This study investigated the efficacy of multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC) methods in detecting uniform and nonuniform differential item functioning (DIF) among multiple groups, where the underlying causes of DIF was different. Three different implementations of MIMIC DIF detection were studied: sequential free baseline, free baseline, and constrained baseline. In addition, the robustness of the MIMIC methods against the violation of its assumption, equal factor variance across comparison groups, was investigated. We found that the sequential-free baseline methods provided similar Type I error and power rates to the free baseline method with a designated anchor, and much better Type I error and power rates than the constrained baseline method across four groups, resulting from the co-occurrence background variables. But, when the equal factor variance assumption was violated, the MIMIC methods yielded the inflated Type I error. Also, the MIMIC procedure had problems correctly identifying the sources DIF, so further methodological developments are needed.

This study examines the relationship between international fee-paying students and career pathways through courses of study in Science and Engineering. International education is a significant endeavour in Australia in terms of any measure (students, dollars, associated employment). Over the last two decades it has grown in scope, beyond international fee-paying students, so that it now crosses all sectors of education and training (schools, vocational education and training, and higher education). Australian institutions have expanded their enrolment offshore and engaged in a variety of joint venture activities to capitalise on this surge of interest. The study examined international fee-paying students and career pathways shortly after the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducted two major studies in 2004 into career education and transnational education amongst member countries. The links between course and career intentions were investigated by focusing on the subject fields of Science and Engineering. The term career pathway is used as a metaphor to describe the way students move through the Australian education and training system, with such movements possibly occurring through sequential levels or by sectors. A literature review was conducted initially, and a mixed research methodology (involving both quantitative and qualitative approaches) was adopted for the study. A survey instrument was used with a sample of 110 international fee-paying students drawn from students studying Science and/or Engineering at nine institutions across sectors of Australian education and training, then a further sample of 22 students was interviewed in order to gain an understanding of the underlying reasons for students making the decisions, in relation to courses and careers that they do. / These samples provide the opportunity to evaluate international students' understandings of the Australian education and training system, especially the entry procedures into Science and/or Engineering courses. As part of the methodology the preliminary results were shared with the institutions involved to gain their input. Major findings were that 68 percent of the sample did not have career preparation or advice before coming to Australia; 52 percent of the sample was able to explain the term 'credit-transfer'; 53 percent of the sample had researched the recognition of their course in their home country, and careers advice was sought by 58 percent of the sample whilst studying in Australia. Resulting from the study are a number of recommendations for major stakeholders associated with international education (Australian Educational International, the Graduate Careers Council of Australia, government policy makers, institutions, the related professional bodies in the fields of Science and Engineering, and international fee-paying students). The findings of this study have implications for the way in which careers services are provided to international fee-paying students at Australian institutions. The outcome of this study is presented in two volumes. Volume One contains the body of the thesis in 6 Chapters. Volume Two (on disk) includes the associated documents of this study, presented in twelve Appendices.

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The main purpose of this study is to study the 45 funds, divided into three differentdivisions, then the result will provide a greater understanding of how returns change with ahigher risk.</p><p><strong>Methodology:</strong> The study is based on a quantitative approach. The survey was conducted bygathering raw data from databases and secondary data from literature, printed and electronicsources.</p><p><strong>Theoretical perspectives:</strong> The study is based on the theory: the efficient markethypothesis, which argues that future returns can not be calculated as the market is fullyinformed. The study is therefore studying historical yields.</p><p><strong>Empirical foundation:</strong> Empirical data are acquired from www.morningstar.se, andtherefore also treated on this page. The material is then divided into documents and time axes.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The study has shown that high-risk funds give a higher percentage returns thanmedium-and low-risk funds. However, does not imply a higher risk automatically earn ahigher return when the low-risk funds have shown a higher yield than medium-risk funds. Animportant factor to study when you are looking for the fund which generated the highest ROIis the Sharpe ratio. Although this study demonstrates that high-risk funds have a higherSharpe ratio than competing risk groups.</p>

