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We study the recursive moments of aggregate discounted claims, where the dependence between the inter-claim time and the subsequent claim size is considered. Using the general expression for the m-th order moment proposed by Léveillé and Garrido (Scand. Actuar. J. 2001 , 2, 98–110), which takes the form of the Volterra integral equation (VIE), we used the method of successive approximation to derive the Neumann series of the recursive moments. We then compute the first two moments of aggregate discounted claims, i.e., its mean and variance, based on the Neumann series expression, where the dependence structure is captured by a Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern (FGM) copula, a Gaussian copula and a Gumbel copula with exponential marginal distributions. Insurance premium calculations with their figures are also illustrated.

The paper re-analyses the evidence presented by pro and anti-regulation interests during the debates on factory reform. To do so it considers the interrelationship between fixed costs, the rate of profit and the length of the working day. The interrelationship casts new light on the lobbying positions on either side of the debate. It does so by comparing the evidence presented in the debates before parliament and associated pamphlets with actual figures contained in the business records of implicated firms. As a result the paper identifies the compromise position of the working day length compatible with reasonable rates of profit based on actual cost structures. It is thereby able to reinterpret the validity of the claims of contemporary political economy used to support the cases for and against factory regulation.

The M and A transactions represent a wide range of unique business optimization opportunities in the corporate transformation deals, which are usually characterized by the high level of total risk. The M and A transactions can be successfully implemented by taking to an account the size of investments, purchase price, direction of transaction, type of transaction, and using the modern comparable transactions analysis and the business valuation techniques in the diffusion type financial systems in the finances. We developed the MicroMA software program with the embedded optimized near-real-time artificial intelligence algorithm to create the winning virtuous M and A strategies, using the financial performance characteristics of the involved firms, and to estimate the probability of the M and A transaction completion success. We believe that the fluctuating dependence of M and A transactions number over the certain time period is quasi periodic. We think that there are many factors, which can generate the quasi periodic oscillations of the M and A transactions number in the time domain, for example: the stock market bubble effects. We performed the research of the nonlinearities in the M and A transactions number quasi-periodic oscillations in Matlab, including the ideal, linear, quadratic, and exponential dependences. We discovered that the average of a sum of random numbers in the M and A transactions time series represents a time series with the quasi periodic systematic oscillations, which can be finely approximated by the polynomial numbers. We think that, in the course of the M and A transaction implementation, the ability by the companies to absorb the newly acquired knowledge and to create the new innovative knowledge bases, is a key predeterminant of the M and A deal completion success as in Switzerland., 160 pages, 9 figures, 37 tables

Credit ratings have assumed an increasingly formidable and important role over the years. An increased role and revisions to its foundations, have been triggered, not only in view of the shortcomings of credit ratings based criteria, as revealed through the recent Financial Crisis, but also the need to update Basel II - which has served as the foundation for credit ratings in several jurisdictions. Credit ratings serve various vital purposes, most notably of which include the determination of capital requirements, the identification and classification of assets, and the provision of reliable estimation and assessment of credit risk. The criteria required to be satisfied by credit rating agencies, namely: objectivity, independence, transparency, disclosure, resources and credibility, are closely linked, since the level of comparability and consistency of information provided by such agencies, could also serve as a useful indicator that such information is reliable and credible. In response to the changing financial environment - the evolution and emergence of new and more complex forms of risks and financial products, credit rating agencies have extended their scope beyond the coverage of their traditional products. As well as assessing whether the scope of products presently covered by rating agencies could be deemed adequately relevant to the criteria required to satisfy information being provided as credible, this paper also addresses the reliability of credit scoring methods and models. Are those measures used in estimating the probability of default, namely, financial statements, market prices of a firm’s debt and equity, and appraisals of the firm’s prospects and risk sufficiently indicative as to provide a reliable estimate of the firm's probability of default? The vital role of audits in verifying the credibility of information in financial statements is therefore evident. The reliability and consistency of credit ratings across different jurisdictions, sectors - financial, non financial sectors, and rating agencies, as well as the reliability of the approach for assessing ratings constitute major areas to be addressed. This in part, being attributed to the difficulties with achieving a balance between risk-sensitivity and comparability. The Basel III leverage ratios also being crucial to achieving an acceptable balance with risk-sensitivity - such that the capital framework is not considered unduly risk-sensitive - as was the case with Basel II. The increased importance attributed to credit ratings is also reflected by the Basel Committee’s recent introduction of the Standardized Approach (SA-CCR) for measuring exposure at default (EAD) for counter-party credit risk (CCR). The SA-CCR is intended to replace both current non-internal models approaches, the Current Exposure Method (CEM) and the Standardised Method (SM). The SA-CCR will apply to OTC derivatives, exchange-traded derivatives and long settlement transactions. Risk models have certainly become increasingly complex and relevant - however, is such level of complexity correspondingly and adequately balanced with the level of objectivity and comparability which is required within the capital framework?

