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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reason for Chinese local officials' enthusiasm towards cultivating newly listed firms within their jurisdictions.

With new initial public offering (IPO) firms on the Chinese A‐share market over 1999‐2003 as samples, and using excessive employment as a measure of the carrying level of firms for political objectives of local governments, this study systematically investigates the change in policy burden for Chines firms before and after going public, the influence factors and their economic consequences.

The authors show that compared with before going public, the excessive employment of firms substantially increased upon going public, among which firms, state‐owned enterprises with better performances and private enterprises with closer links with government are heavier burdened with excessive employment. Furthermore, it was found that the increase in excessive employment upon going public can substantially aggravate the underperformance of IPO firms.

The findings in this study indicate that the new IPO firms do help local officials better realize their political objectives, and the local governments do actively use their rights of control or influence in pursuing their political appeals, and the political appeals of local officials brought loss of real economic efficiency to newly increased IPO firms.

This paper shows that the prime mover of Chinese local government in promoting securitization of local assets is effectively preserved by partial privatization, which is designed with the original intention of preserving governmental control over the economy.

The paper explains the Chinese local governments' enthusiasm for building capital provinces for reasons other than economic growth, i.e. political objectives; the paper provides evidence of how the political appeals of officials influence the capital market from the circumstance of government official selecting system, and builds a possible bridge in the relationship between government interventions and underperformance of the Chinese partially‐privatized firms.

The purpose of the research presented in this paper is to provide a new approach related to the definition of variables in disaggregating branch expenses and income for evaluating the overall technical efficiency of bank branches by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA).

By applying an input minimization DEA model to a sample of bank branches of a large commercial bank in Greece, this study identifies pure technical and scale inefficiencies, efficiency and size relationship and returns to scale patterns. Moreover, it explores target setting strategies for inefficient branches.

Results indicate that branch size has an important influence on efficiency and that superior insights can be obtained by pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE), as constituent components of global technical efficiency (TE) than the information obtained from the analysis based on selected key performance indicators (KPIs) used by the bank under study.

A direction of future research would be to extend the analysis to incorporate environmental factors, such as branch location, local competitive environment, investment portfolio risk, among others, into the DEA assessment.

The study shows that DEA which provides an overall summary measure with respect to global TE and its constituent components PTE and SE can be used to complement the in‐house performance management system of the bank under study for the evaluation of its branch network.

From a policy perspective, this study highlights the use of DEA combined with statistical analysis to support the reduction of burden by means of either expense reduction or revenue enhancement.

This study aims to examine the effect of the various dimensions of economic freedom and political freedom in host countries on the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows over a six-year period from 1995 to 2000 in 95 countries.

The sample consists of 95 countries and relates to the time period from 1995 to 2000. The sample is of a longitudinal or panel nature.

Results indicate that better economic management (monetary policy, fiscal burden and banking and finance), less government participation in the economy, less state intervention (strong property rights, less regulation, low prevalence of informal markets and less corruption), absence of wage and price controls and higher levels of political freedom lead to higher FDI inflows after controlling for FDI stock.

Most empirical studies using indices such as the Index of Economic freedom are subject to certain methodological limitations such as model selection, parameter heterogeneity and outliers and moral hazard.

Empirical findings suggest that the role played by governments in national economies have significant influence over FDI decisions.

From a policy perspective, our results imply that to attract FDI, governments will need to improve the institutional environments of their countries. More specifically, improving the levels of economic and political freedoms can greatly facilitate the inflow of FDI.

One of the main contributions of the present study to the international business literature is that it is one of the first that explicitly relates the ten components that constitute “economic freedom” to FDI.

This paper seeks to understand the evolution of financial intermediation in the course of China's economic transition.

The research is based on a unique data set collected by the authors and other collaborators from a 1998 survey of financial institutions, enterprises, and government officials in southern China.

Based on an empirical investigation of rural financial reforms, it is argued that China's two‐decade long financial reform was a gradual process that accommodates reforms in other sectors and responds to changing policy goals and the economic and institutional environment in which financial institutions operate. Although using standard measures of financial system performance may cast doubt on the effectiveness of China's rural banking system, when one understands the different roles that it has been asked to play, it can be argued that it has not operated so poorly.

In conclusion, it is found that China's rural economic environment is still changing. If the system continues to change in the future, responding to pressures in the economy, further financial reforms will almost certainly emerge in the coming years.

These findings, although primarily from the 1980s and 1990s, are still helpful in understanding the reform process that is currently ongoing.

This paper will help readers make sense of agricultural financial reforms and will allow for more discourse over what has been accomplished and what still is needed.

This is the first manuscript to comprehensively put China's rural financial reforms into the context of modern economic analysis, explaining why China's government proceeded as they did and why the reforms have unfolded in such a stop and start manner.

The role of macroprudential policies (MPPs) in influencing bank risk-taking has recently attracted significant attention in the literature. Several studies have emerged, both at the cross-country level as well as at the level of individual countries that have examined this issue. However, whether and to what extent do MPPs affect risk-taking by Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) banks has not been investigated in prior empirical research. Toward this end, using data during 1996-2010, the author examines the impact of MPPs on risk-taking by GCC banks. The author considers the entire gamut of MPPs – those focused on credit, capital and liquidity – and how they impact bank risk.

