The purpose of this study is to investigate the development and determinants of China-ASEAN trade relations over the period of 2000-2018. Employing both the qualitative and quantitative approaches, the results show that the trade relations between China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have remarkably developed and rapidly grown over times, with a significantly important concentration on the segments of high technological and medium technological products. We also find that China’s economic scale is crucially impacting on the China-ASEAN trade relations under both the aggregate and sub-sector level. It is interesting to notice that there is no evidence to support accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and officially forming of ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) to enhance trade relation between both sides. The findings also quantitatively indicate that there is much significant potential for the expansion of mutual trade between China and some members of ASEAN such as Brunei, Laos and Malaysia, while less potential is predicted for other members of ASEAN. It is strongly suggested that China and ASEAN should find a new proactive approach and make more efforts in improving the mutual political trusts to enhance trading activities in the coming years.

The study investigates the impact of inflation rate on economic growth to find the best-fit model for economic growth in Vietnam. The study applied Vector Autoregressive (VAR), cointegration models, and unit root test for the time-series data from 1996 to 2018 to test the inflation impact on the economic growth in the short and long term. The study showed that the two variables are stationary at lag first difference I(1) with 1%, 5% and 10%; trace test indicates two cointegrating equations at the 0.05 level, the INF does not granger cause GDP, the optimal lag I(1) and the variables are closely related as R2 is 72%. It finds that the VAR model’s results are the basis to perform economic growth; besides, the inflation rate is positively related to economic growth. The results support the monetary policy. This study identifies issues for Government to consider: have a comprehensive solution among macroeconomic policies, monetary policy, fiscal policy and other policies to control and maintain the inflation and stimulate growth; set a priority goal for sustainable economic growth; not pursue economic growth by maintaining the inflation rate in the long term, but take appropriate measures to stabilize the inflation at the best-fitted VAR forecast model.

This paper examines the impact of gender on access to debt finance among Vietnamese enterprises. The paper investigates data and variables retrieved from the World Bank Enterprise Survey dataset using five Probit models. The regression results suggest that there exist more unfavourable debt financing conditions for women-led firms (WLF), measured as a lower probability of having loan applications fully approved. Firm’s age, working sector, and perception of access to finance as a difficulty are found to have explanatory power on the discrimination. More importantly, the perception of debt finance as a difficulty or firms’ level of confidence significantly explains the variance of the dependent variable of probability of loan approval, or gender effect would be more pronounced if the firm already has a low level of confidence. The paper also contributes in testing for the gender effect on Vietnamese enterprises from different sectors and scale, unlike other prior research papers focusing on specific sectors and/or small and medium enterprises only. The findings are highly useful for Vietnamese credit institutions to set out a specific business policy to attract more WLFs and help promoting gender equality in the working environment, especially in debt financing, which is often neglected in existing regulation and policy frameworks.

This study aims to empirically examine the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and corruption on the development of public-service sectors in 10 ASEAN countries. It then investigates whether this relationship is different between two FDI compositions including greenfield FDI and FDI in the form of cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As). Using a panel database of 10 ASEAN countries during the period 1996-2015 from various sources including the World Development Indicators of the World Bank and UNCTAD, we first find that FDI strongly and positively contributes to the development of the public-service sectors in the recipient nations, except for the electricity sector. However, we show that this relationship is dependent on the type of FDI modes of entry. Specifically, while greenfield investment exerts a beneficial influence on the development of telecommunication and transportation sectors, cross-border M&A has no effect on these sectors, perhaps because of the distinct differences among three public service sectors. Finally, we found that in a highly corrupt environment, aggregate FDI might have no influence on all three public-service sectors, possibly because the two contradictory influences of the interaction terms between corruption and two FDI sub-types seem to cancel each other out.

The paper examines the role of some determinants of economics, politics and institutions on the budget deficit volatility in some countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The paper uses the fixed effects model (FEM) and the random effects model (REM) to investigate panel data of these countries in the period of 1990-2018. Moreover, the study also explores ordinary least square (OLS) to analyze time-series data for each country in the same period to make comparison among them. The economic data is collected from international financial statistics and world development indicators. The data on political variables are collected from International Country Risk Data Guide (ICRG). The empirical results both confirm that corruption and political stability are important indicators of budget deficit. Besides, the paper suggests authorities should pay more attention on improving the institutional setup of the economy in order to avoid high and unstable deficit. The findings offer new insight on the budget deficit in essence and suggest that the most important thing need to be done ahead is to strongly implement anti-corruption actions. By doing so, the status of budget deficit would be remarkably improved immediately.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of consumer price index, infrastructure, human resources, trade openness, and private credit on the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Tay Ninh province as well as to emphasize the important role of FDI in economic growth of developing areas. The research data was collected from Tay Ninh Statistical Office with 80 samples of a 20-year period from 2000 to 2019. Also, OLS regression method using Eviews software was employed to analyze the data obtained. The findings revealed that human resources, infrastructure and private credit have a positive and significant impact on FDI attraction in Tay Ninh province, while consumer price index was proven to affect FDI attraction negatively. Accordingly, competent authorities of Tay Ninh province should focus on stabilizing prices as well as implementing policies for developing local human resources and attracting high-quality personnel from foreign countries. Tay Ninh province also needs to pay more attention to information technology investment for synchronous development of infrastructure. Moreover, the State Bank of Tay Ninh branch needs to consider more credit sources to provide support packages for businesses, creating a strong basis for establishments to attract FDI for the province’s economic development.

This study aims to investigate whether and why the disclosure of full financial information to estimate taxable income (TI) is incrementally useful for investors’ decision making at earnings announcements. This paper shows analytically that the information content of TI beyond book income is determined by the relative informativeness of TI exceeding that of book-tax differences (BTDs), and therefore should be affected by the earnings quality of TI relative to BTDs. This study collects data on earnings announcements from Korean listed firms and employs multiple regression tests for earnings persistence, a major indicator of earnings quality, of TI and BTDs and their information content. The empirical test results show that TI is more persistent than BTDs for the entire sample in this study. Further, the investors’ reaction to TI is greater than that to BTDs, and the market response to TI controlling for BI is positive. However, the market test results are significantly observed only in the subsample group with full disclosure of financial statements, not in the samples with disclosure of aggregated earnings only. In sum, this study provides new evidence that the TI information obtained from a detailed earnings announcement is useful for investors in addition to book income.

Although the corporate governance plays a crucial role in protecting shareholder wealth, the effect of corporate governance on cost of debt is unclear. On one hand, the corporate governance reduces asymmetric information between corporate and external investor including debtholder leading to a decreasing in cost of debt financing. On the other hand, bondholders require higher rate of return for an improvement corporate governance. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the mechanism to improve corporate governance namely board effectiveness and the cost of debt in an emerging market. As we aim to explore the relationship between cost of debt and board effectiveness, we select corporation in Thailand as our sample because the businesses in Thailand are major debt-financing. Hence, our sample include listed firm in Stock Exchange of Thailand between 2007 and 2016. Our main findings support the sub-optimal investment hypothesis in that improved board effectiveness is associated with higher cost of borrowing. In addition, we find that the number of board member—board size, the number of board meeting, and the percentage of non-executive on audit committee play are positively associated with the cost of debt financing. Furthermore, we perform two-stage-least square (2SLS) to ensure that our results are far from endogeneity issue.

The study reveals the extent of changes in selective financial numbers caused by fixed asset revaluation (FAR) and explores whether there was a management motive for playing the financial numbers game through using the FAR model. The data set consists of a sample of 142 listed companies purposively selected from 13 industries. The study found a significant impact of FAR on the net asset value (NAV), fixed asset intensity (FAI), and debt-to-equity ratio (DER). These findings are supported by the political cost and the debt covenant hypotheses. The study also observed a high growth of fixed assets by 9.5% to 14,603.8% resulting from FAR. More revealing is that FAR increased NAV in revaluer companies by an average of 427.20% as compared to 6.86% in non-revaluer companies. Even some companies with negative NAV took resort on FAR to show positive NAV. Besides, revaluer companies managed to reduce their DER by 70.45% as opposed to an increase of 8.45% in non-revaluer companies. Hence, the study concludes that most of the publicly-listed companies are involved in financial numbers game by the use of the FAR model. To build confidence among investors, companies should practice FAR rightly and disclose related information to help reduce information asymmetry.

This paper investigates the impact of profit and loss sharing (PLS) contracts on non-performing financing of Islamic rural banks as Islamic small banks focus on small and medium enterprises at province level across country. Our study employs panel data, consisting of 142 Islamic rural banks and using quarterly data from 2013Q1 to 2018Q4, and splits them based on the bank’s size and geographical area. Both static and dynamic panel regressions are then applied. The results obviously indicate that a high proportion of profit and loss sharing contracts leads to high financing risk. The large Islamic banks encounter a higher non-performing financing stemming from profit and loss contracts compared to small Islamic banks. Profit and loss contracts also produce higher financing risk for Islamic banks outside Java, as those areas are less developed areas than Java itself. A more efficient Islamic bank is less financing risk. Income diversification lessens the impaired financing and, more particularly, large Islamic banks and Islamic banks located in Java much benefit by diversifying income and financing to lower financing risk. Our study suggests that Islamic rural banks may consider the optimal level of profit and loss sharing contracts to minimize financing risk.

