Purpose This paper aims to investigate the attributes and information content of risk reporting in two different institutional and regulatory, namely, Canadian and German, settings during the period surrounding the financial crisis of 2008. Design/methodology/approach For a matched sample of manufacturing firms in the period 2006–2010, this study conducts a detailed content analysis of annual reports to assess and compare the volume and patterns of risk disclosures. Panel regressions are used to explore how risk disclosures related to corporate risk proxies and performance indicators. Findings Over the sample period, Canadian and German firms increase the volume but largely maintain the patterns of risk disclosures. Risk disclosures relate to corporate risk proxies but are not incrementally informative to assess firm performance. Originality/value The paper contributes to research on risk reporting by providing detailed cross-country evidence for a period particularly shaped by significant risk. The findings have implications for the regulation and usefulness of risk reporting.

Die studie ondersoek die inligtingswaarde van dividende as 'n moontlike verldaring van die waargenome aandeleprysreaksie op dividendaankondigings. Twee algemene hipoteses is getoets, naamlik dat 'n betekenisvolle verandering in 'n maatskappy se dividendbeleid inligting oor daardie maatskappy se toekomstige verdienste per aandeel bevat, en tweedens dat hierdie inligting in die reaksie van aandelepryse na die aankondiging van die verandering gereflekteer word. Die belangrikste bevindinge is soos volg: • Die inligting vervat in huidige dividendaankondigings kan nie deur beleggers gebruik word om die volgende jaar se verdienste per aandeel van 'n maatskappy te voorspel nie. Die aandeleprysreaksie op positiewe, negatiewe en neutrale nuus is statisties beduidend, maar vind hoofsaaklik in dieselfde rigting plaas. Beleggers sou dus nie die inligting vervat in dividendaankondigings kan gebruik om bogemiddelde opbrengskoerse te genereer nie. • Die inligtingswaarde van dividende is dus 'n onwaarskynlike verldaring van die invloed van 'n maatskappy se dividendbeleid op die waarde van sy gewone aandele. / This research investigates the information content of dividends as a possible explanation for the observed share price reaction to dividend announcements. Two hypotheses were tested, namely that a significant change in a company's dividend policy contains information on that company's future earnings per share, and secondly, that this information is reflected in the share price reaction after the announcement of the change. The most important findings are as follows: • Investors cannot use the information contained in current dividend announcements to predict a company's earnings per share for the next year. • Share price reactions to positive, negative and neutral news are statistically significant, but will be in the same direction. Hence investors cannot use this information to generate above-normal returns. The information content of dividends is therefore an unlikely explanation of the influence a company's dividend policy has on the value of its ordinary shares. / Business Management / MCom (Sakebestuur)

Background: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests are tests sold directly to consumers, normally without the involvement of healthcare professionals, which aim to provide consumers with their relative genetic risk for various complex diseases. Providers claim that this information will enable and encourage consumers to improve their health behaviour in order to reduce their likelihood of contracting diseases for which they are at an increased genetic risk. However, there are many criticisms and concerns about DTC genetic tests in the literature. Two common concerns are the lack of positive effects, and possible negative effects, that the information generated by the tests may have on consumers health behaviour and health anxiety, and the identified poor quality of information provision on the websites of providers of DTC genetic tests. Although the literature contains some research in these areas it is noticeably limited and occasionally contradictory. Aim and Methods: The aim of the research was to investigate the informational aspects of direct-to-consumer genetic tests, including the provision of information by the companies, consumers information needs and information-seeking behaviour and the effect of the information generated by the tests on health behaviour and health anxiety. The research consisted of three studies: a survey of 275 consumers and potential consumers of DTC genetic tests, in-depth email interviews with 36 consumers of DTC genetic tests and a content analysis of the information provided on all identified providers websites. Results: Positive or neutral changes in health behaviour were identified in a large minority of respondents who had been exposed to genetic risk information, along with the mechanisms by which the information prompted or contributed to change. A minority reported a change in health anxiety, mainly but not exclusively a decrease, with mechanisms again identified. Consumers reported a wide variety of information needs, the most common of which were information to do with the coverage and accuracy of the tests. The provision of information on providers websites varied considerably, both between and within providers, but was generally poor. However, most consumers used other sources alongside these websites, the most common of which was blogs. Conclusions: The results suggest that concerns about possible negative effects of the information generated by the tests are unfounded and that a large minority of consumers have improved health behaviour and decreased health anxiety after purchase. The results also suggest that concern about information provision on providers websites is justified; although this is mitigated by consumers general use of other sources alongside the websites, it is likely that a substantial number of consumers do not have access to enough information to give fully informed consent to the test.

