Abstract: Purpose: This paper aims to extend and contribute to prior research on the association between company characteristics and choice of capital budgeting methods (CBMs). Design/methodology/approach: A multivariate regression analysis on questionnaire data from 2005 and 2008 is used to study which factors determine the choice of CBMs in Swedish listed companies. Findings: Our results supported hypotheses that Swedish listed companies have become more sophisticated over the years (or at least less unsophisticated) which indicates a closing of the theory-practice gap; that companies with greater leverage used payback more often; and that companies with stricter debt targets and less management ownership employed accounting rate of return more frequent. Moreover, larger companies used CBMs more often. Originality/value: The paper contributes to prior research within this field by being the first Swedish study to examine the association between use of CBMs and as many as twelve independent variables, including changes over time, by using multivariate regression analysis. The results are compared to a US and a continental European study.

Abstract: Issuing local government bonds will become a main financing manner and channel of municipal infrastructure in China while its major problem is volumes and credit risk control. Based on the KMV model, the credit risk model for municipal bonds is constructed in this paper and further study the patterns its probability distribution to improve prediction accuracy. After determining the forecast standards, we compute the safe issue volume of those provinces and municipalities who had issued municipal bonds. The end is a brief analysis of the reason to its bad marketing.

Abstract: Evaluation of banking system stability is enough hard task and it has very limited approaches and methods for solving of this problem. At the same time, this task is staying in the first place in the most banking systems, because it is important for further decision making and forecasting for the next development of these systems. This method also allowed to get the stability evaluation for banking systems (on example of the Ukraine banking system) based on more easy approach and will use it in the future each time when we need to get current volume of this estimation. This volume will help to us to receive a dynamic distribution, based on which we will be able to create a forecast and will decide right making for our object of researching (based on example banks).

Abstract: The main purpose of this study was to investigate the inter-relationship among economic growth, savings and inflation and to estimate the threshold level of inflation for the economy of Pakistan. Annually time series data from 1973 to 2010 were used. Simultaneous equation model was used in the study. Three equations were used. 2SLS technique was applied for findings the results. OLS model was used for investigating the suitable rate of inflation for the economic growth. Inflation, economic growth and savings were endogenous variables while unemployment, foreign direct investment, depreciation rate, real interest rate, total debt servicing, indirect taxes, dependency ratio and total investment were exogenous variables. The results of 2SLS showed that inflation and real interest rate negatively and significantly affect the economic growth, whereas depreciation rate positively affect the economic growth. Economic growth, unemployment and real interest rate were negatively affecting the inflation rate, while indirect taxes had positive impact on inflation. The results also showed that economic growth, dependency ratio (% of working age population) and foreign direct investment were beneficial for enhancing the savings of a country, while depreciation rate is harmful for savings. It was also observed that there is no significant relationship between inflation and savings. The findings of OLS indicated that 9% rate of inflation was to leralable for the economic growth of Pakistan.

Abstract: The inflow of foreign remittances is continuously increased in Pakistan and it has been estimated that about 13186.58 $ million received in the last fiscal year [23]. The main purpose of this study was to check the impact of remittances on household welfare as well as poverty of the household in Tehsil 18 Hazari, District jhang, Punjab, Pakistan. Household expenditures were used as a proxy variable to measure the welfare of household. Primary data were collected from the 9 union councils of Tehsil 18 Hazari. The size of sample was around 280, out of which 140 migrated households while 140 were non migrated. The results derived by application of OLS and logit model, revealed that education of household head, total number of animals, monthly income and foreign remittances were beneficial for improving the welfare of household while size of the house, marital status and dependency ratio negatively affected household welfare.

