In this pa per we ex am ine the ef fects of agency cost, mar ket risk, and in vest ment op por tu n ities on an in ter na tional firm's divi dend pol icy. We use in sti tu tional hold ings, beta, and past growth and market-to-book value of stock, or its in vest ment op por tu nity set, as prox ies for agency cost, mar ket risk, in vest ment op por tu ni ties, re spec tively. The re sults sup port th e ear lier find ings of nega tive ef fects of agency cost and mar ket risk on divi dend pay outs, but do not sup port the nega tive re la tion ship be tween divi dend pol icy and in vest ment op por tuni ties. The re sults show an in sig nifi cant re la tion ship be tween divi dend pol icy and in ve stment op por tu ni ties for the in ter na tional firms in our sam ple. I. In tro duc tionThere are nu mer ous stud ies on divi dend pol icy us ing United States data, while only a handful of stud ies have been done us ing in ter na tional data. This is the first study ex am in ing t he re la tion ships be tween divi dend pol icy and agency cost, divi dend pol icy and mar ket risk, and divi dend pol icy and in vest ment op por tu ni ties us ing world wide data. This re search becomes even more im por tant given the re cent find ings of Glen, Kar moko lias, Miller, and Shah (1995) on divi dend pol icy of firms in the so-called emerg ing mar kets of the world. While their find ings are dis cussed in more de tail in the sec tion on lit era ture re view later, one of their con clu sions is that man ag ers of the firms in emerg ing mar kets are more concerned about their divi dend pol icy now than they were in the past.
To compare and determine a credible method of measurement of wound surface area by linear, transparency, and photographic methods for monitoring progress of wound healing accurately and ascertaining whether these methods are significantly different. From April 2005 to December 2006, 40 patients (30 men, 5 women, 5 children) admitted to the surgical ward of Shree Sayaji General Hospital, Baroda, had clean as well as infected wound following trauma, debridement, pressure sore, venous ulcer, and incision and drainage. Wound surface areas were measured by these three methods (linear, transparency, and photographic methods) simultaneously on alternate days. The linear method is statistically and significantly different from transparency and photographic methods (P value <0.05), but there is no significant difference between transparency and photographic methods (P value >0.05). Photographic and transparency methods provided measurements of wound surface area with equivalent result and there was no statistically significant difference between these two methods.
There is an ongoing controversy over whether or not to extend commercial banks' nonbanking powers. Although the Glass‐Steagall Act of 1933 and the McFadden‐Pepper Act of 1927 restrict commercial banks' activities, the technological and financial innovations of the last several years have raised new questions. Whether banks should be allowed to undertake nonbanking activities? How profitable are these businesses? Whether banks will gain monopolistic powers? Will they increase FDIC's liabilities? And several other related questions. This study looks at the nonbanking activities of bank holding companies using a relatively new data source, i.e. FR‐Y11AS reports for the years 1989 and 1990. The performance of nonbanking subsidiaries is then compared with that of commercial banks and bank holding companies. Some meaningful inferences are drawn on issues such as market concentration, profitability, capitalization, and level of problem‐loans of nonbanking and banking subsidiaries, as well as, consolidated bank holding companies. Results from two prior studies are further utilized to look for possible trends. Since these studies have used the same data source (FR‐Y11Q and FR‐ Yl1AS) for the years 1986 through 1988, this facilitates a trend analysis over a five year period 1986–90. The main conclusions are that the BHC's nonbanking activities are heavily concentrated among the top five or ten firms within each activity. However, both the number of firms as well as total assets held in most nonbanking subsidiaries have declined over the five year period. Activities considered traditional, e.g. commercial and consumer finance and mortgage banking have suffered significant losses in terms of total assets and number of firms. Some interesting conclusions can be drawn from these results. First, due to the growing liberalization in interstate banking laws, BHCs can now carry on these activities in their bank subsidiaries and do not have to acquire a nonbanking subsidiary in order to capture business across state lines. Second, the glass walls separating banking from commerce may be cracking. Several states have started allowing banks to carry out some of the nonbanking activities, hence, considerably neutralizing the Glass‐Steagall Act. Insurance agencies and underwriting business of BHCs show the most significant growth over the five years, 1986–1990. Securities brokerage has held constant. Another finding is that the return on equity (ROE) for nonbanking firms has been lower than both the banking firms as well as the BHCs. However, this is mainly due to the relatively low equity capital levels for banks and BHCs. The nonbanking subsidiaries show fairly stable and relatively high capital ratios. Finally, for most part, nonbanking subsidiaries have a higher rate of problem‐loans.
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