Ranching communities in Texas have long recognized fee hunting as a natural resource with the potential of directly affecting agricultural incomes. Hunting as an industry today, appears to be developing into an economic substitute for Texas ranchers who are accustomed to the variable nature of agricultural markets. To determine the economic impact of this market relative to its functional utilization by landowners, this research analyzed a large group of landowners in Central and South Texas. Information was collected through a personal interview process of 146 landowners. Data collected primarily related to the individual landowners' specific fee hunting operations and the economics associated with their enterprise operations. Response data was tabulated and examined through use of comparative analysis and bivariate methods when appropriate. Output yielded a descriptive demographic profile of landowners along with landowner opinion/attitude on ensuing constraints and values of enterprise operations. Additionally, costs and returns to operations were summarized through development of an enterprise budget by ecoregion. From this analysis, it became clear that many landowners possess strong 'feelings' about their lands and appear to share parallel ideologies relative to their properties as an earned entitlement and privilege to be passed along to their heirs. However, these Texas ranchers are well aware of the economic pressures under which they must operate and their commitment to sound land management practices increasingly includes wildlife management. This, much in part, is due to the dramatic increase in revenues generated by fee hunting enterprises over the past decade. However, the budget analysis indicates possible constraints when landownership size becomes smaller such as through the sale of parcels for business purposes or through inheritance.

No description available.

This research is based on native companies and underwriters¡¦ perspectives to discuss the advantages and decision making process of listing a company¡¦s stocks in Taiwan capital market or in oversea markets. It further analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan and Hong Kong capital markets in legal and trading aspects, when also taking the costs into consideration. By analyzing the advantages/disadvantages of each capital market and the encourage policies of both governments, it illustrates the factors that influence a company to choose a favorable market in order to maximize its value. This research compares the following issues¡G A. The IPO regulations of Taiwan and Hong Kong capital markets B. The scales of Taiwan and Hong Kong capital markets C. The costs for IPO in Taiwan and Hong Kong capital markets By referring related articles, it induces the following results¡G A. Common benefits from IPO¡GMore convenient channels for fund raise, increasing international reputation, enhancing internal control system and management, brain gain, more Merger & Acquisition opportunities, and providing shareholders flexible financial planning. B. Planning IPO in local or foreign markets, a company¡¦s consideration would be different. The differentiation is mainly from¡G 1. different goals and strategies 2. different costs and benefits 3. different requirements and qualification for going public. C. The reasons for low management fee are¡G 1. Since underwriters mainly focus on capital gain, not management fee, there is not enough motivation for them to adjust the rate of management fee. 2. numerous underwriters result fierce price competition 3. management fee is related to industry/economy growth and recession 4. Investors might doubt whether the probability of their participating in security allocations is not equal to others. Last, this research provides the conclusion and recommendations. Via comparing these two capital markets, we look for the best solution to change the inferior position of Taiwan capital market and underwriters, and at least provide useful information for our government authorities, underwriters, and companies who are interested in going public in Hong Kong.

The review of the ethical funds literature shows the significant growth of the Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) in the last few decades. The increase of the interest towards SRI indicates that ethical issues have become more essential for the investors. However the number of surveys reveals that financial performance remains of an important concern for the socially responsible investors. Therefore the benchmark analysis of the expected returns and management fees of the ethical mutual funds is chosen as a topic for this thesis research. The risk-adjusted measures are used to analyze and compare the performance of the ethical and non-ethical mutual funds in United Kingdom. The analysis does not indicate the significant difference in the expected returns between the two groups of funds. However this study concludes that on average ethical funds charge higher management fees. Thus investing in ethical funds is more costly but gives about the same returns as investing in conventional funds.