This paper studies the effects of hedge disclosure requirements on corporate risk management and product market competition. The analysis is based on a simple model of market entry and shows that incumbent firms engage in risk management when these activities remain unobserved by outsiders. The resulting equilibrium is desirable from a social standpoint. Financial markets are well informed and entry is efficient. However, potential attempts for more transparency by additional disclosure requirements introduce a commitment device that provides firms with incentives to distort risk management activities thereby influencing entrant beliefs. In equililibrium, firms engage in significant risk-taking. This behavior limits entry and adversely affects the nature of competition in industries. Our findings thus suggest that more disclosure on risk management may change risk management in socially undesirable ways.

In 2006, the Netherlands commenced market based reforms in its health care system. The reforms included selective contracting of health care providers by health insurers. This paper focuses on how health insurers may increase their market share on the health insurance market through selective contracting of health care providers. Selective contracting is studied by eliciting the preferences of health care consumers for attributes of health care services that an insurer could negotiate on behalf of its clients with health care providers. Selective contracting may provide incentives for health care providers to deliver the quality that consumers need and demand. Selective contracting also enables health insurers to steer individual patients towards selected health care providers. We used a stated preference technique known as a discrete choice experiment to collect and analyze the data. Results indicate that consumers care about both costs and quality of care, with healthy consumers placing greater emphasis on costs and consumers with poorer health placing greater emphasis on quality of care. It is possible for an insurer to satisfy both of these criteria by selective contracting health care providers who consequently purchase health care that is both efficient and of good quality.

Daily we are confronted with the companies problems in acquiring or maintaining competitive advantage. By Croatian accession to the European Union that struggle became more pronounced. However, competitors can be only high-quality and successful companies, and many business decisions depend on managers. It is necessary to have quality accounting information to make such imprtants decisions. Accounting must be organized in such a way that at any moment it can produce any kind of information relevant for management. Selection and implementation of an information system is certainly one of the most important decision that a business entity can bring. Impact of the quality of accounting information systems (AIS) on the quality of accounting information and the impact of realization of the same information, is the topic of this paper. What happens when a big company applies modular rather than integrated AIS and how to solve problems which arise in the application of accounting harmonization with the actual situation, the factor of human error during manual entry, untimely availability of certain resources and information, and at the end of analytical records of compliance by individual accounts synthetic records in the general ledger. The main issue of this paper is finding possible answer in introducing modern integrated business information systems (ERP systems) as a solution of the problem for large IT companies. The conclusion shows that the system of internal controls and information and communication technology are essential component of AIS. If the company wants to operate efficiently and concurrently, it is necessary to find and integrate RIS highest quality in order to improve long-term business.

This paper discusses the impact of task performance, fraud risk assessment and forensic accountants and auditors’ skills and mindsets in the Nigerian public sector. It also draws the attention of the users of public sector accountants and auditors such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Special Control Unit of Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and White collar crimes. The objective of the study is to enhance the fraud risk assessment task performance in the Office of both Auditor General for the Federation and Accountant General of the Federation through the effective use of skills and mindsets (forensic accountant and auditor), which will usher in the best corporate governance practices in the Nigerian public sector. Thus, the study suggests performance measurement can be improved considering the impact of forensic accountant skills and mindsets on fraud risk assessment in the Nigerian public sector.

In this work, we examine Thomas Reuters News Analytics (TRNA) data. We found several fascinating discoveries. First, we document the phenomenon that we label “Jam-the-Close”: The last half hour of trading (15:30 to 16:00 EST) contains a substantial and statistically significant amount of news sentiment releases. This finding is robust across years and months of the year. Next, upon further investigations we found that the “novelty” score is on average 0.67 in this period vs . 2.09 prior to midday. This indicates that “new” news is flowing at a rapid pace prior to the close. Finally, we discuss the implication of such phenomena in the context of existing financial literature.

International audience; Over the last three decades, the world economy has been facing stock market crashes, currency crisis, the dot-com and real estate bubble burst, credit crunch and banking panics. As a response, extreme value theory (EVT) provides a set of ready-made approaches to risk management analysis. However, EVT is usually applied to standardized returns to offer more reliable results, but remains difficult to interpret in the real world. This paper proposes a quantile regression to transform standardized returns into theoretical raw returns making them economically interpretable. An empirical test is carried out on the S&P500 stock index from 1950 to 2013. The main results indicate that the U.S stock market becomes extreme from a price variation of 1.5% and the largest one-day decline of the 2007–2008 period is likely, on average, to be exceeded one every 27 years.

