Doing Business 2020


Book Description

Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.




An Essay on Culture


Book Description

The result of thirty-five years of thought and research on culture by one of the best and most literate writers in sociology, this wide-ranging review of the meaning and study of culture is Bennett Berger at his best. Drawing on his unsurpassed knowledge of the scholarly literature and on his wealth of personal experience, Berger reviews and synthesizes recent work in cultural sociology from a materialist perspective. An Essay on Culture culminates in a call for an empirical research program focused on the relation between symbolic choices and social locations, rather than on interpretive accounts of the meanings of texts or performances. Among his unusual insights are a defense of reductionism, sympathetic accounts of peer pressure and special interests, an attempt to restore some dignity to the word “ideology,” and a fresh perspective on conspiracy theory. Scholars and students of culture will find here stunning discussions and theoretical insights on ideological work, morality and culture, and on the relations between social structure and cultural structure. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.




Price Performance of Initial Public Offerings in Turkey


Book Description

Öz/Özet/İçindekiler CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS vii LIST OF FIGURES x LIST OF TABLES xi 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Importance of IPOs as a Research Area 1 1.2. Purpose of the Study 2 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2.1. Initial Performance of IPOs 5 2.1.1. Short Term Underpricing 5 2.1.2. Hot Issue Markets 7 2.2 Claims of Investor Irrationality 8 2.3. Alternative Equilibrium Explanations 10 2.3.1. Information Asymmetry Between Informed and Uninformed Investors 10 2.3.2. Partial Adjustment Hypothesis 11 2.3.3. Information Asymmetry Between the Underwriter and the Issuer 12 2.3.4. Monopsony Power Hypothesis 13 2.3.5. Signaling by Underwriter Reputation 13 2.3.6. Signaling by Choice of Offering Method 14 2.3.7. Underpricing as a Signal of Firm Quality 15 2.3.8. Signaling by the Amount of Equity Retained 16 2.3.9. Signaling by Third Party Certification 16 2.3.10. Implicit Insurance Hypothesis 17 2.3.11. Market Structure as a Source of Underpricing 19 2.4. International Evidence 20 3. DATA AND METHODOLOGY 23 3.1. Data and Data Collection Methods 23 3.2. Variables Used 24 3.2.1. Performance Variables 24 3.2.1.1. Raw Returns 25 3.2.1.2. Market Adjusted Returns 26 3.2.1.3. Market Adjusted Aftermarket Returns 27 3.2.2. Characteristic Variables 28 3.2.2.1. Market Related Characteristics 28 3.2.2.2. Issue Related Characteristics 28 3.2.2.3. Issuing Firm Characteristics 29 3.2.3.1. Underwriter Characteristics 30 3.3. Methodology 30 3.3.1. Documentation of Return Structures 30 3.3.2. Tests on the Presence of Abnormal Returns 31 3.3.3. Relationship Between Initial and Aftermarket Returns 32 3.3.4. Cross-sectional Differences in IPO Returns 32 3.3.5. Determinants of Initial Returns 33 4. RESULTS 35 4.1. Return Structures of IPOs 35 4.1.1. Raw Returns 35 4.1.2. Market Adjusted Returns 41 4.1.2.1. Excess-over-the market Appoach 41 4.1.2.2. Cross-sectional Regressions Method 45 4.1.3. Adjusted Aftermarket Returns 47 4.2. Relationship, Between Market Performance Masures 51 4.3. Characteristics of IPOs 54 4.3.1. Performance Variables 54 4.3.1.1. Initial Performance 54 4.3.1.2. Long Term Performance 54 4.3.2. Market Related Characteristics 55 4.3.2.1. Year of Issue 56 4.3.2.2. Indicators of Market Trend 57 4.3.2.3. Indicators of Market Volatility 58 4.3.3. Issue Related Characteristics 58 4.3.3.1. Real Offer Price 59 4.3.3.2. Place of Offer 59 4.3.3.3. Real Amount for Sale 59 4.3.3.4. Source of Equity Sold 60 4.3.3.5. Percentage of Equity Offered 60 4.3.3.6. Nature of the Issue 61 4.3.4. Issuing Firm Characteristics 61 4.3.4.1. Age at the Offer 63 4.3.4.2. Industry Classification 62 4.3.4.3. Number of Shareholders Be forethcIPO 63 4.3.5. Underwriter Characteristics 63 4:3.5.1. Identity of the Lead Underwriter 63 4.3.5.2. Number of Underwriters in an Offer 65 4.3.5.3. Relationship Between the Underw and Issuer 66 4. Cross-sectional Differences in IPO Returns 66 4.4.1. Market Related Characteristics 67 4.4.1.1. Year of Issue 67 4.4.1.1.1. Initial Returns 68 4.4.1.1.2. Adjusted After market Returns 70 4.4.1.2. Market Trend at the Time of IPO 75 4-4.2. Issue Related Characteristics 77 4.4.2.1. Nature of the Issue 77 4.4.2.2. Real Offer Price 81 4.4.2.3. Place of Offe 82 4.4.3. Issuing Firm Related Characteristics 84 4.4.4 Underwriter Characteristics 85 4.4.4.1. Identity of the Lead Underwriter 85 4.4.4.2. Number of Underwriters in an Offer 86 4.4.4.3. Relationship Between the Underwriter and Issuer 86 4.5. Determinants of Initial Returns 90 4.5.1. Total Sample 91 4.5.2. Excluding Initial Outliers 95 5. CONCLUSIONS 97 6. REFERENCES 101.




