Using VIIRS nightlights to estimate the impact of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes

We use Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nightlight data to model the impact of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes. More specifically, the data—showing nightlight emissions—are used to examine the extent to which there is a difference in nightlight intensity between cells damaged in the earthquake versus undamaged cells based on (1) mean comparisons; and (2) fixed effect regression models akin to the double difference method. The analysis is carried out for the entire country as well as smaller regions in and around the Central area and Kathmandu, which were the hardest hit areas. Overall, the regressions find a significant and negative effect from the initial shock, followed by a positive net effect from aid and relief efforts, which is consistent with what one would expect to find. However, the mean analysis results are inconclusive and there is substantial noise in the nightlight measurements due to how the values are produced and persistent cloud cover over Nepal.

Corporate risk-taking after changes in credit rating

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate corporate risk-taking following changes in firms' credit ratings (CR) and the mechanisms the firms use in implementing the risk-taking.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs fixed-effect regression models to examine risk-taking behaviour after firms experience changes in CR after their ratings are downgraded to the lower edge of the investment grade rating (i.e. BBB-) and after their CRs are downgraded below the investment rating.FindingsThe paper finds that, whilst in general, changes in CR are negatively associated with post-event risk-taking, firms downgraded to BBB- do not increase their risk-taking. Only when firms are rated below this grade, firms significantly increase their risk-taking, suggesting that the association between downgrades in CR and firm risk-taking following the event is not linear. Further analysis suggests that these downgraded firms do not increase research and development (R&D) expenses or capital expenditures but employ long-term debt as their risk-taking mechanism.Practical implicationsThe findings of the paper have practical implications for investors considering investing in downgraded-rating firms to shareholders of such firms and especially to those overseeing the firms' risk-taking policies.Originality/valueThe study fills the gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence on corporate risk-taking after changes in CR and also contributes to the optimal debt-maturity choice literature.

Determinants of dividend policy of South Korean listed firms

Dividend policy continues to be a much debated research topic ever since the seminal works of John Lintner (1956), and Miller and Modigliani (1961). Among the many answered questions, doubt continues to remain on the specific factors that determine dividend policy and whether dividend policy can be structured dependently or independently. The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of dividend payout policy on the South Korean firms listed on the South Korean Stock Exchange (KRX). In this study, five variables are considered as potential determinants of dividend payout policy. The study develops five research hypotheses, which are used to represent the main theories of corporate dividend payouts. Fixed effect regression model was applied on a sample of thirty listed companies on South Korean Stock Exchange for the period of four years from 2014 to 2017. The model was chosen to test the relationship between dividend determinants and dividend payout policy. The study hopes to potentially increase knowledge in the area of dividend payout policy with a view to improve prediction and establish a relationship between dividend determinants and dividend payout of South Korean firms.

Cash holding and performance analysis of mutual funds: a case of an emerging financial market

PurposeThis study is about the determinants of cash holding and impact of cash holding on mutual funds’ performance. In addition, the study analyzes the impact of performance-related determinants of cash holding on funds' performance.Design/methodology/approachPanel data of ten years of 190 open-end mutual funds are analyzed through fixed effect regression technique. The risk-adjusted funds' performance of cash based portfolios is computed through capital asset pricing model (CAPM) (1964), Fama and French (1993) and Carhart (1997) models.FindingsThe results indicate that small size funds, high charging front-end load funds, high turnover ratio funds, high 12-month fund returns run up, high dividend paying funds and high redemption level funds hold more cash for precautionary purpose to avoid costs of cash short-falls. Further, monthly average raw returns and risk-adjusted performance of funds with the lowest raw and residual cash holding are found higher than the funds with the highest cash holding. An increase in cash is found to dilute performance.Originality/valueThis is a pioneer study in a corporate environment with shallow capital market, reliance of businesses on bank credit, firms exposed to agency issues, wealth expropriations and existence of business groups with political linkages but with opportunities of investments due to expected favorable geo-socio-political situation. The study generates outcomes relevant for other similar economies.

