Determinant Factors of the Quality Management Commentary Reports

The adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is now accepted by all researchers in the last decade at least. At the same time, researchers show particular interest in the impact of adoption of IFRS in several areas of economic life and particularly in the banking sector. What IFRS offer is standardization in accounting principles based on which companies prepare their financial statements, which allow for comparisons of performance of companies around the globe. Investors and creditors belong to the long list of stakeholders of a business entity, who require information regarding specific companies and business sectors in order to make their decisions. Annual reports are a formal communication channel for the company to contact with its stakeholders and to report details about its performance and future progress. That is why annual reports include both quantitative and qualitative data; the former could take the form of figures, tables, and ratios, whereas the latter are expressed as management views on present situation, future prospects, risks, and proposed strategy. Our study investigates the disclosure policy that companies follow in their published statements focusing on the determinant factors of quality Management Commentary Reports.

Brokering Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a rapidly evolving computational model, which has succeeded in transforming the ICT industry and the economy's production techniques by making corresponding services even more accessible to businesses, offering cost-effective solutions. The cloud broker is a new business model, derived from the necessity of finding the best provider, or the best bundle for the end user. It is a third-party business that assists clients in making the best decision in choosing the most suitable cloud provider and the most effective service bundle for their needs, in terms of performance and price. This chapter analyzes the cloud broker business model and highlights the broker's vital role and the benefits that arise from the use of its services. In that context, it describes cloud brokering and a market analysis, together with the most popular pricing models, together with a comparison among them, concluding with future directions for the expansion of the brokerage model.

The Impact of Economic Sentiment, Consumer, Producer and Investor's Confidence Indices on Stock Returns of the Listed Companies in FTSE-20 in Greece

This chapter examines the relationship between stock returns of companies listed in the FTSE-20 on the Athens Exchange and behavioral indicators. The research is based on the behavioral APT model, which examines stock returns' risk factors through the involvement of macroeconomic variables and behavioral indicators. The data is the closing price of 17 shares listed in the FTSE-20 index, a number of macroeconomic variables, and a series of behavioral indicators for the period of January 2001-December 2014. Regressions were conducted with dependent variable stock returns of a portfolio invested equally in these 17 stocks. In addition, the research tests the existence of long-run and short-run equilibrium and causality. The change in the industrial production index along with the risk premium have a positive and significant impact on the portfolio returns. Johansen's test showed that there is a long-run equilibrium between stock returns, macroeconomic variables, and behavioral indicators. The VECM and VAR models showed that there is not long and short-run causality, not even Granger causality. No similar research has been conducted in Greece, thus it fills a literature gap.

How the Greek Crisis Determined Firm Profitability and Optimal Debt Ratio

The goal of this chapter is to assess the influence of specific corporate and market features on Greek firms' profitability and the determination of the optimal debt ratio before and during the Greek crisis. The empirical results exhibit an average profitability of 6.97%, which varies significantly both between firms and during the time period examined. Another finding of this study is the verification of the theoretical relationship between the independent variables and Greek firms' profitability between 2005 and 2016. Related to the determination of the optimal debt ratio of Greek firms, the authors found that during the first sub-period examined (before the Greek economic crisis – 2005-2009), the results extracted are not consistent with the MM theory in contrary to the second sub-period (the period of the deep recession 2010-2016). During this period, the optimal debt ratio is estimated to be 40.9% and the turning point decreased considerably compared to the whole period sample (52.6%) 2005-2016.

Earnings Management and Institutional Ownership in Turkey

Earnings management is an important factor that considerably affects the reporting quality of firms and conceivably results in suboptimal investor decisions. The presence of active institutional investors among the equity holders is generally accepted as an external control mechanism that moderates earnings management problems. This chapter aimed to evaluate the role of institutional investors on earnings management with a data of firms listed on Borsa Istanbul between 2005 and 2011. The study found a significant and negative relation between institutional ownership level and managerial discretion exercised in opportunistic management of accruals and confirmed the substantial role played by institutional investors in monitoring and disciplining corporate managers. In other words, the managers' tendency for earnings management practices is observed to be mitigated by institutional shareholdings.

