Prior literature expects a lower marginal cash value for weaker governance firms. We test this empirical hypothesis by using the sample of publicly traded Korean firms from 2005 to 2013. To measure the quality of governance structures, we employ the corporate governance scores provided by Korean Corporate Governance Services. The empirical model of Faulkender and Wang (2006) is adopted to estimate the marginal value of cash. Our empirical analysis shows a higher marginal value of cash for the good governance firms in the examination of the total governance score. This finding is consistent to the agency view of cash policy predicting a larger marginal value of cash for the firms with higher governance scores. However, this positive relationship is not robust for a subset of detailed governance scores; a lower marginal cash value is observed for the firms with better qualities of board structure, auditing, dividend policies. Moreover, our empirical analysis verifies a quite low level of marginal cash value for Korean firms, which supports the existence of severe agency conflicts in Korean corporations. Our results verify the significant role of agency conflicts between a manager and shareholders in the determination of marginal cash values in the Korean firms.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the underlying dynamics for the share market bubbles in China during the most recent decade. By using the behavioral finance theory and the Shanghai Composite index prices during the periods from 2005 to 2008 and from 2014 to 2015 as the study samples, we find that the large volatilities in the Chinese share market are closely related to information blockage, which impedes share prices to timely respond to economic conditions as well as external shocks and increases (decreases) the demand of shares when the supply is difficult to adjust. Although the Chinese government has introduced a series of programs designed to increase more reliable information to the public, the share market still tends to confront issues of information asymmetry. The potential reason is that the reforms did not change the long-stand situation in China, where individuals or groups related to government bureaucracy who play a dominant role in the society are given priority to gain access and obtain information that benefits. By identifying the main reasons for the large volatilities in the market, policy makers are given advice as to which areas they may need to focus on to improve future market performance.

This study aims to investigate the determinants of dividend payout of Oil and Gas industry of Pakistan using secondary data from published annual reports from 2008 to 2014 listed on KSE (Karachi Stock Exchange). Dividend payout can be affected by profitability, firm size, financial leverage, sales growth, investment opportunities, liquidity, business risk, and ownership structure. Panel data technique used due to panel characteristics of available data with ordinary least square regression model to find out the impact of set of explanatory variables on the dividend payout using the Stata. Financial leverage, sales growth and business risks are the most significant variables of the study where financial leverage and business risk have significant negative effect on dividend payout while sales growth has favorable positive impact on dividend payout. Results revealed significant positive link of profitability and firm size with dividend payout whereas government ownership is negatively associated with dividend payout. Investment opportunities, liquidity and managerial ownership showed insignificant relationship with dividend payout. This Suggests that dividend payout policy is dependent on business strategies including both investment and financing decisions. Financial managers should consider these factors while formulating dividend policy of the firm.

NFPs support a sustainable society and they rely on contributions from donors. Donor behavior is a kind of consumer behavior that influences fundraising by NFPs. In order to make fundraising functional under a principal-agent relationship, NFPs must construct trust through proper provision of accounting information. For donors, financial statements are main source of accounting information. Edelman revealed that the level of trust in Japan’s NFPs is the lowest in East Asia, because of a lack of transparency and accountability. Some researchers had investigated donor behavior as a kind of consumer behavior and had provided supportive results that accounting information influences donor behaviors, before this research was conducted. This research investigates this background by conducting questionnaire-based survey. Main questions of this questionnaire were created according to criteria that BBB are using for NFPs in the U.S. The results of this survey revealed the lack of reliability of basic accounting information in Japan and that education in higher educational institutions can improve this situation. This survey also revealed that a rating agency like BBB, which evaluates accounting information of NFPs, could improve trust on NFPs. The implications of this study can apply to the other countries and regions where trust in NFPs is insufficient.

The research aims to help merchant acquiring institutions gain a better insight on what merchant establishments in the Singapore market perceive of the costs they incur due to credit card acceptance. The research attempts to study the Singapore market and establish if increased credit card usage does increase costs for the merchant establishments that accept credit cards, this will help to acquire institutions in Singapore have a better understanding of merchant perceptions and what drives or deters credit card acceptance in the Singapore market. The survey was based on an interview of merchant establishments and the views of the merchants and was not based on their financial data. As a first step, the variables used in the survey were tested for interdependence using Chi-square tests; subsequently data reduction using factor analysis was performed and finally linear regression to establish a relation between dependent and independent variables. Merchant establishment believe accepting credit cards and increasing volume is costlier compared to another form of payment, but have mixed awareness about interchange fee. It also indicated that interchange fee and cardholder benefits are independent of the merchant establishments. The study only broadly attempts to gauge merchants view if increased credit card usage has increased costs for them.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays a vital role in economic growth of the countries. The present study analyses the impact of the FDI on economic growth of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation countries by using the pooled data for the period 1990-2014. Neo-classical production function has been used for analysis and getting stock-to-flow estimation, Taylor series approximation has applied. Fixed Effects Model has been used to investigate the impact of FDI, domestic capital, labour and government expenditures on economic growth. It is the evident from the results that both domestic investment and FDI have been a positive effect on economic growth. The study finds that the contribution of domestic private investment is more trustworthy than the contribution of FDI. Consequently, FDI loses its attraction as an engine of growth if the adverse balance of payment consequence of the resulting profit repatriating is also taken into account. The labour has positive and significant association with GDP. The effect of government expenditure is negligible on economic growth. The findings suggest that growth strategy cannot yield the long term benefits if it neglects investments on human capital.

Prior literature expects a lower marginal cash value for weaker governance firms. We test this empirical hypothesis by using the sample of publicly traded Korean firms from 2005 to 2013. To measure the quality of governance structures, we employ the corporate governance scores provided by Korean Corporate Governance Services. The empirical model of Faulkender and Wang (2006) is adopted to estimate the marginal value of cash. Our empirical analysis shows a higher marginal value of cash for the good governance firms in the examination of the total governance score. This finding is consistent to the agency view of cash policy predicting a larger marginal value of cash for the firms with higher governance scores. However, this positive relationship is not robust for a subset of detailed governance scores; a lower marginal cash value is observed for the firms with better qualities of board structure, auditing, dividend policies. Moreover, our empirical analysis verifies a quite low level of marginal cash value for Korean firms, which supports the existence of severe agency conflicts in Korean corporations. Our results verify the significant role of agency conflicts between a manager and shareholders in the determination of marginal cash values in the Korean firms.

The core purpose of the paper is to explore perceptual displays of rural India towards the role and impact of ICT in transforming the lives through education and telecommunications. After meticulous review of pertinent literature on ICT, and its policy framework, the researcher administers both quantitative and qualitative field data collected from the villages of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu with a sample of 250 from each state. More than 90 percent of respondents from the four southern states in India clearly thought that the role and impact of ICT is very momentous. Predominantly, cent percent respondents from Kerala evinced that ICT is the major reason for achieving the tag of “100% Literacy State”. And also in the remaining three states viz., Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, the literacy rate has crossed mind-boggling figures only because of ICT’s reinforcement. Even in the arena of telecommunications, these four states average telecom density is more than the country’s average. The paper concentrated only on how ICT function empirically to build human capacity in rural south-India through the sectors of only education and telecom. This study is first of its kind and precious to all stakeholders of the ICT sector like educational institutional, telecom firms, customers, employees, and governments, etc.