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I seek to identify whether cash flow management can affect the performance and risk of the Greek listed companies.

This study examines the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using a sample of 80 non-financial companies listed in the Athens Exchange. The study covers the period 2018–2022, and panel data analysis is applied. Both financial performance and stock return are taken into consideration, while risk concerns the volatility of the companies’ share prices. The various explanatory variables used include the net cash flow, free cash flow, cash conversion cycle days, cash flow from operating activities, cash flow from investing activities, cash flow from financing activities, inventory days, customer days and supplier days.

The empirical results provide evidence of a positive relationship between financial performance and net cash flow and free cash flow. In addition, operating cash flow is positively related to financial performance. The opposite is the case for investing and financing cash flow. Finally, some evidence of a negative relationship between financial performance and inventory and customer days is provided too. On the other hand, stock return and risk are not related to the cash flow management variables at all.

To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the few studies to examine the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using data from the Greek stock market. The results can form an effective selection tool for investors seeking Greek companies with the highest financial performance potential, which may reward them with higher dividends.

This paper tries to shed light on the international progress regarding the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), to accentuate the benefits resulting from the application of IPSAS, and to highlight the main differences between IPSAS and IFRS.

A comprehensive literature review is conducted which focuses on issues concerning the factors that induce the adoption of IPSAS, the obstacles that must be overcome, the degree of IPSAS’ proliferation worldwide, the repercussions from adopting IPSAS, the benefits of IPSAS, and the differences between IPSAS and IFRS. The selection process of the cited articles focuses on journals with high rankings in the ABS list.

It is accentuated that IPSAS carry significant benefits regarding the improved quality of the financial information reported by the public sector, the enhancement of transparency and accountability, the upgrading of the decision-making process and the restored trust in public finances. However, there is more work that needs to be done toward the global proliferation of IPSAS.

This study provides insights regarding the implementation process of IPSAS, which should be useful to all the parties engaged in the reform of the public administration, such as national governments, local or international regulators, accounting standard setters and institutional organizations.

The current study clarifies whether the public sector should move from using the business focused IFRS, as it is frequently the case, to the adoption of IPSAS. In addition, this study comprehensive literature review can be used by academics and researchers as a basis for further research on the issue. More importantly, policymakers and other officials who need to make informed decisions about financial reporting issues at the government level and the public sector in general can benefit from this study.

The purpose of this paper is to accentuate whether audit quality or other variables matter for the performance of companies in Greece.

This study examines the effect of audit quality on firm performance using data of 75 companies listed in the Athens Exchange in Greece and covering the period 2018–2021. Panel data analysis is applied. The independent variables are audit quality, the size of firms, their age, leverage, liquidity and efficiency ratios. Seven alternative measures of performance are used, including, among others, return on assets and return on equity. Stock returns and risks are used too.

The results provide evidence of a positive relationship between financial performance and audit quality. The opposite is the case for stock returns and risk. On the other explanatory variables, age has a clearly negative relationship with financial performance. The opposite is the case for liquidity and efficiency. The size factor also has some sort of a positive correlation with financial performance, whereas the opposite correlation concerns the leverage ratio.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between audit quality and firm performance with data from Greece.

A well-documented pattern in the literature concerns the outperformance of small-cap stocks relative to their larger-cap counterparts. This paper aims to address the “small-cap versus large-cap” issue using for the first time data from the exchange traded funds (ETFs) industry.

Several raw return and risk-adjusted return metrics are estimated over the period 2012-2016.

Results are partially supportive of the “size effect”. In particular, small-cap ETFs outperform large-cap ETFs in overall raw return terms even though they fail the risk test. However, outperformance is not consistent on an annual basis. When risk-adjusted returns are taken into consideration, small-cap ETFs are inferior to their large-cap counterparts.

This research only covers the ETF market in the USA. However, given the tremendous growth of ETF markets worldwide, a similar examination of the “small vs large capitalization” issue could be conducted with data from other developed ETF markets in Europe and Asia. In such a case, useful comparisons could be made, so that we could conclude whether the findings of the current study are unique and US-specific or whether they could be generalized across the several international ETF markets.