HUBUNGAN PENGARUH PENERAPAN PRINSIP GOOD GOVERNANCE TERHADAP KINERJA PELAYANAN PENERBITAN SURAT KETERANGAN UJI KETERAMPILAN PENGEMUDI (SKUKP) PADA DIREKTORAT LALU LINTAS POLDA SULAWESI SELATAN

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah: (1) untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis penerapan prinsip-prinsip good governance dengan variabel akuntabilitas, transparansi, partisipasi, efektivitas dan efisiensi serta kepastian hukum memiliki pengaruh terhadap kinerja variabel dalam Ditlantas Polda Sulawesi Selatan dan (2) untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis tentang prinsip-prinsip Good Governance yang paling berpengaruh terhadap kinerja Penerbitan Surat Keterangan Tes Keterampilan Pengemudi (SKUKP) Ditlantas Polda Sulawesi Selatan. Penelitian ini dilakukan di Subdirektorat Kependudukan Ditlantas Polda Sulawesi Selatan dengan jumlah populasi 133 responden (metode sensus). Analisis data yang digunakan adalah deskriptif untuk menjelaskan gambaran responden dan deskripsi penelitian, sedangkan untuk menganalisis data kuantitatif menggunakan analisis Regresi Berganda. Penelitian ini mengkaji tentang prinsip-prinsip good governance yang berpengaruh terhadap kinerja personel Polri di Subdit Ditlantas Polda Sulawesi Selatan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa nilai rata-rata R, R2 memberikan pengaruh yang signifikan. Korelasi regresi untuk variabel akuntabilitas (X1), transparansi (X2), partisipasi (X3), efektivitas dan efisiensi (X4) dan kepastian hukum (X5) serta konstanta koefisien regresi juga berpengaruh signifikan. Dan variabel akuntabilitas dominan (X1) berpengaruh terhadap kinerja pegawai, setelah dilakukan pengujian dengan uji F dan uji t yang menunjukkan pengaruh yang signifikan. The purposes of this study are: (1) to determine and analyze the application of the principles of good governance with the variables of accountability, transparency, participation, effectiveness and efficiency as well as legal certainty have an influence on the performance of variables in the Ditlantas Polda South Sulawesi and (2) to find out and analyze about the principles of Good Governance that most influence the performance of the Issuance of Certificate of Driver Skill Test (SKUKP) Ditlantas Polda South Sulawesi. This research was conducted at the Regident Sub-Directorate of Ditlantas Polda South Sulawesi with a total population of 133 respondents (census method). Analysis of the data used is descriptive to explain the respondent's description and description of the research, while to analyze quantitative data using Multiple Regression analysis. This study examines the principles of good governance that affect the performance of Polri personnel in the Regident Sub-Directorate of the Ditlantas Polda South Sulawesi. The results showed that the average value of R, R2 gave a significant effect. Regression correlations for the variables of accountability (X1), transparency (X2), participation (X3), effectiveness and efficiency (X4) and legal certainty (X5) as well as regression coefficient constants also have a significant effect. And the dominant accountability variable (X1) has an effect on personnel performance, after testing with the F-test and t-test which shows a significant effect.

Economic Consequences of Covid-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Exchange Rate Behaviour

This paper examines the effect of Covid-19 on currency exchange rate behaviour by taking a sample of 37 countries over a period from 4th January 2020 to 30th April 2021. Three variables, such as daily confirmed cases, daily deaths, and the world pandemic uncertainty index (WPUI), are taken as the measure of Covid-19. By applying fixed-effect regression, the study documents that the exchange rate behaves positively to the Covid-19 outbreak, particularly to daily confirmed cases and daily deaths, which implies that the value of other currencies against the US dollar has been depreciated. However, the impact of WPUI is insignificant. On studying the time-varying impact of the pandemic, the study reveals that the Covid-19 has an asymmetric impact on exchange rate over different time frames. Further, it is observed that though daily confirmed cases and daily deaths show a uniform effect, WPUI puts an asymmetric effect on the exchange rate owing to the nature of economies.

