Yes / In this study we examine disparities in financial development at the regional level in India. The major research questions of the study are: How do we measure the level of financial development at the sub-national level? How unequal is financial development across the states? Does it vary by ownership of financial institutions? To explore these research questions, our study develops composite banking development index at the sub-national level for three different bank groups - public, private and foreign for 25 Indian states covering 1996 - 2015. Our findings suggest that despite reforms, banking development is significantly higher in the leading high income and more developed regions compared to lagging ones. Further, we find that all bank groups including public banks are concentrated more in the developed regions. Overall, over the years the position of top three and bottom three states in the aggregate banking index has remained unchanged reflecting lop-sidedness of regional development. We also note improvement in the ranking of some north-eastern states during the period 2009-15.

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of workplace financial education on workers' personal finances and work outcomes and determine relationships among financial management (attitudes, knowledge and behaviors), financial well-being, personal finance-work conflict, and work outcomes with data of white-collar workers in an insurance company in mid-western states. Research questions were (1) What are the profiles of financial attitudes, financial knowledge, financial behaviors, financial well-being, personal finance-work conflict, productivity, absenteeism, work time use, organizational commitment, pay satisfaction, loyalty, and intention to leave?, (2) Do the profiles of financial attitudes, financial knowledge, financial behaviors, and financial well-being differ by the individual characteristics?, (3) Do the profiles of personal finance-work conflict, productivity, absenteeism, work time use, organizational commitment, and pay satisfaction differ by the individual characteristics?, (4) What are the relationships among financial attitudes, financial knowledge, financial behaviors, financial well-being, and work outcomes (productivity, absenteeism, organizational commitment, and pay satisfaction)?, (5) What are the effects of workplace financial education on financial attitudes, financial knowledge, financial behaviors, financial well-being, and work outcomes?, and (6) What are the individual profiles of workplace financial education including participation, value of workplace financial education, reasons for participation and non-participation, desire for financial check-up, and desired topics of workplace financial education? The research design was a pre- and post-assessment survey. A pre-assessment survey was conducted in February and March 1999 before workplace financial education was provided during March 1999. One-and one-half hour workplace financial education workshops were provided at no cost to employer or employees in March 1999. Three months after the workplace financial education was provided, a post-assessment survey was conducted from June through August 1999. A pre-assessment questionnaire was mailed to all 476 workers (five were undeliverable) and 262 responses were utilized for data analysis. In the post-assessment, 482 questionnaires were mailed to workers and five were undeliverable. Usable return rates for the data analysis were 56.0% in the pre-assessment (262/471) and 40.0% in the post-assessment (189/477). Overall, the respondents in this study were somewhat positive toward financial management, were not knowledgeable on financial matters, and were practicing their financial behaviors fairly well. Objective financial well-being measures showed that workers were in fairly good financial condition but the levels of subjective financial well-being were about the mid-point on a scale, when each score was converted into a percentage. The workers reported that they were very productive, did not miss work days frequently, were highly committed to their organization, and they showed fairly high levels of pay satisfaction. Workers were very hesitant to admit to direct questions asking about whether or not their financial concerns interfered with their responsibilities at the workplace while they were not always able to do normal work even though they were present in the office and spent some work time handling financial matters. Some of individual characteristics influenced financial attitude, financial knowledge, financial behavior, financial well-being, personal finance-work outcomes, and work outcomes. The tests of the structural equation model showed that worker's personal finances had direct and indirect effects on work outcomes. The financial well-being had a negative effect on personal finance-work conflict. The financial well-being had direct effects on negative work time use and pay satisfaction. The financial well-being had indirect effects through personal finance-work conflict on absenteeism, negative work time use, and organizational commitment. The t-test results did not show the significant effects of workplace financial education on personal finances and work outcomes between the pre- and the post-assessment. / Ph. D.