Thesis (PhD (Economics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / The primary financial objective of a firm is the maximisation of its shareholders’ value. A problem faced by the shareholders of a firm is that it is difficult to determine the effect of management decisions on the future share returns of the firm. Furthermore, it may be necessary to implement certain monitoring costs to ensure that management is focused on achieving this objective. A firm would, therefore, benefit from being able to identify those financial performance measures that are able to link the financial performance of the firm to its share returns. Implementing such a financial performance measure in the valuation and reward systems of a firm should ensure that management is aligned with the objective of shareholder value maximisation, and rewarded for achieving it. A large number of traditional financial performance measures have been developed. These measures are often criticised for excluding a firm’s cost of capital, and are considered inappropriate to be used when evaluating value creation. Furthermore, it is argued that these measures are based on accounting information, which could be distorted by Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP). Studies investigating the relationship between these measures and share returns also provide conflicting results. As a result of the perceived limitations of traditional measures, value based financial performance measures were developed. The major difference between the traditional and value based measures is that the value based measures include a firm’s cost of capital in their calculation. They also attempt to remove some of the accounting distortions resulting from GAAP. Proponents of the value based measures present these measures as a major improvement over the traditional financial performance measures and report high levels of correlation between the measures and share returns. A number of studies containing contradictory results have been published. On the basis of these conflicting results it is not clear whether the value based measures are able to outperform the traditional financial performance measures in explaining share returns. The primary objectives of this study are thus to: • Determine the relationship between the traditional measures earnings before extraordinary items (EBEI) and cash from operations (CFO), and shareholder value creation; • Investigate the value based measures residual income (RI), economic value added (EVA), cash value added (CVA) and cash flow return on investments (CFROI), and to determine their relationship with the creation of shareholder value; • Evaluate the incremental information content of the value based measures above the traditional measures. The information content of the traditional measures and the value based measures are evaluated by employing an approach developed by Biddle, Bowen and Wallace (1997). The first phase of this approach entails the evaluation of the relative information content of the various measures in order to determine which measure explains the largest portion of a firm’s market-adjusted share returns. The second phase consists of an evaluation of the incremental information content of the components of a measure in order to determine whether the inclusion of an additional component contributes statistically significant additional information beyond that contained in the other components. The study is conducted for South African industrial firms listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange for the period 1991 to 2005. The data required to calculate the measures investigated in the study are obtained from the McGregor BFA database. This database contains annual standardised financial statements for listed and delisted South African firms. It also contains EVA, cost of capital and invested capital amounts for those firms listed at the end of the research period. Including only these listed firms in the research sample would expose the study to a survivorship bias. Hence these values are estimated for those firms that delisted during the period under review by employing a similar approach to the one used in the database. The resulting sample consists of 364 firms providing 3181 complete observations. Since different information is required to calculate the various measures included in the study, different samples are compiled from this initial sample and included in the tests conducted to evaluate the information content of the measures. The results of this study indicate that the value based measures are not able to outperform EBEI in the majority of the relative information content tests. Furthermore, the measures EVA, CVA and CFROI are also not able to outperform the relatively simple value based measure RI. The results from the incremental information content tests indicate that although some of the components of the value based measures provide statistically significant incremental information content, the level of significance for these relatively complex adjustments is generally low. Based on these results, the claims made by the proponents of the value based measures cannot be supported. Furthermore, if a firm intends to incorporate its cost of capital in its financial performance measures, the measure RI provides most of the benefits contained in the other more complex value based measures.