Random shifting typically appears in credibility models whereas random scaling is often encountered in stochastic models for claim sizes reflecting the time-value property of money. In this article we discuss some aspects of random shifting and random scaling in insurance focusing in particular on credibility models, dependence structure of claim sizes in collective risk models, and extreme value models for the joint dependence of large losses. We show that specifying certain actuarial models using random shifting or scaling has some advantages for both theoretical treatments and practical applications., 11 pages

This paper proposes a new method to introduce coherent risk measures for risks with infinite expectation, such as those characterized by some Pareto distributions. Extensions of the conditional value at risk, the weighted conditional value at risk and other examples are given. Actuarial applications are analyzed, such as extensions of the expected value premium principle when expected losses are unbounded.

Recent crises in the financial industry have shown weaknesses in the modeling of Risk-Weighted Assets (RWAs). Relatively minor model changes may lead to substantial changes in the RWA numbers. Similar problems are encountered in the Value-at-Risk (VaR)-aggregation of risks. In this article, we highlight some of the underlying issues, both methodologically, as well as through examples. In particular, we frame this discussion in the context of two recent regulatory documents we refer to as Basel 3.5., Risks, 2 (1)

This paper is focused on solving different hard optimization problems that arise in the field of insurance and, more specifically, in reinsurance problems. In this area, the complexity of the models and assumptions considered in the definition of the reinsurance rules and conditions produces hard black-box optimization problems (problems in which the objective function does not have an algebraic expression, but it is the output of a system (usually a computer program)), which must be solved in order to obtain the optimal output of the reinsurance. The application of traditional optimization approaches is not possible in this kind of mathematical problem, so new computational paradigms must be applied to solve these problems. In this paper, we show the performance of two evolutionary and swarm intelligence techniques (evolutionary programming and particle swarm optimization). We provide an analysis in three black-box optimization problems in reinsurance, where the proposed approaches exhibit an excellent behavior, finding the optimal solution within a fraction of the computational cost used by inspection or enumeration methods.

This research considers the strategies on the initial public offering of company equity at the stock exchanges in the imperfect highly volatile global capital markets with the nonlinearities. We provide the IPO definition and compare the initial listing requirements on the various markets. We analyze the IPO techniques: the fixed-price offerings, auctions, book-building. We focus on the IPO initial underpricing, long-run performance and after market liquidity problems. 1. We propose that the information absorption by the investors occurs in the evolving learning process about the company’s value, taking to the consideration the fundamental purpose of investing and the responsibilities of investors. 2. We think that the information absorption capacity by the investors on the IPOs impacts the investor’s investment decisions and serves as a pre-determinant for the successful IPO deal completion. We propose the Ledenyov theory on the origins of the IPO underpricing and long term underperformance effects, which states that the IPO underpricing and long term underperformance can be explained by the changing information absorption capacity by the investors on the IPO value. 3. We think that the IPO winning virtuous investment strategies can only be selected by the investors with the highest information absorption capacity through the decision making process on the IPO investment choices at the selected stock exchange in the imperfect highly volatile global capital markets with the nonlinearities; applying the econophysical econometrical analysis with the use of the inductive, deductive and abductive logics in the frames of the strategic choice structuring process, that is the winning through the distinctive choices process.

The spillover of the credit crisis into a broader global economic downturn brings with it a number of accounting and financial reporting related issues and risks in financial audit area. In their run to show a big profit, in order to attract investors, the assets were over valuated by the companies and validated by the financial auditors. The key problem is the true and fair value shown in financial statements. Thus, financial auditors are the ones to legitimate the accounting information output, by means of their signature, which certifies the fact that the financial statements are authentic and reflect accurately, and fair the result of the transactions of the entity for the audited fiscal year, compliant to IFRS.

International audience; We study a new risk measure inspired from risk theory with a heat wave risk analysis motivation. We show that this risk measure and its sensitivities can be computed in practice for relevant temperature stochastic processes. This is in particular useful for measuring the potential impact of climate change on heat wave risk. Numerical illustrations are given.

The editors of Risks would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2014:[...]

Whilst the benefits and potentials of the dual roles assumed by external auditors are emphasized, as well as the need to ensure that safeguards operating to guard against a compromise of objectivity and independence are in place, this paper also highlights the fact that even though such dual roles are appropriate in certain cases – as illustrated by justifications for limitations imposed by the Sarbanes Oxley Act and other relevant and applicable legislation – instances also persist where section 201 of Sarbanes-Oxley, with regard to internal audit outsourcing, may have been over-reactionary and may continue to hinder both companies and their auditors.