The objective of this study investigated the successful prediction of business failure of JSE listed companies using financial ratio analysis. During the research, financial statement data of failed and non-failed JSE listed companies during 2007-2012 financial periods were analysed, compared and interpreted. The interpretation of the trends and comparisons is of a quantitative nature, together with a qualitative genre which examines the tables, figures and equations in order to get the entire picture of the company’s performance for a five year period. The combination of literature on various failure predictor models and experience of these models resulted in the development of a modified model. The conclusion from the study indicated that financial ratio analysis successfully predicts failure and non-failure of the 16 companies that were investigated. These companies were grouped into eight delisted (failed) and eight listed (non-failed) JSE companies, which were paired in accordance to industry, fiscal period and closest asset size. The adoption of the traditional ratio analysis methods and EMS model yielded some interesting findings. The traditional ratio analysis methods (trend and comparative ratio analysis) were used with the Emerging Market Score (EMS) Model. The outcomes indicated the traditional methods are viable company failure prediction tools and the EMS model points out companies at a score of 2.60 and above as being financially stable. Between 2.60 and 1.10 the results are not very dependable because it is known that the company is in distress, yet uncertain whether the company has financially failed and below 1.10 the company has failed. It was concluded that a combination of the various prediction models enhances the accuracy of failure prediction. Therefore further research is required to assist stakeholders of South African companies to predict business failure by developing an adjusted model in a South African context. / MCom (Accountancy)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

The objective of this study investigated the successful prediction of business failure of JSE listed companies using financial ratio analysis. During the research, financial statement data of failed and non-failed JSE listed companies during 2007-2012 financial periods were analysed, compared and interpreted. The interpretation of the trends and comparisons is of a quantitative nature, together with a qualitative genre which examines the tables, figures and equations in order to get the entire picture of the company’s performance for a five year period. The combination of literature on various failure predictor models and experience of these models resulted in the development of a modified model. The conclusion from the study indicated that financial ratio analysis successfully predicts failure and non-failure of the 16 companies that were investigated. These companies were grouped into eight delisted (failed) and eight listed (non-failed) JSE companies, which were paired in accordance to industry, fiscal period and closest asset size. The adoption of the traditional ratio analysis methods and EMS model yielded some interesting findings. The traditional ratio analysis methods (trend and comparative ratio analysis) were used with the Emerging Market Score (EMS) Model. The outcomes indicated the traditional methods are viable company failure prediction tools and the EMS model points out companies at a score of 2.60 and above as being financially stable. Between 2.60 and 1.10 the results are not very dependable because it is known that the company is in distress, yet uncertain whether the company has financially failed and below 1.10 the company has failed. It was concluded that a combination of the various prediction models enhances the accuracy of failure prediction. Therefore further research is required to assist stakeholders of South African companies to predict business failure by developing an adjusted model in a South African context. / MCom (Accountancy)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Kimberly W. Kramer / This report, “A Recruiting Analysis for the Kansas State College of Engineering: The Financial Prospective,” is an initial baseline report that measures the effectiveness of KSU COE recruiting. This analysis examines the financial factor, or how students pay for their education. Specifically, the report examines the current students in the KSU COE and how they pay for their education and then compares the information to how college students pay for their education on a national level which is outlined in a report, “How America Pays For College”, by Sallie Mae using research conducted by Gallup. Next, the report examines the reasons the current students in the KSU COE came to Manhattan to study engineering, emphasizing their geographic background as well. The results found were that more students in the KSU COE borrow funds to pay for their college education than college students on a national level. Fewer students in the KSU COE or their parents solely pay for their college education when compared to students on the national level. To gather information on how the students in the KSU COE pay for their education, 89 current students in the KSU COE were surveyed. The students were fourth and fifth year students having a high probability of finishing their degree programs than first year students. After gathering data on how this sample of 89 students paid for their education, using statistical theory, conclusions on how all the current students in the KSU COE pay for their education were made. These conclusions are compared to the payment methods for the students in the national sample.

In today's knowledge intensive society humans and human capital are at the centre of economic progress. While companies focused on achieving succes in the past by concentrating on technological advances and ensuring that their tangible assets are used to the most productive means, in the last few years there has been an understanding that the human capital of an organisation contributes significantly to the economic success of a firm.

