Testing for Structural Breaks and Dynamic Changes in Emerging Market Volatility

This paper aims to test for structural breaks and dynamic changes in emerging market volatility. We typically relate these issues to stock market liberalization since the latter is often considered as one of the most important forces that promote economic growth and rapid maturation of the emerging markets of the world. Using a bivariate GARCH-M model, stability tests in a linear framework and a pooled time-series cross-section model, we show that structural breaks detected in emerging market volatility series do not happen together with official liberalization dates, but they rather coincide with dates of the first ADR/Country Fund introduction and with dates of large increases in the US capital flows. Consistently, the pooled estimation results indicate that liberalization methods other than liberalization via a formal policy decree are the ones that significantly affect volatility.Stock Market Liberalization, Return Volatility, Emerging Markets, Bivariate GARCH-M models, Structural Breaks, Pooled Time-Series Analysis

Migration, Unemployment and Net Benefits of Inbound Tourism in a Developing Country

International tourism is increasingly viewed as one of the best opportunities for a sustainable economic and social development of developing countries. There is also an increasing concern from public policy makers as to whether mass tourism coastal resorts can play a catalytic role in the overall economic development and improve the real income of their community. In this paper, we present a general equilibrium model which explicitly takes into consideration specific features of some developing countries (e.g. coastal tourism, dual labour market, unemployment, migrations, competition between agriculture and tourism for land) to analyse the ways by which an inbound tourism boom affects this kind of country, in particular its real income. We define the conditions under which an inbound tourism boom makes developing countries residents worse off.Economic impacts, General equilibrium model, Inbound tourism, Migration, Unemployment, Developing countries

On Real Options and Information Costs.

This paper presents a simple framework for the use of traditional capital budgeting models and the valuation of several real options in the presence of shadow costs of incomplete information. Information costs can be viewed as sunk costs in the spirit of Merton’s (1987) model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information. We incorporate these sunk costs in standard discounted cash flow techniques and present the basic concepts of real options. The justification of information costs in real projects is based on the observation that R&D needs to be done before investment decisions. These costs account for all the expenses needed to get informed about an investment opportunity and the management of projects. This analysis extends the models in Bellalah (1999, 2001) for the valuation of real options within information uncertainty. We present valuation models and simulations for the values of common real options in the presence of shadow costs of incomplete information.Capital budgeting; Investment policy; Asset pricing; Option pricing; Information and market efficiency;

THE MEASUREMENT OF COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL ISA700: THE CASE OF AUDIT REPORTS PUBLISHED BY THE BIG ACCOUNTING FIRMS IN TUNISIA

This article examines the form and content of auditor¿s report published by Tunisian auditors who represent international auditing firms. It measures the compliance of these reports with elements enumerated by International standard on auditing (ISA700). To reach this objective, an empirical study has been conducted based on an analysis of 42 audit reports published in the Tunisian context. The results show that in Tunisia audit reports issued by the international auditing firms are not equally compliant with five of the twenty-six elements enumerated by International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). This difference of conformity to ISA700 can be explained by characteristics of the Tunisian environment (inefficient stock market and a weak number of large holding corporations, among others), which may induce auditors to disregard some elements followed by the same ISA.compliance, form of auditor’s report, content of auditor’s report, auditing in Tunisia

A Detailed Fluctuation Theorem for Heat Fluxes in Harmonic Networks out of Thermal Equilibrium

We continue the investigation, started in [J. Stat. Phys. 166, 926-1015 (2017)], of a network of harmonic oscillators driven out of thermal equilibrium by heat reservoirs. We study the statistics of the fluctuations of the heat fluxes flowing between the network and the reservoirs in the nonequilibrium steady state and in the large time limit. We prove a large deviation principle for these fluctuations and derive the fluctuation relation satisfied by the associated rate function