In this study, we examined various aspects of discretionary accruals. We compared the power of Jones Model (JM), Modified Jones Model (MJM) and Performance Matched Model (PMM). Furthermore, we tested whether accruals derived from cash flow approach or balance sheet approach provide better results and we investigated the significance of country and industry control variables in models. In order to perform these tests, we constructed thirty equations. The data consists of 319 non-financial companies over five years in the GCC region. We used panel data regression models, and testing suggests us to use random effect model as the most suitable one. The results show that PMM has the highest explanatory power among models and it is followed by JM and MJM, consecutively. Secondly, results reveal that accruals derived from cash flow approach provide more accurate results. Moreover, country dummies are significant in models with cash flow approach and they lose significance in balance sheet approach. We differentiated industries due to two different classifications: the first group with higher number of industries is more precise compared to the second group with a narrower scope and lower number of industries. The model including both industrial and country-wise dummies scores highest in significance.

This study investigates the effect of capital structure on the financial performance of pharmaceutical enterprises which are listing on Vietnam’s stock market. The study builds the regression using ROE as dependent variable and four independent variables, including selffinancing, financial leverage, long-term asset and debt to assets ratios. In addition, we use other variables as controlling ones, such as firm size, fixed asset rate and growth. We collect data for the period from 2015 to 2019 of all 30 pharmaceutical enterprises which are currently listing on Vietnam’s stock market. The least square regression (OLS) is used to test the effect of capital structure to the firms’ financial performance. The analysis results show that the financial leverage ratio (LR), long-term asset ratio (LAR) and debt-to-assets ratio (DR) have positive relationship with firm performance, meanwhile the self-financing (E/C) affects negatively to the return on equity (ROE). Upon the findings we suggest that the Vietnamese government should focus on stabilizing macro environment to create favorable environment for enterprises. And the pharmaceutical enterprises should build more reasonable capital structure with higher debt proportion than equity, diversifying loan mobilization channels such as issuing long-term bonds. Additionally, the firms should expand the scale appropriately to maintain development and ability to pay debts.

This study aims to verify the relationship between overseas activities and performance of Korea’s SMEs during the last financial crisis. Whether overseas activity performance of enterprises differed was determined based on characteristic variables, including the degree of concentration on R&D and marketing. This study also examined how SMEs’ international transactions and their performance differed based on internal variable such as the level of stock holding and firm size. This study developed a model for analyzing the relationship between the level of internationalization and performance of Koran SMEs listed in the KOSDAQ. We used firm-level data, including annual reports and various data sources such as the KISVALUE program. To smooth annual fluctuations in accounting data, we used a three-year average from 2006 to 2009 for each variable in the study. The results showed that proactive overseas activities ultimately had a positive effect on an enterprise’s performance, even though it initially had a negative effect. Therefore, enterprises should focus their capacity on R&D and marketing environment. Although numerous studies have focused on the relationship between overseas activities and performance of enterprises, the present study analyzed whether enterprises should continuously engage in overseas activities and what capacities they should strengthen during a global economic recession.

This research investigates the credit management guidelines to strengthen Thai industrial sector. The research has been simulated from the findings of both qualitative and quantitative of 500 questionnaires distributed to industrial business executives in Thailand. The data were analyzed by descriptive analysis categorized into SME and large enterprises, and SEM to conduct the model in consistent with the empirical data. The results show that: (1) the credit management guidelines consist of 4 factors: a) characteristics management b) financial management c) operations management and d) assets management. The business executives gave overall importance on the guidelines at a high level with an average of 3.86. (2) The development of SEM shows that the model fits with the empirical data at Chi-Square probability level = 0.084, CMIN/DF = 1.164, GFI = 0.965 and RMSEA = 0.018. (3) The characteristics management directly influences the financial management and the operation management. The financial management directly influences on the assets management. The assets management has direct influence on the operations management. The findings show that the characteristics management is the essential starting component in SEM and the financial management factor has the most influence in the assets management variable with standard regression weight of 0.990.

The paper aims to investigate the impact of budgetary goal on profit growth directly and indirectly through managerial performance. Two main characteristics of budgetary goal mentioning in the study are the clarity of budget goal and the difficult of budget goal. Data of the research collected from survey with 197 department managers and supervisors of 80 SMEs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City who have budgeting responsible. Firstly, by using quantitative research method Cronbach’s Alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis, the research show that characteristic of budgetary goal has significant and positive impact on profit growth directly. Secondly, the regression analysis among variables show that budget goal clarity was positively and significantly related to growth of sale revenue, growth of profit and managerial performance. Therefore, the empirical findings show that that managerial performance has mediating role in the relationship between budgetary goal characteristic and financial performance. The findings of this study suggest that that managers need focus on setting clearer and more difficult but attainable budget goals to increase firm performance. This paper also provides a new insight the relationship between managerial performance and financial performance. Budgetary goal characteristics still have positive but insignificant impact on growth of sales revenue.