Risk diversification is the basis of insurance and investment. It is thus crucial to study the effects that could limit it. One of them is the existence of systemic risk that affects all the policies at the same time. We introduce here a probabilistic approach to examine the consequences of its presence on the risk loading of the premium of a portfolio of insurance policies. This approach could be easily generalized for investment risk. We see that, even with a small probability of occurrence, systemic risk can reduce dramatically the diversification benefits. It is clearly revealed via a non-diversifiable term that appears in the analytical expression of the variance of our models. We propose two ways of introducing it and discuss their advantages and limitations. By using both VaR and TVaR to compute the loading, we see that only the latter captures the full effect of systemic risk when its probability to occur is low, Comment: 17 pages, 5 tableaux

In the actuarial literature, it has become common practice to model future capital returns and mortality rates stochastically in order to capture market risk and forecasting risk. Although interest rates often should and mortality rates always have to be non-negative, many authors use stochastic diffusion models with an affine drift term and additive noise. As a result, the diffusion process is Gaussian and, thus, analytically tractable, but negative values occur with positive probability. The argument is that the class of Gaussian diffusions would be a good approximation of the real future development. We challenge that reasoning and study the asymptotics of diffusion processes with affine drift and a general noise term with corresponding diffusion processes with an affine drift term and an affine noise term or additive noise. Our study helps to quantify the error that is made by approximating diffusive interest and mortality rate models with Gaussian diffusions and affine diffusions. In particular, we discuss forward interest and forward mortality rates and the error that approximations cause on the valuation of life insurance claims.

The continuous demand for enhanced financial reporting has highlighted the decline of the usefulness of traditional financial statements in satisfying the informational needs and requirements of users. Despite there being several points of view, many proposals revolve around the increase of narrative disclosure accompanying financial statements. It is apparent that the regulatory attention regarding narrative reporting has mainly focused on the Management Commentary (MC) report. As a result, the accounting standard setters have promoted different approaches to improve the comparability and usefulness of the MC among the firms. In December 2010, the IASB completed the project on the MC disclosure framework, through the publishing of a non-binding IFRS practice statement (IFRSps). The aim of this study is to analyze the information conveyed by the MC report for a sample of firms listed on the Italian Stock Exchange at the end of 2010. More specifically, we investigate the determinants affecting the extent of firms disclosure compliance with the IASB’s MC voluntary guidelines, reported in the IFRSps, soon after its implementation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study which examines the explanatory factors affecting the extent of voluntary disclosure convergence in relation to IFRSps, with reference to Italy. To analyze the informational content of each MC report, we create an index of disclosure compliance using a self-constructed checklist designed on the IASB’s MC guidelines. To assess the relationship between the index of disclosure compliance and the firm characteristics, we use a regression model. Consistent with previous accounting studies, our results suggest that firm size and ownership diffusion are positively related to the extent of disclosure compliance with IASB’s MC guidelines. On the other hand, the leverage and profitability were found to be unrelated to the index of disclosure compliance. The results also show that the level of disclosure compliance to the IASB’s MC guidance is low, ranging from 10% to 76%, averaging 39%. This means that despite the continued demand for better comparability in financial reporting practices, in Italy a large number of firms do not seem to converge towards a single set of standards for both the narrative and numerical-financial disclosure.

We analyze how ownership concentration and type, and board independence are related to corporate social performance (CSP). Drawing from agency and team production theories, we argue that the distribution of costs and benefits to shareholders and other stakeholders is crucial to understand what drives CSP. We analyze an international panel of listed firms and reveal that CSP is negatively related to ownership concentration, but positively to board independence. Furthermore, the ownership type and the business context matter. Ownership concentration is negatively related to CSP more strongly in shareholder-oriented societies. This negative relationship is weaker in egalitarian societies.

This paper presents a welfare analysis of several capital insurance programs in a rational expectation equilibrium setting. We first explicitly characterize the equilibrium of each capital insurance program. Then, we demonstrate that a capital insurance program based on aggregate loss is better than classical insurance, when big financial institutions have similar expected loss exposures. By contrast, classical insurance is more desirable when the bank’s individual risk is consistent with the expected loss in a precise way. Our analysis shows that a capital insurance program is a useful tool to hedge systemic risk from the regulatory perspective.

