Voluntary Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance: The Empirical Evidence on Earnings Forecasts

This study investigates the determinants of companies' voluntary information disclosure. Employing a large and unique dataset on the companies' own earnings forecasts and their frequencies, we conducted an empirical analysis of the effects of a firm's ownership, board, and capital structures on information disclosure. Our finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the custom of cross-holding among companies strengthens entrenchment by managers. We also find that bank directors force managers to disclose information more frequently. In addition, our results show the borrowing ratio is positively associated with information frequency, suggesting that the manager is likely to reveal more when his or her firm borrows money from financial institutions. However, additional borrowings beyond the minimum level of effective borrowings decrease the management's disclosing incentive.Voluntary information Disclosure, Corporate Governance, management earnings forecast

Voluntary Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance : The Empirical Evidence on Earnings Forecasts

This study investigates the determinants of companies' voluntary information disclosure. Employing a large and unique dataset on the companies' own earnings forecasts and their frequencies, we conducted an empirical analysis of the effects of a firm's ownership, board, and capital structures on information disclosure. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the custom of cross-holding among companies strengthens entrenchment by managers. We also find that bank directors force managers to disclose information more frequently. In addition, our results show the borrowing ratio is positively associated with information frequency, suggesting that the manager is likely to reveal more when his or her firm borrows money from financial institutions. However, additional borrowings beyond the minimum level of effective borrowings decrease the management's disclosing incentive.Information disclosure, Earnings forecast, Capital structure, Japan

Ethnic Networks and Technical Knowledge Learning in Industrial Clusters

Using an enterprise-level dataset collected from 234 workshops located in the furniture cluster of the city of Arusha, Tanzania, this paper investigates the mechanisms of technical knowledge exchange that take place in clusters. A knowledge exchange link is defined as any two clustering entrepreneurs who perform similar manufacturing techniques in the production process. The results show that the strength of the ethnic networks of producers has positive effects on acquisition of manufacturing techniques, particularly in skills such as wood-joining, which are mainly influenced by a producer’s own skills rather than production facilities. Using dyadic data analysis, this paper further finds that two producers from the same ethnic minority are more likely to exhibit the same manufacturing techniques compared with two producers from the same ethnic majority. These findings suggest that ethnic networks facilitate knowledge exchange in an industrial cluster, but that this positive externality of the ethnic network effect only takes place in small-sized ethnic groups, and only to the extent that sophisticated facilities are not essential in the knowledge learning processes

Location Choice and Performance of Furniture Workshops in Arusha, Tanzania

This study uses data collected in an emerging furniture cluster in the Tanzanian city of Arusha to investigate the determinants of location choice and location effect on the performance of micro and small furniture enterprises in Africa. Based on empirical analyses of a census of 234 workshops located in five sub-clusters, the results show that furniture producers tend to locate in sub-clusters where industrial peers from their own ethnic group have gathered. Meanwhile, the results, consistent with the literature on agglomeration economics, shows that entrepreneurs in Africa desire to locate in proximity to a large output market. However, performance analyses show that ethnic networks did not contribute to the performance of workshops as measured by DEA and product quality. In contrast, workshops located in sub-clusters with more machinery shops outperformed workshops located in sub-clusters with fewer machinery shops, implying that well-integrated upstream industries in the sub-cluster foster the development of the industry