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In this paper, we examine whether investors in equity mutual funds in Europe have selection skills, in the sense of having the ex-ante ability to predict the performance of mutual funds. In general terms, we can conclude that we have not found favorable evidence that shows the existence or, at least, the use of selection skills by European investors. Using a sample of daily data for 17 European countries, we evaluate several aspects that may explain the results obtained and that could account for the absence of incentives to use, where appropriate, these skills. We have considered the presence of segmentations in the sample of funds, different time reference of measuring profitability and qualitative aspects. The results of these tests have not altered the overall conclusion of lack of selection skills by European investors.

In this paper, we evaluate the market efficiency of the European mutual fund industry using daily mutual fund returns. With a unique sample of domestic equity funds for 17 European countries over a 30-year time period, we use several performance measures and non-parametric evaluation to reach the conclusion that mutual funds are not able to exceed profitability obtained by the risk-free asset or the reference market index in most countries, although funds are highly efficient in all cases. Using non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) we find evidence of high cost efficiency across countries. This high efficiency slightly decreases during the sample period, although still maintaining efficiency of over 60% for all countries after 30 years.

In this article, we examine the persistence in performance of Korean equity mutual funds between 1990 and 2020. South Korea is the country with the second largest number of mutual funds registered globally after the US; it has more funds domiciled than UK or Japan. The country is the world’s 12th-biggest economy, in the following five years; it is set to make the 10th-biggest contribution to global growth, more than France or Italy and approximately the same as the UK. Using a daily return sample, we show a strong existence of performance persistence in the Korean mutual fund market during the 30-year sample period included in our study. We find this result using a non-parametric methodology based on contingency tables checked by statistical tests, which show statistical significance at 1% level.

In this paper, we examine the Indonesian mutual fund industry and its performance evaluation. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world with 273 million inhabitants in 2021 and it is expected that in 10 years it will enter the top 4 of the largest economies by GDP (by then it will be 300 million Indonesians). Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia (ASEAN region), a member of the G-20 and has been growing at rates of 6% since 2010. Despite the covid, the country's growth forecasts are 5.1% for the period 2023-2027. Buying stocks in Indonesia is still quite challenging, unless these stocks are listed in addition to the Asian country in Europe or the US. Considering that individual investors do not have much to choose from and that their stock market is small, perhaps the most attractive option is to do it through mutual funds. The economic growth expected for the next few years will possibly boost the country's stock market, as happened in China in the previous decade (2010-2020).

espanolObjetivo: explorar la importancia que los profesionales de Enfermeria de urgencia pre-hospitalaria otorgan a las competencias del puesto, asi como a la formacion necesaria para adquirir dichas competencias. Metodo: estudio descriptivo transversal sobre profesionales de Enfermeria de asistencia pre-hospitalaria de las gerencias de emergencias de toda Espana. Se diseno, atendiendo a la literatura y al criterio de expertos, un cuestionario autoadministrado ad hoc online, compuesto por 60 competencias distribuidas en 10 dominios (cada competencia era valorada en una escala Likert de 1 a 5 [mejor valoracion]). Variables independientes: edad, sexo, tipo de recurso en el que desarrolla su actividad asistencial, nivel formativo en urgencias, duracion del titulo de postgrado y experiencia laboral. Analisis bivariante con pruebas no parametricas (U de Mann-Whitney y el test de Kruskal-Wallis). Resultados: se obtuvieron 91 respuestas. Las tres competencias mejor valoradas fueron “Ejecutar maniobras de soporte vital” (media: 4,85), “Poseer una actitud de cooperacion para el trabajo en equipo” (media: 4,77) y “Exigencia de formacion y actualizacion profesional permanente” (media: 4,74). La importancia atribuida mostro diferencias significativas segun sexo en ocho competencias, segun tipo de recurso asistencial en el que desempena su actividad profesional en siete competencias, y segun la duracion de la formacion de postgrado en cuatro competencias. El nivel formativo de postgrado se perfilo como imprescindible. Conclusiones: la importancia atribuida combina, con mayor puntuacion, la competencia tecnica de ejecutar maniobras de soporte vital, la competencia no tecnica de actitud cooperativa con el equipo y la exigencia de formacion permanente. La eficacia en el desempeno exige formacion de nivel superior al Grado. EnglishObjective: to explore the importance assigned by pre-hospital emergency nursing professionals to competence in their position, as well as to the training needed to acquire said skills. Method: a descriptive cross-sectional study on pre-hospital care nursing professionals from the emergency managements throughout Spain. An ad-hoc self-administered online questionnaire was designed, considering literature and criteria by experts, and consisting of 60 skills distributed into 10 domains (each skill was valued through a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (best valued)). Independent variables: age, gender, type of setting where the activity of care is conducted, training level in emergencies, duration of the post-graduate degree, and work experience. Bivariate analysis was conducted with non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney’s U and Kruskal-Wallis test). Results: in total, 91 answers were retrieved. The three best valued skills were: “Conducting life support manoeuvres” (mean: 4.85), “Having a cooperative attitude for team work”” (mean: 4.77) and “Demand for permanent professional training and update” (mean: 4.74). The importance assigned showed significant differences according to gender in eight skills, depending on type of care setting where they conducted their professional activity in seven skills, and according to the duration of postgraduate training in four skills. Postgraduate training level was considered essential. Conclusions: the importance assigned combines, with a higher score, the technical skill of conducting life support manoeuvres, the non-technical skill of a cooperative attitude with the team, and the demand for permanent training. Efficacy in performance demands training beyond Degree.

