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The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of budget evaluation on economic development in Nigeria. The motivation was series of imbalances in budget formulation and implementation faced by Nigerian economy over several years. The design adopted for this study was expostfacto; data used for analysis were elicited from Central Bank Statistical Bulletin and Federal Ministry of Finance. To achieve this broad objective, a model was formulated based on empirical and theoretical reviews. The model used was Human Development Index (HDI) as the dependent variable while government’s capital budget, recurrent budget and the rate of implementation of annual budgets were the independent variables in the model. This study employed Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Model to analyze data, other diagnostic tests such as; test of Normality, Auto correlation test and Heteroskedasticity test and they confirmed the validity and reliability of the model employed; the inferential results suggested that budget evaluation had positive and significant impact on economic development in Nigeria. The study recommends that government of Nigeria should endeavor to increase capital and recurrent expenditure in her annual budget, since both had significant impact on economic development. Finally, the government should also try to put in place effective budget monitoring and evaluation machinery that will enhance high budget implementation rate and also should ensure the strict adherence to due process.

Keywords: Budget Evaluation, Recurrent Expenditure, Capital Expenditure, Budget Implementation rate, Human Development Index, Economic Development

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on reported earnings quality of listed banks and insurance firms in Sri Lanka. Despite the fact that, many studies are available on corporate governance, it could notice that there is lack of evidences especially relating to Sri Lankan context. Hence, we contribute by employing two governance related variables namely, number of audit meetings and gender of the directors in the study as extant literature has not given sufficient attention to these variables. Earnings quality is measured with the discretionary accruals designed through balance sheet approach and eight corporate governance variables were used as independent variables. We collected data from 13 banks and 9 insurance firms, from 2015 to 2018 and employed descriptive statistics and panel regression models to analyze the data. Our findings reveal that, there is a significant relationship between board size, firm size and external audit with earnings quality. The presence of fewer directors in the board, increasing firm size and company is being audited by one of the major three audit firms, has a positive impact on earnings quality of banks and insurance companies in the Sri Lanka. The results have implications for the owners, investors and regulators to be mull over directors and the auditors of the companies in selecting the auditors and the directors to the board of directors.

Keywords: Corporate Governance, Earnings Quality, Listed Banks and Insurance Firms, Sri Lanka

This study is a cause and effect investigation situated within the Vector Error Correction Model and pairwise Granger causality technique. The study aims at evaluating the effects of selected macroeconomic variables, namely, money supply, exchange rate, government expenditure and total savings on stock market development in Nigeria from 1981 to 2019 using annual data obtained from the statistical bulletin (2019) released by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Empirical findings from the study show a long run relationship between the development of capital market and the selected macroeconomic variables in Nigeria. There is also a unidirectional causality flows from economic growth to capital market development in Nigeria. Similarly, a unidirectional causality was found to be running from capital market development to total savings and money supply in Nigeria. Furthermore, the VECM model results show that in the long run, money supply has a negative significant effect on the development of capital market in Nigeria. On the other hand, total savings and economic growth exert a positive significant and long run effect on the development of capital market in Nigeria. It can be concluded that money supply, economic growth and total savings are long run determinants of development of capital market in Nigeria. Therefore, injection of more money into the economy is necessary to enhance capital activities which could ultimately develop both the capital market and the economy overall. Also there is need to pursue Public campaigns, seminars, and programmes with specific intention of boosting savings habit by the public should be pursued. Germane to this is provision of outlets, such as employment, which will help increase the earnings of the people from which they can effectively safe part thereof. Various indicators of economic growth should be consciously and vigorously developed to ensure all round growth of the Nigerian economy, this is because it is in an environment of growth and development that the capital market draws its nourishment for growth and development.

Keywords: Capital Market, Macroeconomic Variables, V.E.C.M, Granger Causality.

This paper investigates the relationship between good risk management such as risk management assessment, risk control and compliance, and risk monitoring and implementation with the effectiveness of internal audit assurance specifically within Malaysian Public Listed Companies (PLCs). The paper utilizes a quantitative method such as survey questionnaires. The study was conducted on a total of 200 internal auditors and other business units in Malaysian. Moreover, to effectively explore the relationship between good risk management and the effectiveness of internal audit assurance, the correlation and regression analyses were conducted. The results found relationships between two of the independent variables (risk management assessment, risk control and compliance) and dependent variable in this study. However, no relationship is found between risk monitoring and implementation towards effectiveness of internal audit assurance. The effectiveness of internal audit assurance activities is revealed to be controlled by good risk management attributes such as risk management assessment, and risk control and compliance.The findings of the research will be of significance to the makers of policy and companies in building better policies on risk management to enhance the internal audit assurance. The study contributes to the risk management and internal audit literature specifically on the effectiveness of risk management practices on internal audit assurance.

Keywords: Internal Audit Assurance, Risk Management Assessment, Risk Control and Compliance, Organizational Structure, Risk Monitoring and Implementation, Malaysian Public Listed Companies

This study aimed to review existing literatures related to different characteristics of chief executive officers (CEOs) and real earnings management (REM) to explore from the findings on, whether CEO characteristics influence manipulation of reported earnings. The focus on CEO was due to their uniqueness and significant roles played in the corporate affairs, and reporting process that claimed as paramount in the company. Although, previous studies on the relationship between CEO characteristics and REM have reported mixed and inconsistent results. Similarly, CEOs’ personal characteristics that influence the firm’s earnings quality were highlighted in the previous studies, which presents an avenue to conduct future robust empirical analysis in the related area. This study provides some recommendations and framework for future academic research related to CEO characteristics and REM. The methodology used in this study was a review process from online peer reviewed articles in journals and conferences that examines any of the CEO characteristics (education and political affiliation) and REM, earnings quality, or financial reporting quality (FRQ). This study provides an insight based on the review and finds mixed results. Some studies revealed that CEO education and political affiliation tend to influence REM practice while others present inconclusive results.

Keywords: Real earnings management, CEO characteristics, education, political affiliation, earnings quality, financial reporting quality.

The objective of this research work is to study the impact of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) on accounting conservatism in relation to the cost of debt. In order to carry out this research, we have chosen French context, which is particular in the sense that the status of accounting under the French vision is different from the Anglo Saxon vision. Indeed, according to the French view accounting, accounting is a means of rendering accounts whereas according to the Anglo Saxon logic, accounting is a strategic means of decision-making. The sample selected is the companies belonging to the SBF (Société des bourses françaises : French stock exchange company) 120 index monitored over two periods, the period of preadoption of IFRS and a period of postadoption of IFRS. After empirical analysis, we have not noticed that the adoption of IFRS has led to an increase in accounting conservatism for companies with a high cost of debt. The results do not confirm the results of Chan et al. (2015).

Keywords: Adoption of IFRS, Cost of Debt, Accounting Conservatism

The main objectives of this research are to study the reasons for delisting in Malaysia, delisted companies’ financial conditions and auditor’s going concern opinions (GCO) received prior to delisting. The dataset is companies delisted from the Main Market of the Bursa Malaysia between 2015 and 2019.The results show that 97% of voluntarily delisted companies received clean auditor’s opinion as compared to only 1% of the involuntarily delisted companies. T-Test results show that delisted companies that received GCO have significantly worse financial distress indicators of negative working capital, net operating loss, retained earnings deficit, net liability position and total liabilities/total as compared to delisted companies that received clean auditor’s opinion. Thus, it was concluded that the financial distress position for companies delisted involuntarily are much more severe as compared to companies delisted voluntarily.

Keywords: Delisted, Going Concern Opinion, Financial Distress Indicators, Malaysia