A Comparative Analysis on International Portfolio Flows to Asian Stock Markets With a Nonlinear Perspective

After the Asian financial crisis was solved by International Monetary Fund in late 1997, the recovery in Asian economies begun by 1999. Most of the countries affected by the crisis needed to change their exchange rate policies. This chapter brings insight on how the international portfolio flows to Asian stock markets are affected from the shocks on EUR/USD parity. The weekly observations between 01/01/2010 to 21/04/2017 belong to India, Indonesia, Philippine, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Use of Markov regime switching vector autoregressive models presents the relationship according to the different regimes of the markets in the study. The results indicate that (1) the international portfolio flows through Asian stock markets are governed by a long run, nonlinear relation; (2) the shocks on EUR/USD parity have positive effects on the countries' portfolio flows except Malaysia; and (3) the responses to the shocks vary according to the market regimes or according to the countries.

The Impact of Capital Controls on the Use of Electronic Means of Payments (EMPs) in Greece

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the evolution of the use of electronic means of payments (EMPs) in Greece during the years of capital controls and the prospects created for the Greek banking market and economy from their use. More generally, the authors try to analyze the level of reaction of the real economy to an extreme economic event, coupled with the subsequent development of trends. The introduction of capital controls in Greece in 2015 has led to significant changes in consumers' behavior including the evolution of the means of payment. In this study, the authors analyze initially the penetration of EMPs in Greece during the years before capital controls, then they focus on the current situation and the estimation for the future. They describe the policy followed by the state and measures taken by the Greek banks to encourage the wider use of electronic means of payments.

The Robustness of Portfolio Optimization Models

The optimization of investment portfolios is a topic of major importance in financial decision making, and many relevant models can be found in the literature. These models extend the traditional mean-variance framework using a variety of other risk-return measures. Existing comparative studies have adopted a rather restrictive approach, focusing solely on the minimum risk portfolio without considering the whole set of efficient portfolios, which are also relevant for investors. This chapter focuses on the performance of the whole efficient set. To this end, the authors examine the out-of-sample robustness of efficient portfolios derived by popular optimization models, namely the traditional mean-variance model, mean-absolute deviation, conditional value at risk, and a multi-objective model. Tests are conducted using data for S&P 500 stocks over the period 2005-2016. The results are analyzed through novel performance indicators representing the deviations between historical (estimated) efficient frontiers, actual out-of-sample efficient frontiers, and realized out-of-sample portfolio results.

Banks, Stock Markets, and Growth Relationships in the EU28 Countries

This chapter examines the impact of banks and stock markets on economic growth for a panel that includes the 28 EU member states. The originality of this study lies in that it tests these relationships by employing sub-regional panels based on the geographical distribution of EU countries and by clustering EU member states in Eurozone and non-Euro countries. Results support the stock market-led growth hypothesis only for the case of the full sample panel. Furthermore, both the full panel results and Eurozone panel results fail to support the bank credit-led growth hypothesis. These results are inconsistent with other studies, which however employ only full regional panels.

The Information Content of Tax Loss Carryforwards Before and During the Global Financial Crisis

Tax loss carryforwards are a valuable asset because they usually reduce a company's future tax payments. This chapter investigates the importance of deferred tax assets from tax loss carryforwards (DTA_TLC) by sector and index (FTSE/ASE) for the period before and after the outbreak of the financial crisis (2005-2012). In the non-banking industry, the DTA_TLC cover on average half (1/2) of the total deferred tax assets (DTAs) and one-fifth (1/5) of income before taxes (IBT). The telecommunications industry accounts for the largest DTA_TLC components, while the chemicals sector for the smallest. On average, the companies listed in the FTSE/ASE 20 report DTA_TLC five times larger than those of the FTSE/ASE 40. In the banking sector, until 2009 DTA_TLC constituted a small part of total assets and IBT. In contrast, after 2010, DTAs include significant components of DTA_TLC, as a consequence of the private sector involvement (PSI) and the financial crisis.