We examine the returns from owning cows and buffaloes in rural India. We estimate that when valuing labor at market wages, households earn large, negative average returns from holding cows and buffaloes, at negative 64% and negative 39% respectively. This puzzle is mostly explained if we value the household’s own labor at zero (a stark assumption), in which case estimated average returns for cows is negative 6% and positive 13% for buffaloes. Why do households continue to invest in livestock if economic returns are negative, or are these estimates wrong? We discuss potential explanations, including labor market failures, for why livestock investments may persist.

This paper proposes risk sharing strategies, which allow insurers to cooperate and diversify non-systemic risk. We deal with both deviation measures and coherent risk measures and provide general mathematical methods applying to optimize them all. Numerical examples are given in order to illustrate how efficiently the non-systemic risk can be diversified and how effective the presented mathematical tools may be. It is also illustrated how the existence of huge disasters may lead to wrong solutions of our optimal risk sharing problem, in the sense that the involved risk measure could ignore the existence of a non-null probability of "global ruin" after the design of the optimal risk sharing strategy. To overcome this caveat, one can use more conservative risk measures. The stability in the large of the optimal sharing plan guarantees that "the global ruin caveat" may be also addressed and solved with the presented methods.

We examine the returns from owning cows and buffaloes in rural India. We estimate that when valuing labor at market wages, households earn large, negative average returns from holding cows and buffaloes, at negative 64% and negative 39% respectively. This puzzle is mostly explained if we value the household’s own labor at zero (a stark assumption), in which case estimated average returns for cows is negative 6% and positive 13% for buffaloes. Why do households continue to invest in livestock if economic returns are negative, or are these estimates wrong? We discuss potential explanations, including labor market failures, for why livestock investments may persist.

To what extent can monetary and financial crises and cycles be explained through economic theories? This paper is aimed at highlighting why a reliance on economic theories may be necessary given certain flaws which have been revealed from the recent Financial Crisis. Namely, that economic and legal foundations of financial stability cannot always be considered to be credible. Further, the paper aims to accentuate on why despite the valid argument (that a reference to economic theories may be required to explain causalities of financial and monetary crises), causalities could also be explained from other perspectives – even though these perspectives may sometimes, not be as accurate.

This paper examines the determinants of citation success among authors who have published on the economic and business history of Spain. It departs from the dominant cross section approach to the quantitative assessment of citation success by enabling a 15-year time series analysis of peer-reviewed Spanish and Latin American outlets. Moreover, it considers working papers published online and assesses the role of Spanish as a medium to communicate with an international audience. Our results suggest a high concentration of publications and citations in a small number of authors (including non-residents), the number of years since publication and the importance of international outlets in citation success. Dissemination of online publications was not statistically significant in this sample.

Why are some global financial crises more difficult to recover from and overcome than others? What steps are necessary in ensuring that financial stability and recovery is facilitated? What kind of environment has the previous financial environment evolved to and what kind of financial products have also contributed to greater vulnerability in the triggering of systemic risks? These are amongst some of the questions which this book attempts to address. In highlighting the role and importance of various actors in post crises reforms and the huge impacts certain factors and products have contributed in exacerbating the magnitude and speed of transmission of financial contagion, it also provides an insight into why global financial crises have become more complicated to address than was previously the case. As well as considering and highlighting why matters related to pro cyclicality and capital measures should not constitute the sole focus of attention of the G20's initiatives, the book is aimed at identifying other important issues such as liquidity risks and requirements which have constituted, to a large extent, the focus of international standard setters and regulators. It also aims to direct regulators, central bank officials and supervisors, academics, business and legal professionals and other relevant interested parties in the field to current and previously ignored issues such as the "cartelisation" of capital markets. The need and concern for increased regulation of bond, equity markets, as well as other complex financial instruments which can be traded in OTC (Over-the-Counter) derivatives markets is evidenced by Basel III's focus. "Cartelisation" and organised activities relating to rate rigging in global capital markets have been evidenced recently by sophisticated EURIBOR and LIBOR rate rigging practices and occurences. The aims and objectives of the book would not be complete by merely identifying and highlighting the general root causes of global financial crises, and current issues to be focussed on. Hence each chapter will also recommend (as well as highlight) measures which should be (and have been) put forward in order to address the issues and factors which contribute to the magnitude and severity of global financial crises.

In this paper we tried to investigate the positive influence of capitalization of players acquisition costs as intangible assets on efficiency of professional football clubs. Econometric approach was used to establish econometric models for three indicators of efficiency – total income, total cash flow and rank of club in the national championship. In all models intangible assets (professional players) have reliable positive effect on efficiency of English football clubs.

