1,721,573 research outputs found
Earnings- and Capital-Management and Signaling: The Use of Loan-Loss Provisions by European Banks
No full textAggregate Dynamics with Sectoral Price Stickiness Heterogeneity and Aggregate Real Shocks
No full textThis paper investigates the relationship between heterogeneity in sectoral price stickiness and the response of the economy to aggregate real shocks. We show that sectoral heterogeneity reduces inflation persistence for a constant average duration of price spells, and that inflation persistence can fall despite duration increases associated with increases in heterogeneity. We also find that sectoral heterogeneity reduces the persistence and volatility of interest rate and output gap for a constant price spells duration, while the qualitative impact on inflation volatility tends to be positive. A relevant policy implication is that neglecting price stickiness heterogeneity can impair the economic dynamics assessment
Earnings- and Capital-Management and Signaling: The Use of Loan-Loss Provisions by European Banks
No full textThis paper investigates the relationship between loan-loss provisions (LLPs) and earnings management in
the context of the capital adequacy of Euro Area (EA) banks versus non-EA credit institutions. This paper
also examines whether LLPs signal managements’expectations concerning future bank profits to investors.
Additionally, this paper traces the role of bank regulations and creditor protection systems in explaining
income smoothing. Evidence drawn from the 1996 to 2006 period indicates that LLPs do reflect changes
in the expected quality of a bank’s loan portfolio for both groups of banks, and that earnings management
is an important determinant of LLPs for EA intermediaries, whereas non-EA credit institutions use LLPs
to signal private information to outsiders. The paper also finds that higher protection of creditors’ rights
significantly reduces the incentives to smooth earnings for EA banks. During the recent financial crisis,
EA bank managers are much more concerned with their credit portfolio quality and do not use LLPs for
discretionary purposes, whereas LLPs at non-EA banks are used to smooth income more than for the
purposes of managing capital ratios or conveying private information about future performance to the
market
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Exploring Type Two Diabetes Mellitus in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Studying the Socio-economic Environment
No full textType two diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a global public health challenge, yet the socio-economic factors that contribute to this remain largely unexplored. This high burden of T2DM has profound economic and societal impact, particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where the oil-boom in the Arabic Gulf region has led to unprecedented growth and urbanisation. Saudi Arabia stands out as one of the countries with the highest prevalence of T2DM worldwide. Rapid socio-economic development in the Kingdom has resulted in lifestyle changes and concomitant changes in non-communicable disease epidemiology. Despite this, there are few national studies exploring the relationship between socio-economic factors and T2DM in Saudi Arabia. In this thesis I address this deficit by investigating the association between education level and the prevalence, diagnosis, and control of T2DM in Saudi Arabia. I explore and evaluate the impact of demography and geographical location together with socio-economic, lifestyle, healthcare access and behavioural factors such as self-care on T2DM outcomes.I first explore the association between education level and T2DM prevalence in Saudi Arabia and show an inverse association. The prevalence of T2DM is elevated among groups with low education level, together with those who are older, obese, and lived in Southern region. Additionally, the findings support projections in which the prevalence of T2DM continues to increase up to 2030. I then investigate individuals with diagnosed T2DM and analyse the association between education level and other risk factors on the diagnosis of T2DM. These analyses confirm that age and low household income are highly associated with achieving diagnosis of T2DM. Based on these findings, I then develop two prediction models for undiagnosed diabetes and pre-diabetes by considering education level and socio-economic factors. Development of the prediction models established that age, administrative region, and body mass index are the three main predictors of undiagnosed diabetes, although gender and hypertension also emerged as predictors for the compound outcome of undiagnosed diabetes or pre-diabetes.In the final analysis, I investigate whether education level is associated with achieving control of diabetes through interaction with health-care access and self-care factors. Administrative region, prescribed diet and adherence to medication emerged as key predictors of controlled diabetes. The association with administrative region reflected differences in patterns of T2DM management relating to medication and behavioural modification interventions. My findings indicate that T2DM management forms vary between regions and that the success of lifestyle management approaches is influenced by patients' socio-economic characteristics. The work described in this thesis establishes that education level is associated with the prevalence of diagnosed T2DM.However, among other socio-economic factors, administrative region stands out as a significant predictor of diagnosed T2DM, undiagnosed T2DM and achieving effective control of T2DM. These findings have important implications for primary prevention of T2DM in Saudi Arabia through population approaches, especially in poorer or more deprived groups. They inform strategies to improve the early diagnosis of T2DM in such groups and suggest approaches to gain better glycaemic control in individuals with diagnosed disease. A combination of these two approaches will prevent complications and improve the quality of life for patients with T2DM
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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