Sammanfattning Antalet investeringsfonder och intresset för dessa har under de senaste åren ökat drama-tiskt. 94 % av den svenska befolkningen mellan 18-74 år sparar i någon form av fond. Un-der 2005 uppgick det totala fondkapitalet till ungefär 1,4 miljarder SEK. Det gör detta till ett viktigt ämne att studera vidare. Syftet med denna uppsats att analysera om det är något samband mellan förvaltningsavgif-ter, avkastning, riskjusterad avkastning och marknadsanpassad förvaltningsavgift och av-kastning i svenska aktiefonder. Vidare, skiljer sig prestationen mellan fonder beroende på om de är förvaltade av banker, listade som premiepensionsfonder eller förvaltade av andra fondbolag? För att analysera dessa frågor användes ’panel least square’ regressioner. Populationen bestod av 63 aktiefonder inom en tidsram av 20 kvartal. Dummy variabler användes för att särskilja bank- och premiepensionsfonder från den totala populationen. Observationerna visade liksom tidigare forskningen blandade resultat. Ingen relation hitta-des mellan avkastning, riskjusterad avkastning och förvaltningsavgift. Detta indikerar att fondbolagen inte tar hänsyn till den förväntade avkastningen när de fastställer sin förvaltningsavgift, vilket överensstämmer med tidigare forskning. Ett negativt samband hittades emellertid mellan den marknadsanpassade avkastningen och förvaltningsavgiften. Generellt presterade banker i genomsnitt bättre än fondbolag som varken var bank- och/eller premiepensionsfonder när det gäller avkastning, riskjusterad avkastning och marknadsanpassad avkastning. Vidare, fonderna med någon avgift utöver förvaltningsavgif-ten var de med den i genomsnitt näst sämsta gällande avkastning. / The number of investmentfunds have dramatically increased in the last years and so have the interest in funds. 94% of the Swedish population between 18-74 years are investing in some kind of mutual fund. In 2005 the total fund capital was approximately 1.4 billion SEK. That makes this an important topic to investigate further. Therefore this thesis purpose is to analyse if there is any relationship between administrationfees, returns, the risk-adjusted performances. Furthermore, does the performance of the Swedish mutual funds differ dependent on whether they are managed by banks or if they are listed as Premiepensionsmyndigheten (PPM) funds, or run by other mutual fund companies? To analyse the problem a panel least square regression was used. The population consisted of 63 Swedish mutual equity funds over 20 quarters. Dummy variables were used to separate the banks- and PPM funds from the total population. The findings are mixed compared to previous research. There seem to be no relationship between the return, the risk-adjusted return and the administration fee. This indicates that the fund companies do not set their administration fee based on the expected return. However, a negative relationship was found between the market-adjusted return and administration fee. In general, the banks, on average, outperformed, the mutual fund companies that were not bank and/or PPM funds, in return, risk-adjusted return and market-adjusted return. Further, the funds with some additional fee had the on average second lowest efficiency in terms of return on the market.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate Saskatchewan farmers’ perception of lease hunting in Southern and Central Saskatchewan. Wildlife habitat on privately owned farmland has been shown to provide significant public benefits to society at large. One method that has been shown to provide a greater private benefit to the providers of wildlife habitat is lease hunting which creates incentives to farmers to provide some of the direct use value of wildlife habitat. Since lease hunting with the current legal structure is not an option in the province of Saskatchewan, this study investigated farmers’ attitude to a hypothetical lease hunting option. A total of 84 in person surveys were administered to Saskatchewan farmers and 10 telephone interviews to outfitters operating in the province. The survey results indicated that Saskatchewan farmers are evenly split between supporting and failing to support the introduction of lease hunting. Econometric analysis using a probit model showed that farmers who are renting additional land to agricultural production, who allowed hunting on their land in the past are more likely to support introducing lease hunting. Farmers who have been asked permission to hunt on their land by recreational hunters were less likely to support lease hunting, confirming the lease hunting literature that states that the most important characteristics of lease hunting is the control over who accesses their land. Since farmers who have already been asked for permission to access their land already possess the control over their land they were less likely to support the introduction of lease hunting. Demographic variables such as age and education do not have an effect on attitude to lease hunting. The price of a day hunting lease was estimated among those farmers who were in support of introducing lease hunting. It seems farmers are willing to accept $90 per day for a day of recreational hunting access to their lands. A tobit model showed that farmers who rent more land for agricultural production would charge more for a day of recreational hunting access. Also those farmers who have high perceived quantity of wildlife on their land would charge more up to a certain point where wildlife nuisance quality becomes more prominent.

The aim of this study is to test the audit fee determinants for companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm Stock Exchange and to examine whether the audit fee determinants diverge for ownership structures. By testing the audit fee determinants in a Swedish setting the study contributes to the research body in two ways; by testing a previously sparsely researched setting and examining the monitoring need for different ownership structures. The results indicate that audit fees are explained to a large extent by accounting complexities, business complexities and assurance.  The results also suggest that ownership structure does not have a large effect on the monitoring need.  Altogether the results provide further evidence on audit fee determinants whilst adding initial insight into the area of audit fee determinants for ownership structures.