Is philanthropy relevant? a study of professional advisers in Australia

CPNS’ new Working Paper examines the latest findings from a national survey of professional advisers on the topic of philanthropy assistance to high-net-worth individuals. Findings confirm a growing willingness within the Australian advisory sector to provide philanthropy advice to clients with means, although the rate of change has slowed since 2005. Advisers are now more likely to see benefits in providing this type of counselling, as well as benefits for their clients in engaging in philanthropy.

Practice briefing : Is BOT the best financing model to procure infrastructure projects? A case study of the Hong Kong-Shuhai-Macau Bridge

Abstract: Purpose – Several major infrastructure projects in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) have been delivered by the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model since the 1960s. Although the benefits of using BOT have been reported abundantly in the contemporary literature, some BOT projects were less successful than the others. This paper aims to find out why this is so and to explore whether BOT is the best financing model to procure major infrastructure projects. Design/methodology/approach – The benefits of BOT will first be reviewed. Some completed BOT projects in Hong Kong will be examined to ascertain how far the perceived benefits of BOT have been materialized in these projects. A highly profiled project, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, which has long been promoted by the governments of the People's Republic of China, Macau Special Administrative Region and the HKSAR that BOT is the preferred financing model, but suddenly reverted back to the traditional financing model to be funded primarily by the three governments with public money instead, will be studied to explore the true value of the BOT financial model. Findings – Six main reasons for this radical change are derived from the analysis: shorter take-off time for the project; difference in legal systems causing difficulties in drafting BOT agreements; more government control on tolls; private sector uninterested due to unattractive economic package; avoid allegation of collusion between business and the governments; and a comfortable financial reserve possessed by the host governments. Originality/value – The findings from this paper are believed to provide a better understanding to the real benefits of BOT and the governments' main decision criteria in delivering major infrastructure projects.

Seeing the Wood for the Trees: A Critical Evaluation of Methods to Estimate the Parameters of Stochastic Differential Equations

Maximum-likelihood estimates of the parameters of stochastic differential equations are consistent and asymptotically efficient, but unfortunately difficult to obtain if a closed-form expression for the transitional probability density function of the process is not available. As a result, a large number of competing estimation procedures have been proposed. This article provides a critical evaluation of the various estimation techniques. Special attention is given to the ease of implementation and comparative performance of the procedures when estimating the parameters of the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross and Ornstein–Uhlenbeck equations respectively.

Unbiased estimation of the half-life to price index convergence among U.S. cities

Estimates of the half-life to convergence of prices across a panel of cities are subject to bias from three potential sources: inappropriate cross-sectional aggregation of heterogeneous coefficients, presence of lagged dependent variables in a model with individual fixed effects, and time aggregation of commodity prices. This paper finds no evidence of heterogeneity bias in annual CPI data for 17 U.S. cities from 1918 to 2006, but correcting for the “Nickell bias” and time aggregation bias produces a half-life of 7.5 years, shorter than estimates from previous studies.

Comparing different explanations of the volatility trend

We analyze the puzzling behavior of the volatility of individual stock returns over the past few decades. The literature has provided many different explanations to the trend in volatility and this paper tests the viability of the different explanations. Virtually all current theoretical arguments that are provided for the trend in the average level of volatility over time lend themselves to explanations about the difference in volatility levels between firms in the cross-section. We therefore focus separately on the cross-sectional and time-series explanatory power of the different proxies. We fail to find a proxy that is able to explain both dimensions well. In particular, we find that Cao et al. [Cao, C., Simin, T.T., Zhao, J., 2008. Can growth options explain the trend in idiosyncratic risk? Review of Financial Studies 21, 2599–2633] market-to-book ratio tracks average volatility levels well, but has no cross-sectional explanatory power. On the other hand, the low-price proxy suggested by Brandt et al. [Brandt, M.W., Brav, A., Graham, J.R., Kumar, A., 2010. The idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: time trend or speculative episodes. Review of Financial Studies 23, 863–899] has much cross-sectional explanatory power, but has virtually no time-series explanatory power. We also find that the different proxies do not explain the trend in volatility in the period prior to 1995 (R-squared of virtually zero), but explain rather well the trend in volatility at the turn of the Millennium (1995–2005).

An analysis of the qualitative characteristics of management commentary reporting by New Zealand companies

The narrative section of annual reports has considerable value to its user groups, such as financial analysts and investors (Tiexiera, 2004; Barlett and Chandler, 1997, IASB, 2006). This narrative section including chairpersons’/presidents’ statement contains twice the quantity of information than the financial statements section (Smith and Taffler, 2000). However, the abundance of information does not necessarily enhance the quality of such information (IASB, 2006). This issue of qualitative characteristics has been long foregone by researchers. This issue has attracted the attention of IASB (2006). Following the dearth in research in regard to qualitative characteristics of reporting this paper explores whether investors’ required qualitative characteristics as outlined by the IASB (2006) have been satisfied in management commentary section of New Zealand companies’ annual reports. Our result suggests that the principal stakeholders’, that is, investors’ qualitative characteristics requirements have been partially met in this section of annual reports. The qualitative characteristic of ‘relevance’ and ‘supportability’ have been satisfied in more annual reports compared to that of ‘balance’ and ‘comparability.’

Interim financial reporting in the Asia-Pacific region : a review of regulatory requirements

This paper addresses the question of how interim financial reporting regulation varies across the Asia-Pacific region. Using a content analysis method, the study investigates the relevant regulations in eight selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region which differ in a number of country-level attributes. We find that the regulations in the region show considerable variation in terms of the form of regulatory enforcement, reporting lag, audit requirements, and reporting form. By providing the first in-depth review of the nature of differences in interim financial reporting in key countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the findings of this study will be of interest to investors, regulators and researchers in their quest for international “convergence” in financial reporting practices.

Would you like data with that? Library provision of financial datasets

Within the QUT Business School (QUTBS)– researchers across economics, finance and accounting depend on data driven research. They analyze historic and global financial data across a range of instruments to understand the relationships and effects between them as they respond to news and events in their region. Scholars and Higher Degree Research Students in turn seek out universities which offer these particular datasets to further their research. This involves downloading and manipulating large datasets, often with a focus on depth of detail, frequency and long tail historical data. This is stock exchange data and has potential commercial value therefore the license for access tends to be very expensive. This poster reports the following findings: •The library has a part to play in freeing up researchers from the burden of negotiating subscriptions, fundraising and managing the legal requirements around license and access. •The role of the library is to communicate the nature and potential of these complex resources across the university to disciplines as diverse as Mathematics, Health, Information Systems and Creative Industries. •Has demonstrated clear concrete support for research by QUT Library and built relationships into faculty. It has made data available to all researchers and attracted new HDRs. The aim is to reach the output threshold of research outputs to submit into FOR Code 1502 (Banking, Finance and Investment) for ERA 2015. •It is difficult to identify what subset of dataset will be obtained given somewhat vague price tiers. •The integrity of data is variable as it is limited by the way it is collected, this occasionally raises issues for researchers(Cook, Campbell, & Kelly, 2012) •Improved library understanding of the content of our products and the nature of financial based research is a necessary part of the service.