This paper examines the determinants of citation success among authors who have published on the economic and business history of Spain. It departs from the dominant cross section approach to the quantitative assessment of citation success by enabling a 15-year time series analysis of peer-reviewed Spanish and Latin American outlets. Moreover, it considers working papers published online and assesses the role of Spanish as a medium to communicate with an international audience. Our results suggest a high concentration of publications and citations in a small number of authors (including non-residents) and the importance of local journals in citation success. Besides offering clues about how to improve one’s scientific impact, our citation analysis also sheds light on the state of the field of economic and business history in Spanish economic circles and attests the role of Spain as an intermediate country in the production and diffusion of scientific knowledge.

The Public company accounting oversight board (PCAOB) standing advisory group (2008) highlights several challenges that relate to fraud and therefore tasks accounting researchers to determine whether forensic accountants are more capable than auditors in fraud detection, prevention and response. This paper discusses forensic accountant knowledge and skills and auditor knowledge and skills on task performance fraud risk assessment in the Nigerian public sector. It also draws the attention of the users of public sector accountants and auditors such as the regulatory and enforcement agencies, courts and ministries, departments and agencies. The objective of the study is to investigate the fraud risk assessment task performance in the office of the Auditor general for the Federation and Accountant general of the Federation through the effective use of knowledge and skills (forensic accountant versus auditor), which has the potential to usher in the best global practices in fighting fraud in the Nigerian public sector.

Recientes modificaciones de las normas de auditoría, en aras a la armonización de la regulación en el ámbito de la auditoría en la Unión Europea, han tenido efectos en la configuración de los informes de auditoría de cuentas. Concretamente nos centraremos en el tratamiento de las incertidumbres por problemas en la continuidad de la empresa, por constituir situaciones bastante frecuentes en el entorno actual de crisis, siendo a veces indicadores de una posible quiebra, aunque no necesariamente. Analizaremos mediante un caso real la comunicación del auditor sobre determinadas situaciones que generan dudas en la continuidad de la empresa. Consideramos que es importante que los usuarios del informe de auditoría interpreten correctamente el efecto de estos cambios, debido a la diferencia de expectativas que puede existir.

We consider a spectrally-negative Markov additive process as a model of a risk process in a random environment. Following recent interest in alternative ruin concepts, we assume that ruin occurs when an independent Poissonian observer sees the process as negative, where the observation rate may depend on the state of the environment. Using an approximation argument and spectral theory, we establish an explicit formula for the resulting survival probabilities in this general setting. We also discuss an efficient evaluation of the involved quantities and provide a numerical illustration.

The opportunities to avoid paying taxes provided by tax havens have motivated numerous multinational companies to resort to offshore operations, generating a significant tax loss at a global level. Romania is facing the same problem and the Finance Minister estimates that offshore operations in tax havens are approximately between three and four billion Euros. The refusal to exchange information and the lack of transparency of many tax havens represent a barrier for tax authorities to control these transactions and facilitate the coverage of illegal activities. This has determined certain countries, among which Romania, to impose higher taxes on taxable income of non-residents who are residents in “uncooperative” jurisdictions. In this paper we have emphasized the issue of tax havens and we have presented their classification after the foreign contribution to the capital of Romanian companies. We have also listed the ones with which Romania has signed agreements for information exchange.

To what extent can monetary and financial crises and cycles be explained through economic theories? This paper is aimed at highlighting why a reliance on economic theories may be necessary given certain flaws which have been revealed from the recent Financial Crisis. Namely, that economic and legal foundations of financial stability cannot always be considered to be credible. Further, the paper aims to accentuate on why despite the valid argument (that a reference to economic theories may be required to explain causalities of financial and monetary crises), causalities could also be explained from other perspectives – even though these perspectives may sometimes, not be as accurate. (¿En qué medida pueden las crisis y los ciclos monetarios y financieros se explica a través de las teorías económicas? Este trabajo tiene como objetivo poner de relieve por qué puede ser necesario un mayor recurso a las teorías económicas dadas ciertas fallas que se han revelado desde la crisis financiera reciente. Es decir, lo hicieron fundamentos económicos y jurídicos de la estabilidad financiera no siempre pueden ser considerados como creíbles. Además, el trabajo tiene como objetivo acentuar el por qué a pesar del argumento válido (una referencia a las teorías económicas puede ser necesario para explicar causalidades de las crisis financieras y monetarias), causalidades también podrían ser explicadas desde otras perspectivas - a pesar de estas perspectivas pueden, a veces, no ser lo más preciso).

This fascinating volume explores the roles played by entrepreneurship and multinational enterprises in the development of the modern world. Geoffrey Jones demonstrates how multinational corporations have driven globalization through the transfer of innovation and cultural values.

