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We investigate whether the value relevance of earnings and book values in Turkey significantly changed across periods of financial uncertainty. Our enquiry differs from the mainstream literature that posits a unidirectional association determined by the 'quality' of individual firm accounts towards price. We find divergence in accounting value relevance components across the 1997-2012 period. Dominant value relevance shifts from earnings and negative interest rates in hyper-inflation, to the balance sheet after IFRS in 2005. On the other hand, the global financial crisis (GFC) is associated with diminished accounting value relevance for all variables. Policy issues are raised about value relevance consistency, the use of negative (low) interest rates as fiscal policies and the asymmetric application of market based valuations in emerging economies.

in India (as the Sale of Goods Act, 1930 ("the Indian Act")) and in Malaysia (as the Sale of Goods Enactment 1932 (No. 1 of 1932) ("the Enactment")).The Indian Act was mainly based on the provisions of the UK Act, modified in the light of subsequent judicial decisions in England and India.Thereafter, the Indian Act has neither been subjected to major review nor amended to incorporate changes in its UK counterparts.While Hong Kong was a British colony (until 1 July 1997), all changes in the UK sale of goods legislation were ultimately incorporated into SOGO.

In 2006, Hong Kong's Court of Appeal had to decide whether it was lawful for an employer to deliberately adopt a strategy to avoid having to make a statutory payment to an employee. The employer's liability to make that payment was contingent on the employee completing a prescribed period of continuous service. The employer engaged the employee under successive, non-continuous contracts of employment, each for a shorter duration than the prescribed period to prevent his liability for the payment from crystallising. The Court of Appeal held that there was nothing unlawful in an employer arranging his affairs so as to prevent his liability for the payment from even arising. This article analyses the case concerned and expounds how the foregoing decision could see employers avoiding a whole range of employee rights and benefits under the Employment Ordinance. The article views such conduct as negating the legislative intention and as being contrary to the norms of justice. To rectify the situation as it currently stands, we propose an amendment to the Employment Ordinance to prohibit such avoidance.

In Leung Ka Lau v Hospital Authority the plaintiffs were doctors who claimed compensation for, inter alia, enforced overtime extracted without pay from them by their employer, the defendants. The Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Final Appeal dismissed their overtime claims on purely the terms of their contracts of employment. This paper argues that the decisions of all three courts on the overtime claims were made per incuriam because their attention was not drawn to the applicable statutory provisions which would have invalidated the contractual provisions on which the courts rested their decisions. The paper sketches the socio-economic and ethical basis of overtime work and pay before proceeding to analyse the common law (contractual) basis of the judgments, traces the history as well as undertakes construction of the statutory provisions which, if taken into account, would have seen the plaintiffs succeeding.

This study provides preliminary support for the notion that internal audit function assists in reducing external audit effort and fees. Data on internal audit characteristics and activities are obtained from survey respondents of Hong Kong companies and audit fee model data are acquired from their annual reports. The results of this study suggest that the external auditor of firms in Hong Kong rely on the internal audit function and subsequently charge a lower fee. Lower external audit fees are associated with a larger internal audit department and certain activities carried out by the internal audit. Specifically, lower external audit fees are associated with more internal audit effort spent on activities relating to financial statements, systems development and maintenance, operating efficiency and effectiveness, fraud investigations and unlimited access to internal auditors’ working papers. The results of this study suggest that the contribution of the internal audit may substitute for some substantive external auditing processes and lower monitoring costs.

This paper examines the valuation effect of discretionary accruals for Japanese firms, taking into account the book value of equity. Consistent with US evidence, the Japanese market prices discretionary accruals, indicating that discretionary accruals enhance the value relevance of reported earnings. This value relevance is lower for cross-held firms, consistent with the view that cross-business shareholding aggravates tunneling or managerial opportunism through discretionary accounting choices. On the other hand, foreign shareholding and bond financing provide effective monitoring on managerial discretion of profit firms to enhance the valuation of discretionary accruals.

Using a large sample of Japanese firms, we examine informational effects of the joint ownership of debt and equity by financial institutions. In particular, we argue that shareholdings by financial institutions are associated with increased monitoring and reduced information asymmetry. Our results support the hypothesis that stock prices incorporate information about future earnings earlier for firms with higher equity ownership by financial institutions. In a nutshell, shareholdings by financial institutions appear to be an important institutional factor in Japan to alleviate information asymmetry, thereby serving as a substitute for the market-based monitoring.

This paper studies the audit fee structure in Hong Kong. By analysing data concerning a number of variables representing auditee size, auditee risk, complexity of audit, auditor identity, and the timing of audit, we develop a model of the determinants of audit fees which is applicable to the unique environment in Hong Kong. Using a more recent time period of 1992 and 1993, this study strongly confirms that most of the previous research findings are also applicable to the Hong Kong audit service market. We provide additional evidence relating to variables such as the Big Six (previously Big Eight) effects, auditee risk and auditee complexity which have been found to have inconclusive associations with the level of audit fees in previous research. Specifically, auditee size appears to have been the main determinant of audit fees, and the size measure is two‐dimensional, both asset and turnover respectively add explanatory power to that provided by each other. Complexity of audit adds significantly to the cost of audit. There is also evidence of Big Six effects and low‐balling. In addition, some evidence is found for the effects of auditee risk on audit fees. Finally, a longer audit delay, which reflects the possibility of inefficient audit time spent, entails higher audit fees. Future research should consider the importance of other issues such as non‐audit services and the extent of market concentration.