A possible generalization of the findings would entail that profitable investment strategies could be based on the different performance and risk characteristics of small- and large-cap ETFs.

This is the first study to examine the performance of ETFs investing in large-cap stock indices vis-à-vis the performance of ETFs tracking indices comprised of small-cap stocks.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether exchange‐traded funds (ETFs) can beat the market, as it is expressed by the Standard and Poor (S&P) 500 Index, examine the outperformance persistence, calculate tracking error, assess the tracking error persistence, investigate the factors that induce tracking error and assess whether there are predictable patterns in ETFs' performance.

The author uses a sample of 50 iShares during the period 2002‐2007 and calculates the simple raw return, the Sharpe ratio and the Sortino ratio, regresses the performance differences between ETFs and market index, calculates tracking error as the standard deviation in return differences between ETFs and benchmarks, assesses tracking error's persistence in the same fashion used to assess the ETFs' outperformance persistence, examines the impact of expenses, risk and age on tracking error and applies dummy regression analysis to study whether the performance of ETFs is predictable.

The results reveal that the majority of the selected iShares beat the S&P 500 Index, both at the annual and the aggregate levels while the return superiority of ETFs strongly persists at the short‐term level. The tracking error of ETFs also persists at the short‐term level. The regression analysis on tracking error reveals that the expenses charged by ETFs along with the age and risk of ETFs are some of the factors that can explain the persistence in tracking error. Finally, the dummy regression analysis indicates that the performance of ETFs can be somehow predictable.

The findings of this paper may be of help to investors seeking investment choices that will help them to gain above market returns. In addition, tracking error‐concerned investors will be helped by the findings of the paper. Finally, the findings on return predictability can also be helpful to investors.

This paper aims to investigate the intervalling effect bias in ETFs' systematic risk expressed by beta. The authors' findings reveal the existence of a significant intervalling effect on ETFs' beta obtained by the ordinary least squares method (OLS). Also investigated is the impact of ETFs' capitalization on beta. Results provide evidence that small cap ETFs have greater betas than large cap ETFs. Results also reveal that the OLS beta of all ETFs increases when the return interval is lengthened regardless of capitalization. The impact of ETFs' trading activity on systematic risk is assessed too. Findings give evidence that the OLS betas of the ETFs that trade infrequently are biased downwards while the beta of the frequently traded ETFs is biased upwards. Finally, the paper reveals a strong intervalling effect on ETFs' tracking error.

The authors employ a sample of 40 broad‐based ETFs listed on Nasdaq Stock Exchange to test whether beta estimates change when the return interval measurement changes. Their data cover a maximum period of ten years starting from September 16, 1998 using daily, weekly and monthly return data. The authors estimate beta applying three alternative methods: the market model applied with the OLS method, the Scholes and Williams model (SW beta) and the Dimson model (Dim beta).

Results indicate that the average beta of ETFs derived by the OLS method increases when the return interval increases. The differences among the daily, weekly and monthly OLS betas are statistically significant at the 1 per cent level. This finding implies a strong intervalling effect bias in ETFs' OLS beta. On the other hand, the authors did not find any statistically significant differences in daily, weekly and monthly Scholes and Williams and Dimson betas. Moreover, results show that the daily and weekly OLS and Scholes and Williams betas and weekly OLS and Dimson betas are significantly different from each other.

In this paper using a sample of 40 broad‐based ETFs listed on Nasdaq Stock Exchange, the authors have examined various issues concerning: the intervalling effect bias in ETFs' systematic risk, the relation between beta and capitalization of ETFs, the relation between beta and trading frequency of ETFs and, finally, the intervalling effect bias in ETFs' tracking error. While the literature on intervalling effect on securities' beta and the relation between systematic risk and market value and trading activity is voluminous, this is the first attempt to examine these issues with respect to ETFs.