Abstract: Despite attempts to relate the economic theory with the statistical data, the theory is usually sufficiently clear, supplying simple and well-defined forecasts, whilst the real world tends to produce complicated and disorganized results. However, with reference to models on the distribution of city sizes the inverse occurs. That is; the data, surprisingly offers a sufficiently clear picture with high degrees of difficulty of being reproduced theoretically. This work aims at verifying whether two of the most well known and intriguing phenomena, Zipf's Law and Gibrat's Law, occur in Brazil, and also to make a theoretical analysis of such phenomena. The study uses the Brazilian demographic census data of 1970, 1980, 1991 and 2000 and the 1996 population counting. The results confirm that these empirical regularities indeed occur in the distribution of the Brazilian cities.

Abstract: The study examined the relationship between Budget deficit and Trade deficit for the economy of Pakistan. Time series data was used from the period 1972 to 2011. Augmented Dickey Fuller Test used to check the stationary of the variables and found that all variables were stationary at first difference. Johansen Co-integration used to find the long relationship and found that budget deficit has positive effect on trade deficit in long run. Error correction model indicated the convergence or divergence of the economy in short run to long run. The ECM results showed that 30.88% convergence occur within year. Granger causality test used to check the direction of causality between the budget deficit and trade deficit and results was indicated that there is bi-directional between the variables.

Abstract: Tax is a financial charge imposed on individuals by state in different forms like direct tax paid directly by individuals, indirect tax collected by intermediaries and deposited to Government like sales tax. Taxation plays an important role in the process of revenue generation and to run various activities in an economy. The study empirically demonstrates various factors involved in direct and indirect tax collection in Pakistan. Tax to GDP ratio, corruption, political instability, trade openness, real per capita income and inflation were considered main factors affecting tax collection in empirical testing. Corruption and political instability were measured by using corruption index and political instability index respectively. Time series data from 1980-2010 was used for regression analysis. Data of all variables was obtained from International Country Risk Guide (ICRG), Handbook of Statistics and Polity to Project IMF. Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test was applied to check the stationarity of all variables. Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) model was applied to find out long run and short run dynamics of models. The results indicated tax collection shrinks due to increasing corruption, inflation and political instability while trade openness and real per capita income boost tax revenues. The study suggested important policy implication for increasing tax collection in Pakistan.

Abstract: Tax evasion has been an issue of concern in the Nigerian tax system for decades. Tax evading attitude is argued to have an adverse effect on government’s socio-economic and political programs.Many commentators and analyst blamed the situation on the tax authorities, for not living up to expectation with regards to tax administration; others attribute the case to the unpatriotic attitude of the taxpayers. In light of these contending positions, this study therefore, assessed the operation of the informal sector in Bauchi State of Nigeria, where tax evasion assumed to be a normal practice due to high level of informalities in the conduct of businesses within the sector. Primary and secondary data were collected and analyzed. Spearman rank order correlation test was employed to test the relationship between ethics of tax evasion and performance of government and the rho (r) value was fortified in assessing the extent of the relationship. The study findings reveal among other findings that, although its ethical to pay tax but individuals refuse to, due to bad governance and other factors (religious, political and socio cultural) and high level of illiteracy to some extent. It was recommended therefore, a deliberate and more aggressive public enlightenment campaign be embarked upon by the state government on the importance of taxes economically and otherwise.

Abstract: Mass media in Croatian media space is generally defined according to profitability and is based on the definition of mass media as industrial and commercial organisation that does not produce and distribute information but goods; in that situation hidden advertising appears in terms of income decreasing ( especially during political campaigns); that kind of situation is in direct contradiction with media freedom as crucial pre-condition of ethical principles achievement. On the example of the analysis of media content published in electronic and printed media during the campaign carried out in 2013. – local elections in Lika-senj county, this work will show how complex are ethical doubts that journalists meet in open societies in which media freedom is very large; point out the proportion and examples of ethical standards violation and destabilisation of the border between good and bad taste by violation of privacy, augment of information damage by unfair reporting, and publisher or interest groups pressure which results in placing incomplete, subjective, biased or incorrect information to the public. The aim of this work is to (by methods of incomplete induction, deduction, description, analysis and sample method) indicate on insufficient balance of media content between Croatian and European Union regulatives, the lack of critical public opinion in media reporting and insufficient adopted freedom and responsibilities in media content creation.