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The purpose of this paper is to present a nonparametric comparative study on the HCMS consumption of urban and rural households in China.

This paper applies the panel data for China's thirty provinces in 1991‐2007 as a sample and presents a local linear estimation to the nonparametric Working‐Leser panel data models on the HCMS consumption of the rural and urban households in China. The nonparametric Hausman test is applied to test the random effects specification against the fixed effects.

Both the parametric and nonparametric estimation of the Working‐Leser panel data models give us a similar result: that the HCMS commodity is quite elastic in both the rural and urban China. Nonparametric estimate also shows that the urban‐rural difference of the HCMS expenditure share in the total expenditure is mainly due to the large urban‐rural difference of total expenditure. Under the same total expenditure, the HCMS is more elastic in the urban than in the rural regions.

To decrease the urban‐rural difference in the HCMS consumption, the government should enhance the income or total expenditure level of the rural households, especially in the impoverished and remote areas in China. Urbanization plays a critical role in access to health care and can help make substantial changes in rural health care in China.

Compared to the parametric estimation, the nonparametric estimation gives us the added information that the expenditure elasticity of the HCMS consumption in China gradually declines as one moves up the per capita total expenditure distribution. The paper could make a contribution to the relatively thin literature on the Chinese medical and health consumption market.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises can be highly affected by losses caused by exchange rate changes. The aim of this paper was to find the optimal Value-at-Risk (VaR) method for estimating future exchange rate losses within one year.

The analysis focuses on five VaR methods, some of them traditional and some of them more up to date with integrated EVT or GARCH. The analysis of VaR methods was concentrated on a time horizon (1–12 months), overestimation predictions and six scenarios based on trends and variability of exchange rates. This study used three currency pairs EUR/CZK, EUR/USD and EUR/JPY for backtesting.

In compliance with the backtesting results, the parametric VaR with random walk has been chosen, despite its shortcomings, as the most accurate for estimating future losses in a medium-term period. The Nonparametric VaR confirmed insensitivity to the current exchange rate development. The EVT-based methods showed overconservatism (overestimation predictions). Every parametric or semiparametric method revealed a severe increase of liberality with increasing time.

This research is limited to the analysis of suitable VaR models in a long- and short-run period without using artificial intelligence.

The result of this paper is the choice of a proper VaR method for the online application for estimating the future exchange rate for enterprises.

The orientation of medium-term period makes the research original and useful for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The purpose of this paper is to study performance and market timing ability of equity real estate investment trusts (REITs).

The authors use classical regression‐based framework and their multi‐index, multifactor, and conditional extensions to jointly detect asset selectivity and market timing ability of equity REITs and their subcategories. These results are then validated by a nonparametric test.

It is found that equity REITs in aggregate have some housing market timing ability. Various equity REIT subcategories perform differently: office REITs can discover underpriced properties, while retail, industrial, and office REITs have poor timing ability. Nonparametric tests confirm that equity REITs do not have ability to predict real estate market movements.

Research in REIT performance evaluation is still limited to the asset selectivity aspect. This paper intends to fill this gap by providing empirical evidence of market timing ability of equity REITs using an array of parametric and nonparametric methods.

As the wrong Enterprise Software (ES) acquisition can lead an organization with chronically exceeded budgets and settling for minimum returns, so can an unfavorable contractual agreement. Often the acquiring organizations become vulnerable to risks and mistakes as the software contracts are habitually written using legal terminologies and mainly to the advantage of the vendor. To avoid costly ES contracting mistakes, the purpose of this paper is to empirically identify the critical success factors (CSFs) of contracting in the context of ES acquisition.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to gather the data for this study. Statistical analysis conducted for this study include descriptive statistics, factor analysis with reliability and validity tests and nonparametric test.

The five key factors are: contractual assurance, forward compatibility and licensing; right to use, own and use of own, confidentiality and payment; software acceptance; license assignment; and vendor obligation for intellectual property. The research and managerial implications of these factors are given in discussion.

