The Impact of Board Internationalization on Real Earnings Management: Evidence From China

In this article, we examine the impact of board internationalization on real earnings management. Using the annual data of 2,899 Chinese listed non-financial firms with 16,638 firm-year observations over the period from 2008 to 2017 for empirical analysis, we find robust evidence that higher proportion of foreign directors on corporate boards reduces real earnings management. Results support the hypothesis that foreign directors increase boards’ effectiveness in monitoring the management and, consequently, lead to less earnings management by corporate executives. Our results are robust to alternative measures of board internationalization, instrumental variable analysis, and adding additional control variables. We further observe that foreign directors are more effective in reducing earnings management in firms with local directors with foreign experience and in Chinese provinces with developed institutional environment. Moreover, Chinese firms complement accrual and real activities–based earnings management, and board internationalization is effective in reducing both types of earnings management. Overall, our findings imply board internationalization improves the quality of reported earnings to outside shareholders

Evaluating the Effects of Large Scale Health Interventions in Developing Countries: The Zambian Malaria Initiative

Since 2003, Zambia has been engaged in a large-scale, centrally coordinated national anti- Malaria campaign which has become a model in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper aims at quantifying the individual and macro level benefits of this campaign, which involved mass distribution of insecticide treated mosquito nets, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, indoor residual spraying, rapid diagnostic tests, and artemisinin-based combination therapy. We discuss the timing and regional coverage of the program, and critically review the available health and program rollout data. To estimate the health benefits associated with the program rollout, we use both population based morbidity measures from the Demographic and Health Surveys and health facility based mortality data as reported in the national Health Management Information System. While we find rather robust correlations between the rollout of bed nets and subsequent improvements in our health measures, the link between regional spraying and individual level health appears rather weak in the data.

The Mediation Effect of Trusting Beliefs on the Relationship Between Expectation-Confirmation and Satisfaction with the Usage of Online Product Recommendation

Online Product Recommendations (OPRs) are increasingly available to onlinecustomers as a value-added self-service in evaluating and choosing a product.Research has highlighted several advantages that customers can gain from usingOPRs. However, the realization of these advantages depends on whether and towhat extent customers embrace and fully utilise them. The relatively low OPR USAgerate indicates that customers have not yet developed trust in OPRs’ performance.Past studies also have established that satisfaction is a valid measure of systemperformance and a consistent significant determinant of users’ continuous systemusage. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the mediation effect of trustingbeliefs on the relationship between expectation-confirmation and satisfaction. Theproposed research model is tested using data collected via an online survey from626 existing users of OPRs. The empirical results revealed that social-psychologicalbeliefs (perceived confirmation and trust) are significant contributors to customersatisfaction with OPRs. Additionally, trusting beliefs partially mediate the impactof perceived confirmation on customer satisfaction. Moreover, this study validatesthe extensions of the interpersonal trust construct to trust in OPRs and examinesthe nomological validity of trust in terms of competence, benevolence, andintegrity. The findings provide a number of theoretical and practical implications.&nbsp

The Effect of Interventions to Reduce Fertility on Economic Growth

We assess quantitatively the effect of exogenous reductions in fertility on output per capita. Our simulation model allows for effects that run through schooling, the size and age structure of the population, capital accumulation, parental time input into child-rearing, and crowding of fixed natural resources. The model is parameterized using a combination of microeconomic estimates, data on demographics and natural resource income in developing countries, and standard components of quantitative macroeconomic theory. We apply the model to examine the effect of an intervention that immediately reduces TFR by 1.0, using current Nigerian vital rates as a baseline. For a base case set of parameters, we find that an immediate decline in the TFR of 1.0 will raise output per capita by approximately 13.2 percent at a horizon of 20 years, and by 25.4 percent at a horizon of 50 years.#

Modeling Probability of Path Loss for DSDV, OLSR and DYMO above 802.11 and 802.11p

This paper presents path loss model along with framework for probability distribution function for VANETs. Furthermore, we simulate three routing protocols Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) and Dynamic MANET On-demand (DYMO) in NS-2 to evaluate and compare their performance using two Mac-layer Protocols 802.11 and 802.11p. A novel approach of this work is modifications in existing parameters to achieve high efficiency. After extensive simulations, we observe that DSDV out performs with 802.11p while DYMO gives best performance with 802.11.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc