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Describes the basic principles of biosensors and the history of their development. Assesses their current impact and state of the biosensor market, and looks ahead to future developments.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reaction to earnings announcements in a small stock market.

The paper uses the traditional event study method to examine the information content of annual earnings announcements in the small Danish stock market from 1999‐2004.

The paper finds abnormal volatility in the days surrounding the announcements, indicating that they contain relevant information for the stock market. The abnormal volatility persists several days after the announcement, suggesting that the information environment of this small stock market works to decrease the speed of adjustment. In addition to this sign of inefficiency, the paper finds significant positive abnormal returns accompanying the announcements. These results are robust across various methodologies. Surprisingly, the paper finds a positive correlation between the information content and predisclosure information. This contradicts previous studies, and it is interpreted as evidence of a low level of pre‐announcement information. Confirming the results of similar studies, the paper finds that unexpected earnings are best proxied using a model based on consensus analyst forecasts.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by analyzing the information content of earnings announcements in a small stock market with accounting standards that are congruent with the International Accounting Standards.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a qualitative and exploratory study aimed at learning more about the local forms of resilience that emerged in two localities (one rural and one urban locality) in Talcahuano, Chile, in response to the major earthquake and devastating tsunami that hit them on February 27, 2010.

To ensure that people’s experiences remained leading throughout the study, data were collected in the field by the first author over a period of 13 months using a variety of qualitative methods. The primary methods were observation, participation and semi-structured interviews with a variety of actors, ranging from community members to local leaders and emergency professionals. For the analysis, a scheme was used that categorizes manifested resilience using two dimensions: damage and responsiveness. Since this scheme has been mostly used to evaluate tree populations, it was adapted to fit the appraisal of a social system.

The findings suggest that damage levels in the two communities were similar, but that the responsiveness was not. One locality revealed high levels of resilience, while the other exposed increased susceptibility to future similar events.

This research initiative was relevant because it exposed actual resilience. Also, the specificities of the findings enable insights about prevalent vulnerability, in particular the local capacity of response, and that can be used to elaborate concrete earthquake/tsunami disaster scenarios and design local disaster risk reduction interventions.

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between intellectual capital disclosures in initial public offerings (IPOs) and post‐issue stock performance.

The analysis is based on a sample of 259 IPOs listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) between July 1, 1999 and June 30, 2005. Post‐issue stock performance is measured using market‐adjusted buy‐and‐hold returns across a 500 trading day observation window after listing. Intellectual capital disclosure is measured using an 81‐item index.

The study's major finding is a negative association between the level of intellectual capital disclosure in IPO prospectuses and post‐issue stock performance. The negative association persists regardless of industry type but is stronger for small IPOs relative to larger counterparts.

The study includes only Singapore IPOs within a specific timeframe concentrating on a single disclosure mechanism. Furthermore, the analysis focuses on an association rather than causal relationship.

The findings imply greater intellectual capital prospectus disclosure may contribute to investor over‐optimism leading to higher IPO mispricing. As information becomes available post‐issue, and over‐optimistic expectations are not immediately met, investors aggressively discount shares leading to greater negative post‐issue stock performance for high IC disclosing IPOs. Pre‐listing owners/management may exploit the speculative environment generating higher wealth transfers from investors. Policymakers may need to introduce (some) uniform intellectual capital disclosure requirements to reduce speculative market conditions.

This paper documents the first study to provide empirical evidence of the association between intellectual capital disclosures and post‐issue stock performance; thus, it offers a new path for future intellectual capital disclosure research and understanding.

The advances and continuous development of technology have been identified as significant influences on the accounting profession (AICPA, 1998). In the last twenty years, both academia and the accounting profession have been giving much attention to the demand and opportunity for audits to be performed automatically, continuously and in nearly real time. This paper presents a comprehensive review of continuous auditing research by providing an overview of the emergence and growth of the continuous auditing literature and classifying the extant continuous auditing research on the basis of four research characteristics indicated by a newly developed research taxonomy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether new sovereign credit rating (SCR) changes are valuable, and relevant information is provided to bond and equity markets in 30 African countries that received an SCR during the period 1994–2014.

This study applies a combination of GARCH models and event study techniques.

This study shows that the financial markets do not significantly react to SCR announcements, possibly because these African markets are already perceived to be risky.

At last, a significant portion of Africa’s sovereign debt is held by foreign investors (Arslanalp and Tsuda, 2014) who commonly preclude asset managers from investing in low SCR grades. Thus, an unfavorable SCR announcement could lead to a withdrawal of these funds, which could significantly alter both fiscal and monetary policies in the economy.

SCRs is immaterial to investors holding African securities.

Although financial markets are weakly responsive to SCR announcements, they appear to be informationally important in the operation of stocks and bond markets in Africa. Therefore, governments should appreciate the long-term information exchange between investors and borrowers, and the consequential nature of credit ratings in Africa’s nascent financial markets in order to proactively manage the risks of negative ratings.

Studies on credit rating effects on Africa markets are rare.

The aim of this paper is to study the information content of operational loss events occurring at European financial institutions with respect to the announcing bank’s industry rivals from an equity investor’s perspective.

The authors conduct an event study to identify spillover effects of operational loss events using the Carhart (1997) four-factor model as a benchmark model. In addition, they conduct multiple regression analyses to investigate the extent to which firm-specific factors or the market environment affect abnormal returns.

They observe significant negative abnormal returns following operational loss announcements exceeding € 50 million for both the announcing firms and their competitors. In addition, they find that stock market reactions occur only within a very small event window around the announcement date, indicating a high degree of market efficiency. Finally, abnormal returns tend to be insignificant for smaller loss amounts.

While operational risk is often believed to be strictly firm-specific, the results show that large operational risk events are not purely idiosyncratic; rather, they are systemic in the sense that they have contagious effects on non-event banks. Thus, the authors shed new light on how operational risk affects equity investors’ investment behaviour in an opaque and highly interconnected banking market.

This paper aims to examine the price-sensitivity of information under capital market disclosure regulation, the Australian continuous disclosure regulation (CDR).

The study tests the information content of continuous disclosures and identifies the firm characteristics that condition the price-sensitivity of information under CDR.

The study provides evidence that continuous firm disclosures are significantly associated with stock price adjustment to information. Further results are consistent with firm disclosure and its information content being determined by the economics of the firm.

The findings of the study support the introduction of ongoing and continuous disclosure regimes in a number of capital markets, and assist firms and regulators model the price-sensitivity of information under CDR.

The study highlights the sources of an informed market, and contributes to our understanding of the conditions under which the CDR reveals unexpected information. The results provide evidence of an association between firm disclosure and stock price synchronicity, consistent with managerial incentives to disclose information.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the common stock price reaction and the changes to the risk exposure of the cross-listing for real estate investment trusts (REITs).

The paper adopts the event study methodology to assess the abnormal returns (ARs). Pre- and post-cross-listing changes in the risk exposure for the domestic and foreign markets are examined, via a modified two-factor international asset pricing model. A comparison is made for two broad cross-listings, namely, the depositary receipts and the dual ordinary listings, to examine the impacts from institutional differences.

Cross-listed REITs generally experience positive and significant ARs throughout the event window, implying significant superior returns associated with the cross-listing for REITs. On systematic risks, REITs exhibit significant decline in their domestic market β coefficients after the cross-listing. However, the foreign market β coefficients do not yield conclusive evidence when compared across the sample.

Results are consistent with prudential asset allocation for potential diversification gains from the cross-listing, as the reduction from the domestic market beta is more significant than changes in the foreign market beta.

The results and findings should incentivise REIT managers to explore viable cross-listing.

Such cross-listing for REITs should enhance risk diversification.

This is a pioneer study on cross-listing of REITs. It provides a basis for investment decision making, and could provoke further research and discussion.

In a review of America's capital investment system, Michael Porter concluded that the most critical determinant of competitive advantage is “sustained investment in physical as well as intangible assets, things like employee skills and supplier relationships” (1992: 65). Why supplier relationships? This study measures firm returns associated with one form of interfirm investment—stock blockholdings—and tests how investing firm returns are affected by alternative measures of firm size.