As with most empirical studies, the subjectivity of the opinion of respondents from only two industries presents some limitations to generalization. Another limitation is the respondent has been asked for the degree of criticality for each of the contracting issue given in the questionnaire. There could be critical issues other than the listed ones which are more specific to the organization.

The results can be used by managers to improve their understanding on the critical contractual issues in ES acquisition negotiations.

The significant value of this study identifies the CSFs for ES contract negotiations while acquiring the software.

The purpose of this paper is to study clothing and shoes disposal behavior of US consumers in an attempt to understand how to divert more clothing and shoes from the landfill.

A survey was administered to 209 consumers from the general US population. The survey includes questions on demographics, methods of disposal and factors that motivate or prevent consumers from choosing methods other than throwing unwanted clothing in the trash.

Analysis of demographic data from the survey indicates that gender, income, marital status, living arrangement and type of dwelling have an effect on whether consumers recycle textiles. Other survey results indicate that helping factors are more influential in motivating consumers to recycle clothing and shoes than economic factors. The condition of clothes and shoes and lack of awareness are the most prominent reasons preventing consumers from recycling more textiles. The results also show that there are statistically significant differences between households with and without children when it comes to disposing adults’ clothing and shoes.

These results may help policymakers who want to motivate consumers to recycle or develop recycling programs.

The increasing demand of stakeholders' interests in social performance has put pressure on corporations to undertake social responsibility reporting in their operations in order to satisfy the demands and to gain public support. Some organisations have already responded, either by publishing a separate report regarding their social activities, or by providing such information in their annual report or on their web site. However, in some developing countries such as Indonesia, there is little or no regulation and with no expectation to follow international standards, corporations in these countries tend not to provide corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. As there is a lack of regulatory controls in reporting CSR activities in most developing countries, the question of what the “carrot” is for the corporations is the crux of this research. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether Indonesian corporations are aware of CSR.

This research aims to investigate the level of CSR conducted by the top 50 corporations in Indonesia based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines, as well as to investigate the relationship between CSR and profitability. The profitability variables chosen are earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and earnings per share (EPS). The GRI guidelines have been chosen for this study to be used as a basis to measure corporations' social responsibility activities. The dataset was based on the years 2003‐2007, and the data collected in 2008.

This study showed that Indonesian corporations are already aware of the increasing demands and provide CSR information to stakeholders in the emerging economy. The CSR reporting measured as per the GRI indicated that five out of 45 corporations (11 per cent) completed a maximum of six GRI indicators, ten corporations (22 per cent) fulfilled five indicators and 16 corporations (36 per cent) complied with four indicators. The analyses revealed that there is a positive relationship between CSR and profitability, although it is weak (18 per cent for EBITDA and 16 per cent for EPS). Therefore, it can be argued that reporting social responsibility activities is beneficial for corporations in emerging economies such as Indonesia.

From the literature, the authors have concluded that there is no research evidence of a study that analyses the depth or level of CSR reporting among Indonesian corporations, hence there is a contribution to new knowledge as the analysis reveals new findings in relation to a developing country. Although there are studies measuring the relationship between CSR reporting and financial performance such as EPS, this study further explores the correlation by introducing a new variable, i.e. EBITDA.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the motives behind the levels of cash holdings and the theory that may be able to explain why these firms hold so much cash.

Annual financial data and stock prices of 192 firms from six different sectors on the Bursa Malaysia are collected for the period 2000-2007. Analysis using the non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test is carried out to analyze industrial and time differences in cash holdings. The ordinary least square (OLS) regression technique is used to understand the relationships between various attributes with the level of cash holdings. Due to issues of endogeneity, the generalized method of moments method is also applied.

Significant differences are found to exist in the level of cash holdings between firms and across time. It is found that firms adjust to a target level of cash holdings, although this is done relatively slowly. Also, significance of firm characteristics and their relationships with cash holdings indicate that other than the pecking order theory, the trade-off theory and the agency theory can help explain the level of cash holdings of firms in Malaysia.