本文是以市場研究（market study）的方式，探討制定會計原則的權威機構所發佈之 新的會計原則公報是否具有資訊內涵（information content ）。亦即調查會計報表 的主要使用者一投資人，是否會因企業改變所採用的會計原則而改變其對該企業之評 價，進而使該企業之股價發生反常的（abcdrmal）變動。 本文共壹冊，約六萬字，分為五章：第一章為緒論，概括地說明研究動機、目的及預 期貢獻；第二章則在發展理論上的研究架構，包括與研究有關的文獻探討；第三章為 研究方法論，介紹所使用的市場模式（market model），說明樣本資料之蒐集、統計 分析方法上的限制。第四章則解釋並分析統計的結果，第五章將彙總研究之結果，並 作結論與建議。

因有眾多實證研究支持若隨持有期不同，而能適時調整投資策略，便可獲取超額報酬，且月營收資訊具有相當程度的資訊內涵。因此，本研究延伸傳統動能策略的概念，而改以三種當月營收成長率做為篩選投資組合的條件，進而形成營收動能策略(sales momentum strategy)，研究主要目的為欲確認此策略於台灣股市之有效性，並同時印證『強者恆強』與『漲時重勢、跌時重質』觀念是否適用。再者，亦提供利用市場公開訊息建構投資組合之選擇，以協助彌補一般投資者無法與專業機構法人同步取得領先資訊之劣勢，進而改善投資績效。 本研究投資組合建構之方式為，於每月11日，上市公司月營收全數公布，並可自TEJ資料庫取得完整資料時，依照當月營收月增率、當月營收年增率及當月累計營收年增率等三項篩選條件，分別將所有上市公司進行排序，排序方式則區分為十等分(10%)及五等分(20%)兩種。其中，成長率排名前10%或20%的群體稱為贏家組合，排名後10%或20%的群體則稱為輸家組合。當贏、輸家組合篩選完成後，買入贏家組合，同時賣出輸家組合，即可產生一零成本營收動能策略投資組合。 綜合本研究各項實證分析的結果推斷，營收動能策略於台灣股市確實具有其效果，亦即台灣股市的投資人對於營收成長率訊息普遍存在反應不足現象，且印證營收宣告存在資訊內涵，惟各種投資組合績效將因篩選條件與持有期不同而產生差異。其中，尤以當月營收年增率為篩選條件，所建構之營收動能策略投資組合可獲得最佳的績效表現，且獲利並非來自於承擔市場系統性風險。此外，營收動能策略投資組合之元月效應並不明顯，而『強者恆強』與『漲時重勢、跌時重質』的觀念，則的確存在一定的參考價值。

本研究主要探討股票股利宣告與公司股價間之關係，期間涵蓋自民國八十年至民國八十四年止，共五年期間，以台灣證券市場上市公司宣告股票股利事件為研究對象，計九十六個樣本，另再依股票股利率增加、不變或減少，分成三小組，做進一步研究。研究方法為，採SHARP市場模式估計應有之均衡報酬，再計算平均異常報酬AR與累積平均異常報酬CAR，分析董事會決議日前後二十日的股票異常報酬之變化情形，另再探討造成三組之間不同異常報酬反應程度的原因為何。 　　實證結果顯示： 　　一、股票股利宣告日當天有顯著之異常報酬存在，顯示此一宣告事件具有情報效果，但消息在宣告日前便已被洩漏。 　　二、台灣股票市場不具半強式效率，投資人可自已公開之資訊中賺得異常報酬。 　　三、股票股利率的變動將造成市場不同反應程度之異常報酬，具有不同之情報效果。股票股利率增加時，較支持AR大於零之情報內容。 　　四、影響事件日異常報酬之因素，以股票股利率與由營運而來的現金流量較顯著。 　　五、股票股利率增加時在宣告日有正的顯著異常報酬，主要影響因素為股票股利率，影響方向為正，次要影響因素為由營運而來之現金流量，影響方向為負。股票股利率不變時，雖有正的異常報酬，但並不顯著，主要影響因素為由營運而來之現金流量，影響方向為負。股票股利率減少時，宣告日異常報酬由正轉負，主要影響因素為股票股利率，影響方向為正。

會計的主要目的在提供有用的資訊，以幫助使用者制定相關決策。由於一般公認會計原則採用應計基礎，重視收益實現原則及配合原則，因此盈餘資訊一直相當受到重視。自Ball & Brown及Beaver從事有關盈餘與股票報酬的研究開始，許多實證研究的結果均支持盈餘具有資訊內涵。國內有關這方面的研究亦不在少數，但所得的結論並不一致，有些支持盈餘有用，有些則否。基於這個原因，本研究乃由企業生命週期的觀點來探討盈餘與股價的關聯性，以了解盈餘對股票報酬是否具有解釋能力。 　　本研究所欲檢定的假說如下： 　　一、假說一：相同的盈餘，在成長期股價的反應大於成熟期 　　二、假說二：相同的盈餘，在成熟期股價的反應大於衰退期 　　三、假說三：相同的盈餘，在成長期股價的反應大於衰退期 　　四、假說四：假說一至假說三中之三種盈餘與股價的關係，不因公司規模的大小而有差異 　　五、假說五：假說一至假說三中之三種盈餘與股價的關係，不因行業的不同而有差異 　　根據實證的結果，本研究達成下列結論： 　　一、本研究所使用的四個企業生命週期指標變數--營收成長率、營業利益率、股利支付率及企業年齡，除了股利支付率外，其餘三者之變動與預期相符，應為適當之分類指標。 　　二、對於相同的盈餘，在不同的企業生命週期階段中，股價的反應趨勢雖支持研究假說，但因各階段的係數間並未有顯著的差異，因此假說一、假說二及假說三無法獲得證實。 　　三、以不同期間進行分析時，所獲結果並無重大改善，因此仍無法證實上述三個假說的真實性。 　　四、在規模別的分析中，小公司之分析結果與正常時期之分析結果大致相同，但大公司在營收成長率、營業利益率及股利支付率三種指標中其成長期股價的反應顯著大於成熟期，此時假說一獲得證實。因小公司與大公司在各階段股價的反應並不相同，因此假說四無法獲得證實。 　　五、在行業別的分析中，只有塑膠業較符合本研究的預期，其他行業則否，因此假說五亦無法獲得證實。 　　六、造成上述結果的可能原因有三： 　　　（一）台灣股市規模尚小，且機構投資者在市場交易所占比例不高，加上證券法規未徹底執行、投資人較不重視基本分析，造成股市投機性高，因此盈餘資訊與股價間的關係不易偵測。 　　　（二）台灣上市公司大多擁有許多關係企業，或為關係企業之成員，受關係企業之影響頗深，在股價的反應上自不單純以個別公司情況作考量，因此應考慮整個企業集團的情況。 　　　（三）企業在衰退後可能因策略上的改變，如多角化經營，而進入另一個生命週期，再次成長。依本研究的理論模型，此時股價會對此有所反應，因而導致成熟期與衰退期股價對盈餘的反應與成長期無蘋著的差異。