The paper examines an early case of creative accounting, and how, during British industrialization, accounting was enlisted by the manufacturers’ interest to resist demands, led by the ‘Ten hours’ movement, for limiting the working day. In contrast to much of the prior literature, which argues that entrepreneurs made poor use of accounting techniques in the British industrial revolution, the paper shows that there was considerable sophistication in their application to specific purposes, including political lobbying and accounting for the accumulation of capital. To illustrate lobbying behaviour, the paper examines entrepreneurs’ use of accounting to resist the threat of regulation of working time in textile mills. It explains why accounting information became so important in the debate over factory legislation. In doing so, it shows that a significant element was the accounting evidence of one manufacturer in particular, Robert Hyde Greg, which had a strong impact on the outcome of the parliamentary process. The paper uses archival evidence to illustrate how accounting was used in Greg’s enterprise and the reality of its economic performance. The archival evidence of actual performance is then contrasted with the figures presented by Greg to the Factories Inquiry Commission, convened by the House of Commons in 1833-1834 to hear witnesses from the manufacturing interest. These sets of figures are compared and contrasted and discrepancies noted. Conclusions show that the discrepancies were substantial, motivated by Greg’s incentives to present a particular view of low profits, high fixed costs, and the threat of cheaper overseas competition. The figures appeared to lend some credibility to the apparent plight of manufacturers and to Nassau Senior’s flawed argument about all profit being earned in the ‘last hour’ of the working day. The consequence was a setback for the Ten Hours movement, leading to a further intensification of political struggles over working conditions in the 1840s. Key words: British Industrial Revolution, Accounting, Child labour, Factory Reform, Lancashire cotton textiles, Greg, Quarry Bank Mill

Evaluating risk measures, premiums, and capital allocation based on dependent multi-losses is a notoriously difficult task. In this paper, we demonstrate how this can be successfully accomplished when losses follow the multivariate Pareto distribution of the second kind, which is an attractive model for multi-losses whose dependence and tail heaviness are influenced by a heavy-tailed background risk. A particular attention is given to the distortion and weighted risk measures and allocations, as well as their special cases such as the conditional layer expectation, tail value at risk, and the truncated tail value at risk. We derive formulas which are either of closed form or follow well-defined recursive procedures. In either case, their computational use is straightforward.

We consider an insurance company whose risk reserve is given by a Brownian motion with drift and which is able to invest the money into a Black-Scholes financial market. As optimization criteria, we treat mean-variance problems, problems with other risk measures, exponential utility and the probability of ruin. Following recent research, we assume that investment strategies have to be deterministic. This leads to deterministic control problems, which are quite easy to solve. Moreover, it turns out that there are some interesting links between the optimal investment strategies of these problems. Finally, we also show that this approach works in the L'evy process framework.

This book provides rankings of national competitiveness alongside a series of sophisticated and specific guidelines for enhancing national competitiveness.

The need for effective supervision of capital markets is becoming all the more evident in the aftermath of the recent LIBOR and rate rigging scandals. Financial regulators or indeed bank regulators cannot perform such a function effectively without the involvement of auditors in the supervisory process. A challenging task awaits the incoming Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney – particularly given the reduced involvement of auditors in the bank supervisory process since the time of assumption of the Financial Services Authority's bank supervisory functions. However, he (as well as other recent financial reforms) may prove to be the much needed boost required in the bank and indeed, financial supervisory process. This paper is aimed at highlighting why the transfer of bank supervision back to the Bank of England is required if further progress is to be made in the effective regulation and supervision of the financial services sector. It also highlights shortcomings which exist and need to be addressed if the Bank of England is to perform its tasks efficiently as well as regain the momentum and advantages it had acquired before its supervisory powers were transferred to the Financial Services Authority.

Many questions have been raised as to whether financial accounting has become more conservative. The value relevance and qualitative characteristics of accounting information have become topics of particular relevance given the role they have assumed in influencing the value judgment of investors (local or international) in deciding whether or not to invest in a certain market. Given the quality of accounting information – which has resulted in misleading and inaccurate information (amongst many other low quality attributes), it became evident, particularly following Enron's collapse, to adopt improved, enhanced, better quality standards: namely, International Financial Reporting Standards. This paper considers the background culminating in the adoption of IFRS – as well as the need for the adoption of IFRS. It also highlights why the value relevance of accounting information is also of vital significance in certain emerging economies and why the successful implementation of IFRS in these jurisdictions may be crucial in restoring investor confidence – particularly in the aftermath of stock market crashes in these economies.