Most studies on cash holdings have been carried out in developed countries. Malaysia is an advanced emerging market with significant state control and firm structure being largely family-oriented. Hence, a study on a different market with different types of firm structures will contribute significantly to the existing literature on corporate cash holdings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices disclosure and firm value in the Egyptian context. This is done through investigating the influence of being listed and ranked in the Egyptian Corporate Responsibility Index on firm value during the period starting from 2007 to 2016.

Using univariate and multivariate analyses, the findings support the economic benefits of ESG disclosures.

The authors find that firms listed in the ESG index have higher firm value, and that there is a positive association between firms’ higher rankings in the index and firm value, as measured by Tobin’s q.

The findings provide feedback to regulators and standard-setters in the developing countries, and more specifically the Egyptian regulators, on the benefits associated with the introduction of the sustainability index (Standard & Poor’s (S&P)/EGX ESG index). This, in turn, clarifies how the government’s efforts to promote ESG provide benefits to publicly traded firms.

By linking ESG to firm value, the ESG index will enable investors to take a leading role in inducing firms to enhance transparency and disclosure, and hence, improving their reporting standards. This, in turn, will ultimately result in improving sustainability and governance practices in Egypt.

The reported positive market reactions to social and governance practices disclosures can motivate firms to improve their social and governance performance.

The study contributes to the literature by addressing the combined economic effects of social and governance disclosures on firm value, and by investigating the economic effects of such disclosures on firm value in an emerging market.

The paper examines the effect of internal remittances on the employment choices of household heads in rural Ghana.

The paper employs data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 6) of the Ghana Statistical Service. Due to issues of endogeneity of remittances in relation to labor supply, the paper adopts an instrumental variable approach in the analysis. First, employment choices are categorized into three: (1) wage/salary employment, (2) self-employment and (3) domestic/family employment. The relationship is then modeled as instrumental variable multinomial probit (IV-MNP). Secondly, employment choices are recategorized into two: farm employment and otherwise and modeled as instrumental variable probit (IV-PROBIT). The models are estimated via the conditional mixed process (CMP) estimation technique.

The results indicate that remittances have a negative effect on self-employment and a positive effect on domestic/family employment. Thus, remittances reduce participation in self-employment but increase participation in domestic/family employment. Furthermore, remittances have a negative effect on participation in farm employment. The results are robust to different measures of remittances: receipt of remittances (dummy) and remittance income.

The results suggest that remittances are used for consumption rather than investing in earning activities. In general, engaging in earning type of employment, whether farm and nonfarm employment will decline with receipt of remittances in rural Ghana. There is a need for policy attention with the increasing migration of people out of rural areas.

Prior to this study, little was known on the effect of internal remittances on labor supply decisions of remittance recipients in Ghana, particularly rural Ghana. This paper contributes significantly to filling this knowledge gap.

With the presence of pricing errors, the authors consider statistical inference on the variance risk premium (VRP) and the associated implied variance, constructed from the option prices and the historic returns.

The authors propose a nonparametric kernel smoothing approach that removes the adverse effects of pricing errors and leads to consistent estimation for both the implied variance and the VRP. The asymptotic distributions of the proposed VRP estimator are developed under three asymptotic regimes regarding the relative sample sizes between the option data and historic return data.

This study reveals that existing methods for estimating the implied variance are adversely affected by pricing errors in the option prices, which causes the estimators for VRP statistically inconsistent. By analyzing the S&P 500 option and return data, it demonstrates that, compared with other implied variance and VRP estimators, the proposed implied variance and VRP estimators are more significant variables in explaining variations in the excess S&P 500 returns, and the proposed VRP estimates have the smallest out-of-sample forecasting root mean squared error.

This study contributes to the estimation of the implied variance and the VRP and helps in the predictions of future realized variance and equity premium.

This study is the first to propose consistent estimations for the implied variance and the VRP with the presence of option pricing errors.