Volume 55 (2019): Issue 2 (June 2019)

The primary objective of the study is to examine the impact of political news (good and bad news) on the returns and volatility of Borsa Istanbul 100 Index (BIST-100). Sample data cover the period from January 2008 to December 2017. The main sample was divided into two subperiods to insulate the dominating impacts of both the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and 2013 Federal Reserve Tapering on Turkish stock markets. The daily stock market data were collected from the Electronic Data Delivery System (EVDS) web service, while political news headlines were collected from the Guardian newspaper. Different nonlinear volatility models (symmetric and asymmetric Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity [GARCH]-type models) were used to model and estimate BIST-100 volatility in response to political news. The findings of the paper highlight four main results. First, there seems to be a significant impact of political news on the returns and volatility of BIST-100 index. Second, negative shocks derived from bad news tend to have a significant impact on the returns and volatility of BIST-100, while positive shocks derived from good news do not tend to have any significant impact on the returns, but decreased returns volatility. Third, political news, both good and bad, can affect stock return and stock return volatility in different directions, and this direction is time-varying. Fourth, the findings strongly reveal the presence of “Leverage Effect” in the returns of BIST-100 index. Therefore, one can say that political uncertainty is still a problem for the Turkish stock market.

We address our research to the problem of managerial overconfidence and financing behavior. The aim of the paper is, hence, to ascertain the pattern of financing decisions of overconfident managers and identify the relevant capital structure theory (trade-off or pecking order theory) that can be used to explain financing decisions of overconfident managers. We collected a sample of 145 private companies. The degree of overconfidence was distinguished by surveying the managers on overestimation, overplacement, and overoptimism. The financial data covers the period of 2010–2015. We calculated static ratios of capital structure and uncovered the determinants of capital structure. We then unveiled the target debt ratios using Fama and French methodology and identified the difference between target and actual debt ratios. We also calculated the value of deficit and the sources of financing according to Shyam-Sunder and Myers. We found that the companies managed by overconfident managers use higher value of equity and display similar debt ratios. They also utilize reverse pecking order preference—trying to use internal funds and then turning to equity. Moreover, we noted that companies managed by overconfident managers come closer to target debt ratios and implement more risky fixed assets financing strategies. The significance of our research is that we contribute to the understanding of capital structure decisions by taking into account behavioral biases and conducting comprehensive research on both static and dynamic capital structure.

With arrival of information technology, interaction between consumers and companies become more common. It has implications for the way business function and for business models. The aim of the paper is to analyze crowdsourcing and compare crowdsourcing business models of three product and content crowdsourcing companies, their common features and differences. These companies differ considerably in many respects. The business model framework used is based on Osterwalder and Pigneur’s approach. The paper shows various consequences of using crowds. It shows that having crowds as a key asset implies a necessity to take care of the crowd and network effect before launching a crowdsourcing initiative. The paper gives those involved in crowdsourcing insight about factors crucial for their company and points to where they need to concentrate their resources.

This study aims to investigate the short-run and long-run relationship between economic variables and the unemployment rate in South Asian countries. A panel vector error correction model is used to establish the long-run and the short-run relationship between the unemployment rate and the selected economic variables. Data were collected from WDI, WGI, and FDSD for the years 1994–2016. In order to determine the direction of the relationship, the Granger causality test was used. Impulse response functions (IRFs) and forecast error variance decomposition were used to assess the stability of the relationship between the unemployment rate and economic variables over time. The finding of the study showed a negative and significant relationship at the 5% level of significance between governance, internet users, mobile cellular subscriptions, fixed broadband subscriptions, and human capital and the unemployment rate of South Asian economies. On the other hand, financial activity (credit) and population growth had a positive and significant relationship with the unemployment rate. Finally, the Granger causality test showed bidirectional causality between governance and unemployment rate, while internet users and fixed broadband subscriptions showed unidirectional causality with the unemployment rate; furthermore, population growth, financial activity (credit), mobile cellular subscriptions, and human capital showed no causality in the short run.

Business entities operated in the form of capital companies, to maintain reliability and transparency of the activities conducted, should observe general supervisory framework of legal nature. The primary objective of the information policy is to provide stock market participants with appropriate standards of company transparency which through the corporate governance regulations should lead to the improvement in the quality of financial reporting. Financial statements should be reliable as it is only then that their aims and targets are met, and the image of business they depict should be created according to the true and fair principle, invoking the responsibility of individuals supervising the process of drawing up a financial statement. The aim of the paper is to indicate the essence of the relationship between the quality of financial statements and the application of corporate governance principles. The paper uses the analysis of regulations and review of literature in the field of corporate governance and reporting of listed companies. The results of the analysis confirm that the quality of reported information determines the effectiveness of corporate supervision; that integrated reporting (IR) is a tool enabling organizations to communicate their value to investors; and that corporate supervision allows said organizations to adopt the comprehensive approach in developing sustainable value.

This study aims at presenting the legally, technically, and economically empowered suggestion for a clear definition of a competitive market of gas fuels and electricity of a Member State in order to be utilized within trans-border trade of these utilities, as required by the European Union (EU) legislation. Thus, this study addresses, first of all, the issue of the division of the national gas fuel and electricity market into sections and separating these market segments that are more susceptible to the existence of competition in the trans-border dimension. This division is a model that reflects every internal market that is self-sufficient and distinguished in technical terms which has been established and is functioning within one or more Member States. The suggested structural, subject-related division of the market into sections, a competitive one (with its segments), a balancing one, and a technical one, makes it possible to determine which fragments of the market prevail over merely the technical security of ensuring continuity and quality of electricity supplies at the national level. Public forms of electricity and gas fuel trading take first place. Thus, second, the issues of legal and business conditions for operation in the energy section of the commodity exchange, regulated market, or open tenders for purchase of energy and interdependence between public forms of electricity or fuel gas trading and standards in the common electricity market have become the subject of this study. The advantage of a commodity exchange that establishes transparent conditions for public trading transactions involving these goods and provides pricing information for actors in the market cannot be overestimated. A commodity exchange enhances competition and is instrumental in the reduction of prices for ultimate clients. The completed analysis aims at reviewing public forms of trading as the instruments for achievement of the objectives of the national energy law and a component for a common energy market in the perspective of development of trans-border transmission capabilities. Legal multi-centricity and multi-aspectual nature of the addressed issues form a structure of relations that has affected the selection of the research methodology. Three research methods were adopted as the main principles that, bearing in mind a different context in which they are used, are treated to be complementary. The first one is an interdisciplinary research analysis, taking account of the context of functioning in the EU law environment in the interpretation of the national law provisions and technical sciences (and thus, e.g., laws of physics, properties of energy, technical aspects of functioning of the power industry as a system of interdependent relations of installations and grids) and economic sciences (e.g., a concept of the market, competition, operation of the commodity exchange). References to technical or economic sciences allowed to maintain the clarity of the above considerations and render the addressed issues better in practice. The legal and dogmatic method is an indispensable supplement of the above method; in this method, the process of interpretation of legal regulations is based on the jurisprudence and case law which should be referred, in particular, to the national law; it is made complete by the analysis of the economic practice. The selection of the concept analysis method (a linguistic one) as the third method should be justified by the undertaken attempts to define in a precise manner the content and the scope of meaning of general, generic concepts making references, as a rule, to a broad spectrum of business operations, the application of which in the EU legislation is a feature of this legal order established on the basis of the elements of the continental (established, statute) law and flexible common law.