The main objectives of this study are to: (1) investigate empirically the extensiveness of the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices; (2) examine the relationship between each of a number of specific corporate characteristics and the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices; (3) assess whether the variations in the extensiveness of Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices can be explained by the selected corporate characteristics together; and (4), compare the results found for Cyprus with those found for Greece. The corporate characteristics examined, which are used as proxies of agency, political and other costs, are: company size, age, profitability, liquidity, industry type, listing status and auditor type. The study begins with the provision of background information about the Cypriot and Greek accounting environments which reveals that companies in the two countries operate within substantially different accounting environments. The study continues with a synthesis of the conceptual framework for corporate financial disclosure that identifies the variables that are likely to affect the research problem. A review of the corporate disclosure literature identifies a gap in the literature, which the study aspires to fill, and establishes the background for choosing the appropriate methodology to be used in the study. To investigate the extensiveness of the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices, the 1996 corporate annual financial statements (CAFSs) of 50 Cypriot and 74 Greek companies were collected. Extensiveness was defined as the quantity and quality of mandatory information disclosed in CAFSs and was measured by applying a country—specific disclosure measuring instrument against the CAFSs of the sample companies from each country. The relationship between the extent of corporate disclosure and the selected corporate characteristics was examined by using both bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses for each of the two countries. The results of the empirical analyses have led to four main conclusions. First, the Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices, on the whole, appear to be extensive. Second, Cypriot public companies which are more profitable, are classified as conglomerates or whose shares are listed on the Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE), tend to disclose significantly more extensive mandatory information in their 1996 CAFSs. Third, Greek listed companies which are smaller, are classified as conglomerates or manufacturing, or whose shares are listed on the main market of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE), tend to disclose significantly more extensive mandatory information in their 1996 CAFSs. Finally, on the basis of the comparative analyses undertaken, it can be concluded that although the influence of listing status and industry type on Cypriot and Greek mandatory disclosure practices is similar, the influence of company size is different. In contrast to Cyprus and most evidence reported in previous studies, company size has a negative influence on the extent of Greek corporate mandatory disclosure practices. This difference can be explained by theoretical, environmental, empirical and other considerations. For example, it can be attributed to the distinctive nature of the highly politicised Greek accounting environment and can be explained by political cost theory. Another possible explanation may be that Greek large companies disclose fewer details in their CAFSs but: (1) use other communication media to disclose mandatory information; or (2), use mandatory and voluntary disclosures as substitutes and replace the disclosure of less extensive mandatory information with more extensive voluntary disclosure. There are several possible policy implications that arise out of the above conclusions. The first implication is that improvements in Cypriot and Greek corporate mandatory disclosure can be made. Another policy implication is that corporate stakeholders who rely on CAFSs to get useful information should be wary of Cypriot companies which are less profitable, are classified as non—conglomerates or are not listed on the CSE; and Greek companies which are larger, are classified as others or are listed on the parallel market of the ASE. This is because these companies have been found to disclose less extensive mandatory information. The third policy implication arising out of the conclusions of the study is that it is possible that different predictions about the disclosure of corporate information may be derived from the political cost theory, depending on the environment within which the theory is examined. This is because although it is usually claimed that politically sensitive companies may disclose more extensively in order to reduce their political costs, the opposite may be true in the case of countries with specific environmental characteristics (similar to those existing in Greece in 1996): politically sensitive companies may disclose less extensively.

The thesis consists of two parts. Part I investigates the interactive nature of the relationship between financial intermediation and economic growth. The main theoretical results are: a) financial intermediaries emerging as a consequence of agents' maximising behaviour at some critical level of economic development could have a negative impact on economic growth; b) the growth impact of financial institutions, i.e. financial intermediaries and stock markets, changes positively along the process of economic development; c) excessive financial intermediation might occur as a consequence of economic development; d) the co-evolution of credit markets, where financial intermediaries operate, and stock markets does not imply complementariness between the two elements of the financial sector; e) the emergence of a stock market might have an immediate detrimental effect on growth; f) the growth impact of the overall financial sector depends crucially upon the complementarity/substitutability relationship between stock markets and credit markets as sources of external finance. Part II, consists of two models which can be thought of as extensions of the material presented in Part 1. In the first, the impact of financial deepening in the context of a growth model where growth is driven by human capital accumulation is analysed. The result of this model is that, since financial transactions and training are substitutes as devices for intertemporal substitution of consumption, the availability of a technology for financial transactions might induce a negative growth effect. The second model deals with interregional trade in financial services. The outcome of this model is that, because of asymmetries in the incentives to trade in deposits and loans, free trade might have detrimental consequences for the regions whose financial sector is less efficient since local investment can be crowded out. The thesis establishes those propositions by theoretical reasoning and appropriate formal proofs.

No description available.

No description available.