Our study examines whether financial distress risk is systematic risk using twelve portfolios sorted by size, book-to-market, and leverage and a portfolio of distressed firms covering an 18-year period. It also tests the explanatory power of the risk factors that best capture default risk. The empirical findings show that: (i) equity portfolio investment requires systematically both size and value premiums and that SMB and HML capture additional risk missed by the market portfolio; (ii) the leverage risk premium is positive for highly leveraged firms; and (iii) the risk premium for the relative distress factor is significant only for the distressed firm portfolio. Overall, our results have practical implications for portfolio managers since they advocate a leverage-augmented three-factor model to accurately price assets and to implement efficient portfolio strategies.

IFRS refers to International Financial Reporting Standards, which are the guidelines that provide the framework for accounting works. The principles are also known as the International Accounting Standards (IAS). This global financial concept was first introduced in 2001 to equip investors with analyzed accounting statements. In this Chapter we review the relation between IFRS and Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs). We review the relevant literature that analyses the effects on IFRS on FDIs and cross-border acquisitions. The economic literature states that the introduction of IFRS has presented an important increase in FDIs. The evidence shows that IFRS adopting countries attract investments from countries that implemented IFRS and non-IFRS implementing countries.

New developments in the Information and Communications Technology industry have substantially increased the importance of the internet over the last decade. As a result, the finance sector has developed its technological capability to be able to compete in an online marketplace with other financial services providers and to be able to serve their customer. This chapter examines the use of technology in the financial industry and the various factors associated with it, as well as introducing the reader to the main types of project initiators-contributor business relations in online crowdfunding.

Investing means using funds to start a venture or acquire part of an existing one in hopes that in time the business will accrue profits for the entrepreneur. Often, entrepreneurs opt to purchase companies' stocks. To be able to select the right – profitable – stocks to buy, one requires knowledge of modern portfolio theory, computational investing, stock brokerage, mutual funds, bonds, value investing, how capital gains are taxed, how to trade stocks and options online, and how to use diversification to allocate online investments.

Crowdfunding has helped many businesses and projects to take off easily and is replacing the traditional methods of fundraising since more platforms are being created. Evaluation of the risk for both the borrower and the donor is important before investing or borrowing to ensure that the project is a success. Crowdfunding is changing the way that projects and startups get funded. Most of crowdfunding money is raised on reward-based platforms, although equity crowdfunding is growing quickly. It can be expected that crowdfunding will become more popular, with many crowdfunding new opportunities available, which will make not easy for potential investors to choose what to support. In this chapter, we introduce the reader to the basic types of project initiators-contributor relations in online crowdfunding. We review the current literature identifying the research questions relevant for our purpose. We subsequently conduct a research method of systematic review to identify the relevant papers that address those research questions.

This paper shows the usefulness of selecting the appropriate time frequency to examine mutual fund market timing. Using a sample of daily returns for the UK, we find evidence of the benefit to increase the temporal frequency of the observations to estimate market timing as results present a greater significance when we use daily data in the analysis. We show that using daily instead of monthly observations increases the number of significant estimates of market timing ability. This suggests that the return frequency is important when examining mutual funds market timing performance. Another conclusion we can draw from this study is the small proportion of mutual funds that manage to beat the market by performing correct timing strategies, thus the UK mutual fund market confirms the conclusion from previous studies in another markets.