我國法令原則上禁止庫藏股的交易，但實務上相當盛行母公司透過本身可完全控制的子公司來買回母公司股票，從經濟實質的觀點來看，此一交易屬於實質的庫藏股交易。本論文之目的在探討我國「子公司買回母公司股票」之實質庫藏股交易的資訊內涵，是否和資訊假說的含意相符；其次驗證對於發生諸如借殼上市之經營權移轉情形的公司而言，「子公司買回母公司股票」交易和公司大股東出脫持股俾追求自利的經濟誘因是否有關。研究主題一共發展3個研究假說，主要擬瞭解我國子公司買進母公司股票之交易行為的資訊內涵，俾了解此交易傳遞之資訊本質，並評估市場反應是否和此資訊有關。第二個研究主題共發展4個假說，係探討借殼上市公司內部人在借殼成功後，是否會利用子公司買進其借殼時增加的持股或融資交易的股票，俾舒解資金壓力。此外，亦驗證交易過程中的股價行為，是否和內部人為極大其獲利水準而可能進行股價操縱的股價行為相同。 　　本論文是以84年至87年為研究期間，兩個主題的樣本係相互獨立。實證結果顯示：關於主題一－子公司買進母公司股票傳遞之資訊本質，本研究發現，平均而言，以子公司買進母公司股票當季與後續四季為基準，母公司在此交易的後續期間並無表現出優於預期的盈餘績效（相對於配對公司），而且在交易後亦無法觀察到分析師對母公司盈餘預測有顯著的正向修正（相對於配對公司）。另外，在控制內部人淨買入、公司規模、子公司購買股數、資金需求與產業趨勢等變數後，本研究並未發現子公司買進母公司股票時的股價反應，和母公司當季與下一季的異常正向盈餘績效有顯著的正向關係。總而言之，國內實務界雖然宣稱子公司買進母公司股票係傳遞看好母公司未來前景的訊息，但本研究的證據顯示，這項交易並非傳遞母公司未來盈餘變動的資訊，同時，此交易引發的正向市場反應，似乎並非來自投資人對母公司未來績效的預期，故從股價操縱的角度來看，此一股價效應可能來自於母公司刻意創造，但其實與母公司經濟實質無關的泡沫股價。 　　關於主題二－借殼上市公司透過子公司買進母公司股票之經濟誘因－的實證結果顯示：在控制其他因素後，借殼上市公司在借殼成功的後續期間，子公司買回母公司股票之交易發生後，相較於無此交易的配對公司而言，其內部人持股比例和融資餘額有顯著降低的情形。基於這類公司大股東有套現的特殊動機，故可合理懷疑，這項證據和內部人籍子公司買進母公司股票來出脫持股俾套現獲利有關。此外，分析結果發現：子公司買回母公司股票交易前有正向的股價效應，此一股價行為和內部人操縱下的股價型態相符，但交易後的股價水準則並未顯著低於交易前的股價。吾人推測此一結果，可能肇因於投資人受到誤導，以致本研究未能觀察到後續反轉下跌的股價行為。 　　整體來看，子公司買進母公司股票之交易並非如實務界所宣稱，係傳遞公司未來前景較佳之資訊，反而可能和內線交易與股價操縱有關。因此，本研究支持目前財政部擬議中嚴格禁止或限制母子公司交叉持股的方案，此外，本研究應有助於投資人做投資決策時，對於母子公司交叉持股的本質有所了解。 / Companies are not allowed to buy back any of its own shares except in some special cases according to the Company Laws in Taiwan, but the practice that parent companies repurchase their own stocks through subsidiary companies (which is so called parent-subsidiary cross-holding transactions) is popular currently. From the economic substance view, the parent and subsidiary companies are treated as a single economic entity, and the parents' stocks held by their subsidiaries are treasury stocks in substance. Since the authorities and investors are all concerned with this issue, and previous work in this area is limited, this thesis investigates the information content and economic incentives of these transactions. Specifically, there are two research questions in this dissertation. The first is whether the transactions that subsidiary companies purchase parents' stocks convey any information about parents' future prospects? And whether the stock price reactions around announcement dates are positively related to parents' subsequent earnings changes. The next question is whether these transactions are motivated by insiders' intent to sell their own shares for self-interest? And is the stock price behavior around announcement dates consistent with the explanation that stock price is manipulated? 　　