Abstract

The main aim in this study is to explain the effect of natural resource endowment or ‘oil wealth’ on the Libyan economy and, more importantly, explore how Libya can take advantage of this resource whilst avoiding the Dutch disease problem. In order to do this, the study has three objectives:-

1.     To identify what variables are of importance in the economic growth in particular of oil producing countries, and what is the impact of oil on those variables.

2.     To identify the most important growth strategies that oil-rich countries are following.

3.     To identify the nature of the relationship between oil revenue and realizing permanent economic development in Libya, while identifying the most potentially beneficial economic development policies that could be adopted in Libya in terms of the participation of economic sectors, investment priorities, and encouragement of economic diversification.

Multiple methods were used to collect data in this research through information gathered from existing literature - data for a wide study of 74 oil producing countries, case studies on a number of oil rich comparator countries, as well as a qualitative analysis of the Libyan economy itself with data derived from semi-structured interviews and a focus group.

Preliminary results indicate that the abundance of oil wealth has a positive direct relationship on GDP; however economic growth is obstructed indirectly by oil wealth through the effect of some other economic variables within the model. For instance, an abundance of oil wealth negatively (statistically significantly) affects manufacturing, public spending on education and the entry of foreign direct investment; however, there is a positive (statistically not significant) relationship between oil wealth and each of agriculture value added and Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF). There is however a negative (statistically significant) relationship between SWF and GDP as well as a positive, statistically significant, relationship between the following variables: manufacturing value added, agriculture value added, and Foreign Direct Investment with GDP. The relationship is positive, but statistically not significant, between public spending on education and GDP.

In terms of the case study countries discussed, it can be recognized that different growth strategies have been adopted to reach economic diversification; in general all countries have increased their investment in education for all stages, in supporting the tourism sector and those manufacturing industries that link to oil and gas. However, the contribution of the agricultural sector to GDP for some oil-rich countries has diminished, even in those countries which have increased their efforts to support that sector. The main challenge facing those countries in terms of attracting more foreign direct investment is political and security stability. Countries consider SWF as an important way to diversify the economy, to achieve sustainable growth and to maximize profits.

In the specific context of Libya, this study reveals that it is facing a political Dutch disease as well an economic Dutch disease. Because of the size of the public sector, private sector activities were crowded out because of the ability of the government to dominate the economy through its large oil revenues. It is therefore a type of Dutch disease with a different scenario.

The ethics of financial reporting assumes a center stage in the corporate world in the background of an emerging understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We review the literature on the link between earnings management (EM) and CSR and reveal that there are two contradictory perspectives. One perspective assumes that EM is negatively associated to CSR, while the other argues that EM and CSR are positively related. These perspectives are based on the competitive existence theories such as agency, singling, stakeholder, legitimacy theories. While, the negative relationship between EM and CSR perspective is in line with the legitimacy, agency and singling theories, the positive relationship is in accordance with stakeholder theory.

Understanding and predicting online purchase intention: Development of a model for cognitive-affective shopper responses

Since the gender diversity of boards and reporting of earnings are two most debated issues in the corporate world, the paper examined how the presence of women directors on the corporate board influence earnings management practices. We found that firms with a higher number of female and independent female directors are adopting restrained earnings management practices in the UK. We further made a distinction between complex (high debt) and simple (low debt) companies, and the outcomes reveal that female directors have a positive effect on the earnings management in simple companies. The paper contributes to the debate on gender diversity on boards, and its impact on the use of accounting discretion in financial reporting.

The primary focus of this study is to investigate the relation between Earnings Management (EM) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the UK. While there are few studies in the existing literature that examined the relationship between EM and CSR, there is a lack of studies examining this relation in the UK. Furthermore, the existing academic literature appears to provide inconsistent results.

These considerations motivate this study to bridge this gap in the literature by providing evidence of whether or not EM and CSR are related in the UK. The present study carried out through three empirical stages based on the data obtained from the FTSE 350 Index between 2008 and 2010.

The first stage examined the EM practice using three EM models to estimate discretionary accruals as proxy for EM. The models were the Jones (1991), modified Jones (Dechow et al. 1995) and performance - matched (Kothari et al. 2005) models.

Firstly, these models were tested using multivariate analysis; the findings revealed that the performance - marched model has been identified as the model that could most accurately measure the presence of EM. Secondly, by applying univariate analysis, the study has found insignificant differences between the high and low EM practices in UK firms and that the highest and the lowest levels of EM were in 2008. Similar results were discovered when comparing the differences between income - increasing and income - decreasing EM.

The second stage tested CSR by applying both content analysis and disclosure index approaches to identify the level of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSD) as proxy of CSR. The findings from the content analysis revealed that the employees (EMP) theme had the highest level of CSR information, followed by community (COM), environment (ENV), others (OTH), products and services (PRO), and customers (CUS). Similar results were obtained when the disclosure index approach was employed.

The relationship between EM and CSR was tested in the final stage by using univariate and multivariate analyses. The findings revealed that firms with more CSR information reported lower EM. Further tests were performed to investigate the link between EM and CSR themes and the findings revealed that firms with more information of EMP, COM, EVE and PRO reported lower EM. However, no evidence suggested that CUS and OTH information affect EM. Overall, the findings suggest that the level of CSR improve financial reports’ quality. This study aspires to contribute to our understanding and knowledge on the issue related to the role of CSR regarding the quality of reported earnings.

The paper attempt a closer investigation to re-interpret the role of CSR in limiting the extreme practices in earnings management (EM), using evidence from large UK companies.

.The paper aims to re-interpret the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in limiting the extreme practices in earnings management (EM)

We consider a differentiated duopoly where firms invest in research and development (R&D) to reduce their production cost. The objective of this study is to derive and compare Bertrand and Cournot equilibria, and then examine the robustness of the literature's results, especially those of Qiu (1997). We find that The main results of this study are as follows: (a) Bertrand competition is more efficient if R&D productivity is low, industry spillovers are weak, or products are very different. (b) Cournot competition is more efficient if R&D productivity is high and R&D spillovers and products' degree of substitutability are not very small. (c) Cournot competition may lead to higher Outputs, higher consumer surpluses and lower prices, provided that R&D productivity is very high and spillovers and degree of substitutability of firms' products are moderate to high, (d) Cournot competition results in higher R&D Investments compared to Bertrand's. These results show that the relative efficiencies of Bertrand and Cournot equilibria are sensitive to the suggested specifications, and hence far from being robust.

We consider a differentiated duopoly where firms invest in research and development (R&D) to reduce their production cost. We show that if the firms play a one stage game, i.e., they choose R&D and price (in Bertrand game) or quantity (in Cournot game)at the same time, then the usual result stating that Bertrand competition is more efficient than Cournot competition still holds.

Using an infinite-horizon two-player differential game, we derive and compare Bertrand and Cournot equilibria for a differentiated duopoly engaging in the process of R&D competition. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, Bertrand competition is more efficient if either R&D productivity is low or products are very different. Second, Cournot competition is more efficient provided that R&D productivity is high, products are close substitutes, and spillovers are not close to zero. This last result is different from what has been obtained in the literature. Hence, this shows that considering a dynamic model and more general investment costs does have an impact on the efficiency results.