Many questions have been raised as to whether financial accounting has become more conservative. The value relevance and qualitative characteristics of accounting information have become topics of particular relevance given the role they have assumed in influencing the value judgment of investors (local or international) in deciding whether or not to invest in a certain market. Given the quality of accounting information – which has resulted in misleading and inaccurate information (amongst many other low quality attributes), it became evident, particularly following Enron's collapse, to adopt improved, enhanced, better quality standards: namely, International Financial Reporting Standards. This paper considers the background culminating in the adoption of IFRS – as well as the need for the adoption of IFRS. It also highlights why the value relevance of accounting information is also of vital significance in certain emerging economies and why the successful implementation of IFRS in these jurisdictions may be crucial in restoring investor confidence – particularly in the aftermath of stock market crashes in these economies.

This paper focuses on what constitutes “an attitude that includes a questioning mind and a critical assessment of audit evidence”, namely professional scepticism. This paper also focuses on factors and reasons contributory to the ever increasing use of (and the need for) forensic accountants – particularly in courts. It also addresses various standards which must be taken into consideration before testimonies provided by expert witnesses are considered to be admissible.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of owner/manager knowledge, competitive intensity, complexity of marketing, technical competence, firm size with the mediation of advisory services on the performance of Nigerian SMEs. The study employed structured questionnaire survey involving a sample of 278 manufacturing SMEs operating in Kano State, a total of 198 valid questionnaires were completed and returned representing 71 percent response rate. Evidence suggests that there is significant relationship between owner/manager knowledge, complexity of marketing decision and technical competence and advisory services. In contrast, the result found no significant relationship between firm size and advisory services. Similarly, the result found that owner/manager knowledge, complexity of marketing decision, technical competence and advisory services have significant relationship with performance. The result also indicates that, there is no significant relationship between firm size performance and technical competence and Performance. We also found that advisory service mediates the relationship between owner manager knowledge and the complexity of marketing decision. The findings of this study will benefit owner/managers of SMEs, regulatory agencies, accounting firms, government at all levels and will also serve as frame of reference to future studies.

Liberalization and globalization has risen the opportunity to third-world nations for the development of industry and educational standards. This paradigm inspires us to suggest a conceptual model for writing case studies and encourage faculty and instructors likely to apply the case learning method in management programs. This paper has been prepared from the viewpoint of faculty and researchers, and it has developed a conceptual framework for case writing. The framework for writing Type II Case Studies would be greatly helpful to faculty, doctoral scholars, and research consultants while teaching management theories effectively in a lecture theater. Exclusively, the authors suggest a case structure and a list of reputed case publishing journals. The conceptual study is written from the perspective of management studies, and the same may apply for possible results in other areas, like engineering, medical, political science, etc., with requisite modifications. Faculty, senior researchers, and budding scholars may apply the suggested conceptual framework while designing case studies from secondary sources. It will also help them in publishing literary work. This is an original attempt to develop a conceptual framework for writing Type II Case Studies from the availability of authenticated secondary sources.

Providing transparency in terms of financial accounting information is one of the objectives of corporate governance. Good accounting practices would result in accounting information that would be very useful to the stakeholders, hence good governance. Employment of effective accounting standards, such as IFRSs can be considered as a better accounting practice that are claimed to produce better disclosure and comparability of accounting information. This study was made to determine whether the companies listed in Pakistan complied with the requirements of IFRS, and whether the financial statements of those companies were harmonized. Thorough document analysis of the selected 51 companies was performed for the selected IFRSs. To determine the degree of harmonization of accounting practices among the companies in Pakistan C index was used. To test for the level of harmonization Chi square test was used. We concluded that, across the board, companies in Pakistan pursue and comply with the requirements of International financial reporting standards (IFRS). This is not the same for the degree of harmonization. Although for most of the IFRS selected degree of harmonization was positively tested there were a few exceptions. The implication is that the users of financial statements should first make adjustments for these items and then compare any aspect of financial condition or performances of the companies in Pakista - See more at: http://www.journalijar.com/article/4503/corporate-governance-and-accounting-practices-in-pakistan/#sthash.9ovp4lAu.dpuf

The CAPM implies that investors require equity risk premia when choosing risky investments and therefore demand higher returns to equity invested if higher risk is present. This should apply to investments in independent enterprises and multi-national enterprises alike. This hypothesis is investigated by analyzing a panel of 407,000 European firms for the years 1985 to 2010. When income is set in relation to invested capital, risk measured by earnings volatility emerges as the most important stable determinant of income. Results indicate that both MNEs and independent firms regularly account for risk as a major determinant of income when pricing international goods and services. Hence international taxation rules for multi-national enterprises should account for risk premia in transfer prices and resulting profits.