is to investigate whether there are significant…
Abstract
Compares labour market transitions of young people in Germany and Italy using panel data from the GSOEP and the SHIW. The aim is to investigate whether there are significant cross‐country differences in the patterns of labour market entrance and whether explanatory factors can be identified. The analysis shows that Germans have a significantly higher probability of moving from school to work and from unemployment to employment. They are also more likely to move back to studies if already in the labour force. Further investigation suggests that cross‐country differences in the educational and labour market systems are responsible for the differences found.
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Antonio Rodríguez Andrés and Simplice Asongu
The purpose of this paper is to examine global trajectories, dynamics, and tendencies of software piracy to ease the benchmarking of current efforts toward harmonizing the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine global trajectories, dynamics, and tendencies of software piracy to ease the benchmarking of current efforts toward harmonizing the standards and enforcements of intellectual property rights (henceforth IPRs) protection worldwide.
Design/methodology/approach
For that purpose, the authors estimate dynamic panel data models for 99 countries over the period 1994-2010.
Findings
The main finding suggest that, a genuine timeframe for standardizing IPRs laws in the fight against software piracy is most feasible within a horizon of 4.3-10.4 years. In other words, full (100 percent) convergence within the specified timeframe will mean the enforcements of IPRs regimes without distinction of nationality or locality within identified fundamental characteristics of software piracy. The absence of convergence (in absolute and conditional terms) for the World panel indicates that, blanket policies may not be effective unless they are contingent on the prevailing trajectories, dynamics and tendencies of software piracy. Policy implications and caveats are also discussed.
Originality/value
It is the first attempt to empirically assess the convergence of IPRs systems across countries.
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The purpose of this paper is to assess how incarcerations persist across the world. The focus is on 163 countries for the period 2010-2015.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess how incarcerations persist across the world. The focus is on 163 countries for the period 2010-2015.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments. In order to increase room for policy implications, the data set is decomposed into sub-samples based on income levels, religious domination, openness to the sea, regional proximity and legal origins.
Findings
The following main findings are established. Incarcerations are more persistent in low income, Christian-protestant and Latin American countries while comparative evidence is not feasible on the basis of landlockedness and legal origins owing to unfavorable post-estimation diagnostic tests. Justifications for the comparative advantages and relevance of findings to theory building in public economics are discussed.
Practical implications
First, income levels matter in the persistence of incarcerations because low-income nations vis-à-vis their high-income counterparts have less financial resources with which to prevent and deal with events like terrorism, political instability and violence that lead to incarcerations. Second, the intuition for religious domination builds on the fact that liberal societies can be more associated with incarcerations compared to conservative societies. The main theoretical contribution of this study to the literature is that the authors have built on empirical validity to provide theoretical justification as to why categorizing countries on the basis of selected fundamental characteristics determine cross-country variations in incarcerations. Such evidence is important for theory building in public economics.
Originality/value
It is important for policy makers to understand the persistence of incarcerations across nations because resources could be allocated to regions and countries, contingent on the relative importance of future incarceration tendencies.
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Rogério Serrasqueiro and Jonas Oliveira
The study aims to analyse annual reports of the non-financial European firms listed at the EURO STOXX 50 index over the period of 2007 and 2011.
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to analyse annual reports of the non-financial European firms listed at the EURO STOXX 50 index over the period of 2007 and 2011.
Design/methodology/approach
This study intends to address two main issues: to what extent the country-level institutional forces compel (directly) firm's risk reporting (RR) behaviour and in which way these country-level institutional forces moderate the relationship between RR and firm-level characteristics.
Findings
Main findings indicate that, during this period, the European listed companies disclosed more risk information on a voluntary basis (such as operational and strategic risks) and with better informative content (more forward-looking and focused on positive news). Consistent with institutional theory, findings confirm that the country-level institutional forces explain variations on RR. Additionally, it also indicates that the relationship between RR and leveraged firms is weaker among countries with stronger institutional forces. These findings have several implications for investors and regulators in Europe basically in helping achieve efficiency in investment decisions and to stimulate further efforts to improve RR regulations.
Originality/value
This study makes two major contributions. First, it extends Elshandidy's et al. (2015) work by using other country-level institutional forces that capture the efficacy of corporate boards, the protection of minority shareholders' interests, country's level of democracy, law enforcement mechanisms and press freedom. Second, it uses firms that are considered as a blue-chip representation of super-sector leaders in the Eurozone (but from different institutional contexts). This research setting can be more insightful in shedding some light towards our understanding on how these leading firms can promote innovative and high quality level of RR and how country-level driving forces influence these variables.
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Jurgita Bruneckienė, Jonas Rapsikevičius, Mantas Lukauskas, Ineta Zykienė and Robertas Jucevičius
This paper aims to investigate the smart economic development (SED) patterns in Europe in relation to competitiveness. Motivational focus corresponds to global events: the fourth…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the smart economic development (SED) patterns in Europe in relation to competitiveness. Motivational focus corresponds to global events: the fourth industrial revolution, transition to a low-carbon economy, economic shocks (such as the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit or the coronavirus pandemic), which requires rethinking development policies, targeting competitiveness increase and reducing imbalances in economic development.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis includes self-organising neural networks cluster analysis and correlations, comparative analysis of SED indicators structure and cumulative index estimation with World Economic Forum (WEF) global competitiveness index. The panel data set of 19 years from 2000 to 2018 for 30 European countries.
Findings
Overall, cross-country examination suggests that European countries of higher competitiveness illustrate higher estimates in SED. The key determinants are juridical fairness, social responsibility, competence building, intelligence and welfare employment to develop smart patterns for reaching higher competitiveness.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations relate to the particular sample of European countries and gathering statistical data and a methodology of the SED index calculation. In addition, the paper contains a macroeconomic environment focus on competitiveness estimation. Further research may be improved with micro and mezzo environment incorporation at a cross-country analysis level.
Practical implications
By linking well-known terms of competitiveness and economic development with a concept of smartness, new approaches to policymaking emerged. The methodology presented in this paper has implications for territorial cohesion policies, competitiveness and branching strategies. The combination of SED sub-indexes and WEF GCI might aid a more accurate ex ante measurement.
Social implications
The findings are essential for fostering a smart approach in economic development for long-term competitiveness.
Originality/value
This paper provides original empirical evidence about the relationship between SED and competitiveness and adds new knowledge that smartness becomes a way for building countries’ competitiveness by identified two profiles of SED patterns by development stages, namely, integrated to economic development and institutional-based which is divided to focus and balanced.
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