The findings of the first research question are as follows. First, I find no evidence that there are positive aggregate unexpected quarterly earnings relative to a size and industry-matched control sample over the announcement quarter and subsequent four ones. Second, the significant evidence that there are positive revisions of earnings forecasts by analysts around announcement dates also cannot be found. Finally, a regression analysis shows that there is no significant positive relation between positive abnormal stock returns at announcement and positive quarterly earnings changes over quarter 0 and quarter I. In summary, the results are not consistent with the implication of the information hypothesis. I find no systematic support for the firms' claims that the meanings behind parent-subsidiary cross holding transactions are to convey managements' private information about parents' favorable prospects. 　　With regard to the second research question, I focus primarily on those listed companies whose controls are obtained by unlisted companies through purchasing outstanding shares in the open market, these companies are not included in the sample of the first question. As predicted, I find systematic support for the hypotheses that shares owned by insiders and companies' margins decrease relative to control groups immediately following parent-subsidiary cross holding transactions announcements and that abnormal stock returns before and at announcements are positive. However, I show that the abnormal stock returns after the announcements do not fall bellow those before announcement dates significantly. In summary, the findings indicate that these transactions maybe a means for informed insiders to sell their own shares at manipulated high prices in order to alleviate the huge capital pressure by self-interest. 　　Overall, the transactions that subsidiary companies purchase parents' stocks are more likely to have relation to insider transactions and stock price manipulation, rather than convey favorable information about parents' prospects as what firms claim. Therefore, this thesis supports an act of prohibiting or limiting parent-subsidiary cross holdings proposed by the Ministry of Finance strictly. Besides, the results in this thesis may be helpful for investors to understand the nature of parent-subsidiary cross holdings when they make investment decisions.

