Search results

Whether the risk factors or firm characteristics cause the value premium of stocks still needs further investigation. This paper shows that the factor‐based models are significant but not sufficient for the stock returns in Taiwan. Size or book‐to‐market ratio alone cannot influence the stock returns under a factor‐based model. However, size along with book‐to‐market is significant under a factor‐based model. Furthermore, the risk characteristics are more influential than the factor load in stock return behavior. We conclude that employing only a factor‐based model or only risk characteristics will not consider some important content in stock returns.

We would like to thank C. Y. Chen, Wenchih Lee, two anonymous referees and the seminar participants at the 2000 FMA annual meeting for their helpful comments and encouragement. All of the remaining errors are our responsibility.

It is generally believed that in order to maximise value for shareholders, companies should strive towards maximising MVA (and not necessarily their total market value). The best way to do so is to maximise the EVA, which reflects an organisation’s ability to earn returns above the cost of capital. The leverage available to companies that incur fixed costs and use borrowed capital with a fixed interest charge has been known and quantified by financial managers for some time. The popularisation of EVA and MVA has opened up new possibilities for investigating the leverage effect of fixed costs (operational leverage) and interest (financial leverage) in conjunction with EVA and MVA, and for determining what effect changes in sales would have through leverage, not only on profits, but also on EVA and MVA. Combining a variable costing approach with leverage analysis and value analysis opens up new opportunities to investigate the effect of certain decisions on the MVA and the share price of a company. A spreadsheet model is used to illustrate how financial managers can use the leverage effects of fixed costs and the (fixed) cost of capital to maximise profits and also to determine what impact changes in any variable like sales or costs will have on the wealth of shareholders.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Lorentz force evaluation is a non-destructive evaluation method for conducting specimens. The movement of a specimen relative to a permanent magnet leads to Lorentz forces that are perturbed in the presence of a defect. This defect response signal (DRS) is used for defect reconstruction. To solve a linear inverse problem for defect reconstruction, an accurate and fast forward computation method is required. As existing forward methods are either too slow or too inaccurate, the purpose of this paper is to propose the single voxel approach (SVA) as a novel method.

In SVA, the DRS is computed as a superposition of DRSs from single defect voxels, which are calculated in advance, by applying the boundary element source method. This research uses a setup of an isotropic conducting specimen, a spherical permanent magnet and defects of different shapes at different depths. With the help of simulations, this study compares the SVA to the previously proposed approximate forward solution (AFS) and the extended area approach (EAA) using the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE). Simulated data using the finite element method serve as the reference solution.

SVA shows across all simulations NRMSE values <2.5 per cent compared to <8 per cent for EAA and <12 per cent for AFS.

The superposition principle of SVA allows for the application of linear inverse methods for defect reconstruction while providing sufficient accuracy of the forward method.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

The commercial practice of tourism avails itself of a whole range of classical methods of research into market, its dispersion and trends, starting with statistics and ending up with public opinion polls. The pattern and volume of tourism demand as well as its principal trends may be compared on the basis of international statistics that are more or less uniform. However, not even more detailed statistical observations are adequate for the formulation of long‐term marketing strategy of the given country.

The purpose of this paper is to use the Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model to evaluate the incremental performance of an eChannel addition.

Data were collected from 53 Taiwan financial services firms. In total, 33 of them introduced their online services, whereas the other 20 firms did not introduce their online services during the period under examination.

The research findings show that firm asset values increase following eChannel additions. Thus, eChannel additions enhance firm financial performance. A further analysis comparing the performance between firms with and without eChannel additions also shows that firms with eChannel additions have higher asset value growth rates, which further validates the capacity of eChannel additions to enhance financial performance.

Managers and shareholders in firms making eChannel additions are not required to be concerned regarding stock price volatility, and managers in firms without any eChannel investment could use eChannels to enhance their stock price and seize future opportunities. Using eChannel is a valid approach for firms to provide enhanced services to current customers, access new markets, and extend market coverage, thus enhancing overall financial performance. Investors could confide those firms implementing eChannel additions.

Studies investigating whether eChannel additions enhance firm financial performance are scant. No study has evaluated performance from a long-term perspective or from a volatility aspect (both are important considerations in eChannel performance evaluation). The research represents a pioneering work that empirically investigates these issues.

It is a well known problem the interactions between the market value of cash flows and the discount rate (usually the weighted average cost of capital, WACC) to calculate that value. This is mentioned in almost all text books in corporate finance. However, the solution adopted by most authors is to assume a constant leverage D%, and hence assume that the leverage gives raise to an optimal capital structure and the discount rate is constant. On the other hand, most authors use the definition of the Ke, the cost of leveraged equity for perpetuities even if the planning horizon is finite. Among these authors we find the work of Wood and Leitch W&L 2004. In this article we wish to analyse the claim made by W&L 2004 in the sense to have found an iterative solution to the problem of circularity that results in a “near” matching with the Adjusted Present Value APV, proposed by Myers, 1974. They use as the basic principle the fact that there is a “near” constant relation between Ke the cost of equity and Kd the cost of debt. They consider as well that the cost of debt Kd is not constant and changes proportionately with the leverage D%. We propose a very simple and precise approach to solve the above mentioned circularity problem.