The Markowitz's model can be very useful in practice. Portfolio managers and private investors can use it easily having the necessary software for its correct application. In our study we show that the Markowitz model is able to provide portfolios that beat reference market portfolios (FTSE 100 and FTSE All-Share Index), obtaining higher returns with a lower risk. Both the FTSE 100 and the FTSE All-Share Index are not efficient portfolios, not reflecting the behaviour of the theoretical market portfolio. Therefore, the Markowitz model, as a tool for investment selection, provides portfolios with better performance than market benchmarks.

El Abandono Escolar Temprano es un problema que preocupa a los países de todo el mundo. Esto se debe a que afecta directamente tanto a la vida de los estudiantes que abandonan como a la sociedad en general. El objetivo del presente estudio es conocer la percepción que tienen los docentes de las etapas de Educación Primaria, Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato sobre las variables más influyentes en el Abandono Escolar Temprano. La investigación llevada a cabo sigue una metodología de encuesta, mediante la administración de un cuestionario con 85 variables identificadas en la literatura científica. Se obtuvieron 134 respuestas de docentes de toda España. Los resultados indican que las variables consideradas más relacionadas con el Abandono Escolar Temprano son las vinculadas a características individuales y familiares. En menor medida, se consideran relacionadas la actividad escolar del individuo como estudiante, la actitud del profesorado, el comportamiento de los compañeros de clase y las características del centro. Se concluye que estamos ante un fenómeno de causas complejas que no debe ser abordado exclusivamente desde una perspectiva académica sino multidisciplinar. Early School Leaving is a problem that worries countries around the world. This is because it directly affects both the lives of students who abandon and society in general. The objective of the present study is to know the perception that Primary Education, Compulsory Secondary Education and Upper Secondary Education teachers have on the most influential variables that affect Early School Leaving. The research carried out follows a survey methodology, by administering a questionnaire with 85 variables identified in the scientific literature. 134 responses were obtained from teachers throughout Spain. The results indicate that the variables considered more related to Early School Leaving are those related to individual and family characteristics. To a lesser extent, the school activity of the individual as a student, the attitude of the faculty, the behaviour of the classmates and the characteristics of the school are considered related. We conclude that we are facing a phenomenon of complex causes that should not be approached exclusively from an academic perspective but multidisciplinary.

Twenty-first century organizations face a challenge and an unprecedented opportunity: to build a new model of relationship with current and potential clients which is more efficient and innovative. And this necessarily implies to acquire a completely new corporate culture in which the collection, management and interpretation of information will inspire the entire business. Under this new business scenario, the data is not understood as part of a process but instead to be part of the core business as a decision tool. Only if companies can manage this flood of information will be able to understand what we do and where they are going; identify the tastes and preferences of consumers and, more importantly, anticipate their decisions to adapt the services in real time and in a personalized way. The Big Data points companies beyond the facts: transforms the actions into predictions.

This paper examines the short-term persistence in performance of equity mutual funds around the world between 1990 and 2013. Using a large survivorship bias-free sample of 35 countries, we document ...

We propose and test a methodological framework to examine the relation between mutual fund fees and return predictability. Gil-Bazo and Ruiz-Verdu (2009) drew attention to the puzzling fact that funds with worse before-fee performance charge higher fees. We make another contribution to the literature about the market for equity mutual funds: we find strong evidence of predictability for mutual fund fees. Funds with both positive and negative relations with fees show strong evidence of negative return predictability for their fees. Our findings are robust to alternative estimation methods and under the assumption of conditionally heteroskedastic stock returns. Our results also show that conditioning information (e.g. dividend yield, t-bill yield, default spread and term spread) are useful in selecting funds with superior performance and are valuable for asset allocation decisions.

This paper examines the interaction of idiosyncratic risk, liquidity and return across time in determining fund performance, as well as across investment style portfolios of European mutual funds. This study utilizes a unique data set including returns for equity mutual funds registered in six European countries. Overall, using monthly data, we find that both liquidity and idiosyncratic risk are relevant in determining mutual fund returns. Our results are robust across different model specifications. We show that model specifications up to six factors are useful as these risk factors capture different aspects in the cross-section of mutual funds returns. The evidence regarding mutual funds subgroups is strongly in favor of the significance of liquidity, and idiosyncratic risk to a lesser extent, as risk factors. Even if liquidity and idiosyncratic risk are considered at the same time, one factor is not significantly decreasing the importance of the other factor.

In recent years, online banking has become an alternative channel for most traditional entities. The increase in the number of users and rapid expansion has resulted in a successful strategy among financial institutions. This chapter discusses the use of technology in the finance industry and the various factors associated with it, as well as introducing the reader to the basic characteristics of online financial services. We review the current literature identifying the relevant research questions for our purpose.