World Development Report 1994


Book Description

World Development Report 1994 examines the link between infrastructure and development and explores ways in which developing countries can improve both the provision and the quality of infrastructure services. In recent decades, developing countries have made substantial investments in infrastructure, achieving dramatic gains for households and producers by expanding their access to services such as safe water, sanitation, electric power, telecommunications, and transport. Even more infrastructure investment and expansion are needed in order to extend the reach of services - especially to people living in rural areas and to the poor. But as this report shows, the quantity of investment cannot be the exclusive focus of policy. Improving the quality of infrastructure service also is vital. Both quantity and quality improvements are essential to modernize and diversify production, help countries compete internationally, and accommodate rapid urbanization. The report identifies the basic cause of poor past performance as inadequate institutional incentives for improving the provision of infrastructure. To promote more efficient and responsive service delivery, incentives need to be changed through commercial management, competition, and user involvement. Several trends are helping to improve the performance of infrastructure. First, innovation in technology and in the regulatory management of markets makes more diversity possible in the supply of services. Second, an evaluation of the role of government is leading to a shift from direct government provision of services to increasing private sector provision and recent experience in many countries with public-private partnerships is highlighting new ways to increase efficiency and expand services. Third, increased concern about social and environmental sustainability has heightened public interest in infrastructure design and performance.




Shock Waves


Book Description

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.




Compensation and Organizational Performance


Book Description

This up-to-date, research-oriented textbook focuses on the relationship between compensation systems and firm overall performance. In contrast to more traditional compensation texts, it provides a strategic perspective to compensation administration rather than a functional viewpoint. The text emphasizes the role of managerial pay, its importance, determinants, and impact on organizations. It analyzes recent topics in executive compensation, such as pay in high technology firms, managerial risk taking, rewards in family companies, and the link between compensation and social responsibility and ethical issues, among others. The authors provide a thorough and comprehensive review of the vast literatures relevant to compensation and revisit debates grounded in different theoretical perspectives. They provide insights from disciplines as diverse as management, economics, sociology, and psychology, and amplify previous discussions with the latest empirical findings on compensation, its dynamics, and its contribution to firm overall performance.




Risk Analysis and Portfolio Modelling


Book Description

Financial Risk Measurement is a challenging task, because both the types of risk and the techniques evolve very quickly. This book collects a number of novel contributions to the measurement of financial risk, which address either non-fully explored risks or risk takers, and does so in a wide variety of empirical contexts.




Africa's Infrastructure


Book Description

Sustainable infrastructure development is vital for Africa s prosperity. And now is the time to begin the transformation. This volume is the culmination of an unprecedented effort to document, analyze, and interpret the full extent of the challenge in developing Sub-Saharan Africa s infrastructure sectors. As a result, it represents the most comprehensive reference currently available on infrastructure in the region. The book covers the five main economic infrastructure sectors information and communication technology, irrigation, power, transport, and water and sanitation. 'Africa s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation' reflects the collaboration of a wide array of African regional institutions and development partners under the auspices of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa. It presents the findings of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project launched following a commitment in 2005 by the international community (after the G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland) to scale up financial support for infrastructure development in Africa. The lack of reliable information in this area made it difficult to evaluate the success of past interventions, prioritize current allocations, and provide benchmarks for measuring future progress, hence the need for the AICD. Africa s infrastructure sectors lag well behind those of the rest of the world, and the gap is widening. Some of the main policy-relevant findings highlighted in the book include the following: infrastructure in the region is exceptionally expensive, with tariffs being many times higher than those found elsewhere. Inadequate and expensive infrastructure is retarding growth by 2 percentage points each year. Solving the problem will cost over US$90 billion per year, which is more than twice what is being spent in Africa today. However, money alone is not the answer. Prudent policies, wise management, and sound maintenance can improve efficiency, thereby stretching the infrastructure dollar. There is the potential to recover an additional US$17 billion a year from within the existing infrastructure resource envelope simply by improving efficiency. For example, improved revenue collection and utility management could generate US$3.3 billion per year. Regional power trade could reduce annual costs by US$2 billion. And deregulating the trucking industry could reduce freight costs by one-half. So, raising more funds without also tackling inefficiencies would be like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Finally, the power sector and fragile states represent particular challenges. Even if every efficiency in every infrastructure sector could be captured, a substantial funding gap of $31 billion a year would remain. Nevertheless, the African people and economies cannot wait any longer. Now is the time to begin the transformation to sustainable development.