Can Family Ownership Strengthen the Relationship Between Intellectual Capital and Performance in ASEAN High-Tech Firms?

This study investigates the positive relationship between intellectual capital and firm performance. It examines whether family ownership can strengthen the relationship between intellectual capital and firm performance of firms in high-technology industries in ASEAN. The data was collected from the BvD OSIRIS database and company annual reports from 2008-2014 and conducted on five countries in ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The final sample used in this study consists of a total of 1,310 observations. This study uses panel data regression model analysis, i.e. fixed effect regression and random effect regression. The results showed that intellectual capital has a positive relationship with financial performance. The result proved the role of intellectual capital in increasing firm finances and its importance as one of the primary resources in competing in the AEC challenges and as the firm's primary driver for the firm's success. It is not found in the relationship between intellectual capital and market performance. In the interaction relationship, the result is contrary to the alignment effect that becomes our previous prediction. The result is consistent with the entrenchment effect and indicates that family ownership can weaken the relationship between intellectual capital and financial performance. There is no evidence about the relationship between the interaction of intellectual capital and family ownership on market performance.

When Language Contact Says Nothing: A Contrastive Analysis of Queísta Structures in Two Varieties of Peninsular Spanish

Based on the existence of some structural conflict between Spanish and Catalan in certain points of the syntax, this study tests the hypothesis about the influence of the latter on the distribution of queísmo uses (‘Me alegro que vengas’ [‘I’m glad you come’]) in the Spanish spoken in an eastern peninsular variety in contact with Catalan. Using the tools of comparative sociolinguistics, and the analysis of three corpora of contemporary Spanish, the study exhaustively examines the conditioning of this variable. The starting hypothesis is that the influence of the contact can be inferred from the comparison between different magnitudes derived from a multivariable statistical analysis. In addition to several linguistic and extra-linguistic predictors previously analysed in the literature, we also take into account other factor groups that may be particularly informative about that potential influence. Thus, from a structural point of view, we consider the contrast between: a) conjunctive queísmo in verbal structures, in which the structural conflict with Spanish is more evident (‘me acuerdo (de) que vino con su mujer/em recorde Ø que va vindre amb la seua dona’ [‘I remember that he came with his wife’]; and b) pronominal queísmo in relative sentences, in which the coincidence between both languages is greater (‘el día (en) que nos conocimos / el día (en) què ens vam conéixer’). From an extralinguistic perspective, the incidence of two additional factors is also examined: a) the speech community (without contact (Madrid/Alcalá) vs. in contact (Castellón), and b) the main language of the speakers (Spanish/Catalan-Valencian). The results of several mixed-effect regression analyses performed do not support the hypothesis of contact. The distributional differences between the above-mentioned groups are minimal, and in no case significant. On the other hand, the variation is basically affected by the same structural and non-structural predictors, regardless of the speech community or the ethnolinguistic group examined. Even the few divergences that are observed point in a direction contrary to that expected by the contact hypothesis. The study concludes with some potential explanations about these results and the contrast with other cases of syntactic convergence with Catalan.

The influence of liquidity risk on efficiency in rural banks: the moderating role of interbank borrowing fund

High competition in Indonesian banking sectors has resulted in the non-survival of rural banks in Indonesia in the long run. The lack of third-party funding becomes one of the most important factors that cause many rural banks to face liquidity risk. Hence, many rural banks use interbank borrowing fund as an alternative source of funding in order to meet their liquidity requirement. Moreover, this risk also leads to many rural banks in Indonesia having to deal with low efficiency problem. This research examines not only the influence of liquidity risk on efficiency but also the role of interbank borrowing fund as a moderator variable. Random effect regression analysis reveals that liquidity risk has negative influence on efficiency. Furthermore, as moderator variable, interbank borrowing fund is shown to enhance the influence of liquidity risk on efficiency. This research becomes guidance for rural banks in managing their liquidity risk and efficiency. In addition, this research also can provide direction for authority in setting some regulation regarding to rural banks’ activities in interbank market.