<p>In many forensic cases, such as mass disasters reconstruction cases, the recovered DNA is highly degraded. In such incidences, typing of STR loci has become one of the most powerful tools for retrieving information from the degraded DNA. However, as DNA degradation proceeds, three phenomena occur consecutively: loci imbalance, allele dropout and no amplification. To solve the problem of degraded DNA, redesigned primer sets have been developed in which the primers were positioned as close as possible to the STR repeat region. These reduced primer sets were called Miniplexes. Unfortunately, a few of the CODIS STR loci cannot be made into smaller amplicons. For this reason non-CODIS miniSTRs have been developed. The present study was undertaken for the population genetic analysis of microsatellite variation in four South African populations / Afrikaner, Xhosa, Mixed Ancestry and Asian Indian using eight non-CODIS miniSTR loci. These miniSTRs loci were characterized within the populations by estimating the levels of diversity of the markers, estimating the population genetic parameters, and studying the inter-population relationships. All of the miniSTRs were amplified successfully and the genetic variability parameters across all loci in Afrikaner, Mixed Ancestry, Asian Indian and Xhosa were estimated to be in the range of 3 (D4S2364) to 12 (D9S2157) alleles, the total number of alleles over all loci ranged from 100 to 204, the allelic richness ranged from 3.612 to 10.307 and the heterozygosity ranged from 0.4360 to 0.8073. Genetic distance was least between Afrikaner and Asian Indian and highest between Xhosa and Mixed Ancestry. Deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were not observed for most of the loci. The low mean FIS (-0.027) and FIT (-0.010) and FST (0.017) values across the populations indicated low level of inbreeding within (FIS) and among (FST) the populations. The Asian Indian population showed higher levels of the inbreeding coefficient, indicating less gene exchange between it and other populations. These 8 markers can be used for genetic investigations and assessing population structure. The study contributed to the knowledge and genetic characterization of four South African populations. In addition, these MiniSTRs prove to be useful in cases where more genetic information is needed.</p>