The study seeks to explore the factors affecting the access to credits by individual customers at commercial banks in Tra Vinh province, Vietnam. Based on these results, the author proposes solutions to further improve the ability to serve individual customers at commercial banks in the province in the future. The study was conducted with a method of collecting primary data of 300 individual customers including 150 people with access to credits and 150 people without accessing to credits at six commercial banks in Tra Vinh Province, Viet Nam – Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development, Bank for Foreign Trade Commercial Bank, Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam, Asia Commercial Bank in Tra Vinh, Sai Gon Commercial Joint Stock Bank, and Bank of East Asia. The author has used binary regression methods, and the study found that seven factors affecting the ability of individual customers to access capital, namely, career, qualifications, collaterals, incomes, documents, loan and business plans, and experience. In particular, occupation, experience, and documents are the most influential factors. From the above results, the author proposes policy implications to improve individual customers’ access to credits at commercial banks in Tra Vinh province in the near future.

The research identifies hypotheses evaluating the impact of board characteristics on the risk of the commercial bank as well as examining the determinants of bank risk in Vietnam over a 10-year period, starting from 2008. Also, in this research, the differences between the roles of women and men in decision-making are tested. Based on this decision, risks of the banks may arise. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, Random effect method, and Fixed effect method are used to estimate the factors that have an impact on bank risk for dataset of all commercial banks in Vietnam. The results found that equity-to-asset ratio, bank performance and the economic growth have an inverse relationship with bank risk, while the size of bank has a positive relationship with the bank risk. One of the highlights of this paper is a demonstration of the relationship between CEO’s gender and bank risk. The test result shows that the bank led by a female faces a higher overall risk level and credit risk than a bank led by a male. Based on this result, the paper also makes recommendations to Government, the State Bank of Vietnam and the commercial banks for effective risk management.

A construction project is a designed product made up of labors, materials, and installations in the project positioned on the ground and may include the underground and ground section, and the section in water or on the water surface. It is a civil, industrial, transport, agricultural and rural development, infrastructure, or some other. A key phase in the life cycle of these construction projects is the implementation when building products are made directly with workers, equipment, materials, and managers. If there is a lack of management experience, information, and problem-solving solutions to tackle the risks faced by contractors, especially foreign ones, will fail in controlling the project’s cost. This study was conducted with investigations, discussions, and evaluation of the factors that lead to cost overruns in the construction projects of international contractors in Vietnam. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed that those factors that influence cost overruns these construction projects fall into five general groups, including factors related to (i) the owners, (ii) the foreign contractors, (iii) the subcontractors and suppliers, (iv) state management, and (v) the project itself. Besides, the study proposes solutions to limit cost overruns in construction projects and improve the profitability of international contractors in Vietnam.

Earnings management behavior is the use of accounting procedures, through accounting policies, to intentionally purposeful control in the provision of information to users. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between ownership structure factors and earnings management behavior of 30 Vietnamese commercial banks. The paper uses the ordinary least square method to examine this relationship and employs time series data of 15 years from 2005 to 2019. The study also uses agency theory an asymmetric information theory. The authors examined six independent variables related to the ownership structure and these variables are typical of Vietnamese commercial banks. The results of the study show that the foreign ownership ratio is an opposite effect, while the ownership concentration variable has a positive effect on earnings management behavior of Vietnamese commercial banks. Based on that, the article proposes a number of policy suggestions for the State bank of Vietnam and Board of directors of commercial banks as well as investors to identify and to limit the earnings management behaviors of Vietnamese commercial banks. This contributes to ensuring information transparency as well as improving the quality of accounting information of Vietnamese commercial banks in the coming years.

The human and capital resources from foreign investors are important sources of finance for developing countries. Foreign ownership can help the firm to raise funds for operations and the foreign management can help the firm expand the market and improve management. However, does this really happen to Vietnamese firm? To find the answer to that question, this paper examines the impact of foreign ownership and management on the financial performance of listed firms on Vietnam’s stock market. The data collected include 427 listed firms in all fields over five years, from 2014 to 2018. The financial performance is measured by Tobin’s Q, ROA and ROE. The study carried out testing of each model by the least squares method of Pool OLS, assessing random effects (REM) and evaluating fixed effects (FEM). The most effective model is the FEM model. The results show that the foreign ownership ratio and the size of the firm have a positive impact on the financial performance. The foreign management, the age of the firms, the liquidity and financial leverage have a negative impact on the financial performance. Based on the research results, the study proposes some recommendations to improve the financial performance of listed firms in Vietnam.