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Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how ethnic diversity and finance options impact the survival of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach: This study incorporates survey data and secondary data from the public domain. The surveys were conducted across six sectors of the economy categorised into four main ethnic groups involving six nationalities. This study adopts regression analysis using Probit, Logit and linear probability. Findings: The financing choices of the entrepreneurs were consistent with pecking-order theory. The evidence suggests that information asymmetries are prevalent in New Zealand, as SMEs’ owners perceive significant risk from expanding businesses internationally. There is no relationship between ethnicity bias and the survival of firms. Originality/value: This study provides a contribution to the literature on factors relating to business survival and guides the policymakers to use the benefits of potential factors to increase the survival rate of SMEs.

Manuscript type: An empirical analysis of the relationship between country-level governance and share markets in the Asia-Pacific region was carried out using dynamic value at risk (Dynamic VaR), mixed data sample (MIDAS) and exponential generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) models.Research question/issue: Is there a relationship between a country’s governance and stock market in terms of the level of returns and share price volatility? We hypothesise that stock returns for countries with higher levels of governance will have lower ex ante expected returns and less volatility than countries with lower levels of governance.Research findings/insights: It is evident from the empirical findings that there is still significant diversity in both corporate-level governance and country-level governance within the Asia-Pacific region. The results from using mixed data sample-autoregressive distributed lag (MIDAS-ADL) model correlation between world governance index (WGI) and the dynamic VaR suggest that the estimators of high frequency slope for India, China and Malaysia are negative. In addition, their tstatistics show that the correlation is significant; meanwhile, their goodness of fit is also very high confirming the explanation power of MIDAS-AD model. Consequently, the capital market performances of India, China and Malaysia are negatively related to their corporate-level governance and country-level governance. However, China has a positive correlation between WGI and corporate-level governance and country-level governance. This uncommon phenomenon may be the result of its special political system and the segregation of the capital market and the real economy.Theoretical/academic implications: The linkage between country-level governance and volatility of stocks in Asia-Pacific markets indicates there is scope to reduce stock price volatility through enhanced national governance. Volatility as an indicator of risk reflects market uncertainty in terms of processing information signals to find the equilibrium return risk nexus. Consequently, researchers have to incorporate the data of different frequency into the same equation using robust methods.Practitioner/policy implications: Regulatory frameworks encompassing stock markets will benefit from a more focussed consideration of the way in which governance and risk are correlated. Findings from the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and VaR analysis are that stock market volatility is a suitable proxy for the governance of a country. As country governance indices are annual at best, volatility measures give more timely readings. An increase in volatility suggests there is a decline in national governance, and this has implications for those involved in trade, donor organisations and international lending agencies such as the World Bank.

New Zealand has been ranked consistently as one of the five least corrupt countries in the world (Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, TI-CPI) over the past 16 years, but may have suffered somewhat from its international renown. There is no clear legal Definition of corruption in New Zealand. There is a rather diffuse institutional policing of whatever is considered to be corruption, an apparent growth of organised crime, and sometimes public controversy surrounding conflicts of interests in public procurement. Some concerns have been raised about the sale of state assets in the 1980s and 1990s. There is also occasionally evidence of corruption in high public offices and with the parliament’s tardiness in ratifying the United Nations Convention against Corruption. TI-New Zealand has recently commented that the country’s consistently high ranking on the CPI may actually discourage closer examination of these and other issues. Against this background, and with some comparative reference to Hong Kong and mainland China, this article seeks to move towards a framework for future research on corruption in New Zealand.

The current study investigates the relationship between family firm board structure and financial performance in Sri Lanka. This study uses five years (2006–2010) of data from 65 family firms listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE). In order to investigate the impact of board structure on family firm financial performance, a dynamic panel generalised method of moment estimation is applied. The results show that board openness to non-family members, board diversity and insider ownership decrease family firms’ financial performance. Consequently, this study suggests the corporate governance framework needs to be tailored to a family business structure as ‘one size does not fit all’.

Models of energy demand in New Zealand have typically been based upon either a partial general equilibrium approach or constructed from spreadsheet models. The results created by such methods predict that electricity is forecast to be the fastest growing energy demanded by households and the industrial sectorfor the next two decades. Furthermore, aggregate electricity demand is forecast to grow at a constant rate for the next two decades. In this paper we attempt to model and forecast electricity demand using a number of recent econometn'c approaches including Engle-Granger’s Error Correction Model, Phillip and Hansen’s (1990) Fully Modified Least Squares, and the AutoRegressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach of Pesaran et al. (1996, 1998). We identify the model with the smallest forecasting error using a series offorecasting measures and conclude that the new ARDL approach of Pesaran et al, has better forecasting performance than the other approaches considered.

Macroeconomics, 5th edition by Robert J Gordon (Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown Higher Education, Glenview, Illinois; London, England, 1990), 602 pp.The Spread of Economic Ideas, edited by David C Colander and A W Coats, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989), 262 pp.Natural Resource Economics: Conservation and Exploitation, by Philip Neher, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990), 360 pp.