In view of the possible endogeneity between the dependent variables and the crucial independent variable (i.e. MPP), the paper uses advanced panel data techniques that address this endogeneity. Toward this end, the author uses dynamic panel data methodology to examine the interlinkage between bank risk taking and MPPs for GCC banks.

The findings appear to suggest that although MPPs are useful, not all of them are equally effective in containing the potential build-up of financial stress. Viewed from this standpoint, it appears that capital adequacy ratios and reserve requirements are the ones with maximum efficacy in limiting potential build-up of risks. Classifying the MPPs as per their impact on major balance sheet variables, the results indicate that capital-related measures tend to exert the greatest impact on credit.

A significant volume of literature has emerged in recent years that examine the efficacy of MPPs on bank risk-taking. Notwithstanding available cross-country research, limited analysis on this aspect in the context of GCC banks. Toward this end, an extended sample of GCC banks has been used to examine this issue. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the earliest studies for GCC banking systems to examine this issue.

The aim of this paper is to investigate CEO succession in China's state‐owned enterprises (SOE) from within intra‐industry labor market. One hypothesis looks at the proportion of SOEs in the industry which will be negatively associated with the likelihood of intra‐firm succession. Another proposition claims the performance gap between SOEs and the industry average level is positively related to the likelihood of intra‐firm succession.

Secondary source data on 79 CEO successions and descriptive company measures were obtained. Background variables such as ROA and employee number were collected from the Tianjin Statistical Yearbook. Pearson and logistic regression coefficients provided tests of hypotheses.

The hypotheses are strongly supported given all measures of performance. The likelihood of intra‐firm succession is negatively associated with the proportion of SOEs in a particular industry. The lower the performance of SOEs behind the industry average level, the greater the likelihood of intra‐firm succession.

The sample size used is moderate. Even though Tianjin is a large industrial center, generalizations to all of China may be limited.

The results support the overall argument that firms within a gradualist economic transition environment in China will tend to choose an internal CEO succession when firms have a limited qualified managerial supply outside the organization. Future research examining the CEO successor in both SOEs and non‐SOEs will provide a more complete picture of organization management with transitional economies evolving into the largest world‐leading economies.

The data base is unique. The paper looks at the business activities and management processes of China's SOEs for the purpose of understanding the way leadership develops; and the organizational effect it has on top management succession. The research not only contributes to the succession literature but also enables managers and investors to better understand the practice of top management succession in Chinese SOEs.

This paper aims to document the history of accounting development in Madagascar over the last century. It reports the development and important events that took place between 1900 until the twenty‐first century and discusses its impact on the development of accounting systems and practices in Madagascar.

In order to do this it uses the Code of Commerce, 1807 to narrate the development in accounting regulation and the different accounting plans issued in the country over the last 100 years.

Given that the Accounting Plan 2005 claims to have harmonized with the international financial reporting standards (IFRS), this paper analyzes the level of harmonization with the IFRS by comparing the Madagascar Accounting Plan 1987 and 2005 with the IFRSs to identify any missing issues which can be regarded as symptoms of disharmony. This paper concludes that accounting plan in Madagascar has been upgraded from an archaic system to a more global accounting plan, though there are still room for improvement.

The study is grounded in the practical development of national accounting and provides lessons for developments in other developing countries.

No other study has examined accounting developments in Mauritius and so the paper provides a key reference for future work.

The paper seeks to analyse the impact of different public policies on inequality, unemployment, growth and the tax burden.

A dynamic general equilibrium model is built, in which growth is driven by endogenous technical progress, to analyse the impacts of several policies (minimum wage, redistribution and R&D subsidies financed by an income tax).

All policies except pure redistribution are better than non‐intervention in terms of growth. The authors distinguish three major policy patterns. The Anglo‐Saxon model is characterised by high growth, high inequality, low unemployment and a low tax burden. The Nordic model combines high growth, low inequality and low unemployment, and a high tax burden. The Continental European model puts together medium inequality and a medium tax burden, and higher long‐term growth is paid for by high unemployment.

The model could be extended by the introduction of educational policy.

The paper distinguishes three configurations that capture the main features of the developments in Anglo‐Saxon countries, Scandinavian countries, and Continental European countries in the 1990s. It thereby provides a general framework to analyse and compare these experiences.

Purpose: Caregivers are at risk of increased burden, and caregivers who provide care for a long duration may be at higher risk than short-term caregivers. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between caregiving duration and caregiver burden, as well as whether the relationship was moderated by paid leave.

Design/methodology/approach: We utilized a sample of employed caregivers from the Caregiving in the US 2015 dataset (n = 585) collected by the American Association of Retired Persons. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we examined the study relationships.

Findings: The authors found that caregiving duration was associated with increased burden. Although there was no direct relationship between paid leave and caregiver burden, paid leave buffered the association between caregiving duration and caregiver burden.

Research limitations/implications: This study is limited by a cross-sectional design. Longitudinal data collection efforts are needed to further examine the possible effects of paid leave on well-being and health outcomes.

Practical implications: Findings indicate a potential need to consider developing support programs for caregivers based on how long they need to provide care.

Societal implications: Policies are needed to decrease the burden felt by caregivers, especially those who provide care for a long period of time.

Originality/value: The current study is the first to explore the interrelationships among caregiving duration, paid leave, and caregiver burden.