Earnings Management and Investor Protection: An International Comparison

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

(1991). Applied Linear Regression Models. Journal of Quality Technology: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 76-77.

Applied Linear Regression Models

Why nations fail? The origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty

Some previous histories of southern education, such as Charles W. Dabney's
classic Universal Education in the South, slighted the role of American
Americans in shaping their own education. James Anderson's new book, the
best single volume on black education in the post-bellum south, commits the
opposite error. Anderson exaggerates the power and autonomy of southern
ex-slaves during Reconstruction and of southern blacks in general during the
Jim Crow era, and correspondingly underemphasizes the significance for their
education of the efforts of former free people of colour, northern blacks and
whites and white southerners. While meriting praise for its uncovering of the
role of ordinary people struggling to improve their educational lot, Anderson's
revisionist book almost wholly excludes electoral, legislative and administrative
politics. The exclusions and lopsided emphases make it nearly as one-sided
and incomplete as the white-centred, bureaucrat-dominated history that
it seeks to replace.

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 [Book Review]

This study attempts to reveal the relationship between credit risk and profitability of some selected banks in Ghana. A panel data from six selected commercial banks covering the five-year period (2005-2009) was analyzed within the fixed effects framework.  In Ghana, the average lending/interest rate is about 30% - 35% per annum. From the results credit risk (non-performing loan rate, net charge-off rate, and the pre-provision profit as a percentage of net total loans and advances) has a positive and significant relationship with bank profitability. This indicates that banks in Ghana enjoy high profitability in spite of high credit risk, contrary to the normal view held in previous studies that credit risk indicators are negatively related to profitability.  Our results can be attributed to the prohibitive lending/interest rates, fees and commission (non- interest income) charged. Also, we found support for previous empirical works which depicted that bank size, bank growth and bank debt capital influence bank profitability positively and significantly. Keywords : Credit Risk, Profitability, Banks, Ghana.

/pdf/credit-risk-and-profitability-of-selected-banks-in-ghana-47u5o9yw2p.pdf

Credit Risk and Profitability of Selected Banks in Ghana

The main thrust of this study is to find out the relationship between dividend policy and performance of banks in Ghana. The study used panel data constructed from the financial statements of 16 commercial banks in Ghana for a period of 5 years, from 1999-2003. These financial statements were obtained from the Banking Supervision department of Bank of Ghana. STATA was used for the data analysis. From the results of the study, the average dividend paid by banks over the study period was 24.65%. Also, it is apparent that banks that pay dividend increase their performance. The results also reinforce earlier findings that leverage, size of a bank and bank growth enhance the performance of banks. The age factor presents mixed results. Generally, the result is in tandem with earlier studies that dividend policy has an effect on firm value.

/pdf/dividend-policy-and-bank-performance-in-ghana-15a9dyphbh.pdf

Dividend Policy and Bank Performance in Ghana

This study investigated the impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on prices of maize, sorghum, imported rice and local rice in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We estimated dynamic panel data models with controls for macroeconomic setting using general method of moments estimation. The study found that the COVID-19 outbreak led to increases in food prices of the sampled countries. Restrictions on movements or lockdowns in the wake of COVID-19 was associated with an increase in the price of maize only. We also found that exchange rate, inflation and crude oil prices exerted a detrimental effect on food prices. We recommend that governments of SSA countries invest in infrastructure that improves efficiencies in the food supply chain during pandemics. Providing adequate support to industries in the value chain will also improve food availability and food price stability post-COVID-19.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-8268.12525

COVID-19 and food prices in sub-Saharan Africa.

This study extends the literature on financial literacy and cultural (Catholicism or Protestantism) beliefs to SME performance in a developing economy setting. Two basic questions motivated the stu...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23322039.2018.1463813

Culture, financial literacy, and SME performance in Ghana

This study explores how global economic policy uncertainty (EPU) shocks comove with stock returns (SR) of eight African countries—Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia. The study employed daily data from December 2010 to December 2019 using wavelet coherence analysis. The results showed that global EPU comoves with most of the SR of African markets and was concentrated in the longer term, especially during the period between 2011 and 2019, although not substantially. The findings indicate that short-term investments in African stocks are less susceptible to global economic policy uncertainty. It is recommended that foreign investors could hedge agaist policy uncertainties by investing in stock listed in African Stock exchanges while appropriate country-level policies are deployed to manage long-term effect of EPU.

/pdf/economic-policy-uncertainty-and-stock-returns-of-africa-a-21h9yzomkw.pdf

Samuel Kwaku Agyei

Papers

Credit Risk and Profitability of Selected Banks in Ghana

Dividend Policy and Bank Performance in Ghana

COVID-19 and food prices in sub-Saharan Africa.

Culture, financial literacy, and SME performance in Ghana

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Stock Returns of Africa: A Wavelet Coherence Analysis