Superannuation Funds: Ensuring the Financial Health of Australians in Retirement. Superannuation is relevant to all Australians, providing a foundation for their lifestyle in retirement. The protection and enhancement of superannuation savings have been high priorities of both government and regulatory agencies. Recent legislative changes include mandated choice of superannuation fund and increased disclosure requirements. Regulators have also flagged the need for increased corporate governance ....Superannuation Funds: Ensuring the Financial Health of Australians in Retirement. Superannuation is relevant to all Australians, providing a foundation for their lifestyle in retirement. The protection and enhancement of superannuation savings have been high priorities of both government and regulatory agencies. Recent legislative changes include mandated choice of superannuation fund and increased disclosure requirements. Regulators have also flagged the need for increased corporate governance among superannuation funds. This project assesses the impact of these developments through an assessment of competition, performance and accountability within the superannuation industry. Monitoring the industry in this way will strongly contribute to the financial and economic health of Australians in retirement.
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The Importance of Being Politically Connected. The literature on the importance of political connections to firms and their value implications is scant. This project aims to develop a framework that depicts the interplay of political connections, institutional factors, corporate governance, media coverage and firm value. In particular, it investigates how political connections enhance the value of firms in China and how this changes as the market transitions.
The economic cost of insider trading - culture, legislation, governance, gender and crisis impacts: comparative evidence from around the globe. Does a country's culture and firm governance affect returns to insiders and/or general trading costs? Do uninformed insiders benefit at the expense of outsiders? By extending research internationally on these important equity issues, feedback is provided on best practice to increase information availability and reduce unscrupulous gains to insiders.
Australia’s Climate Strategy and Positioning for the Clean Tech Revolution. The aims of this project are to analyse and benchmark Australia’s climate change strategy and positioning in terms of its readiness to take advantage of a clean technology revolution, and to analyse what the revolution might look like and how it will evolve. Scientific evidence points to the increasingly urgent need for action on climate change and investment in cleaner technologies on a large scale. This need for action ....Australia’s Climate Strategy and Positioning for the Clean Tech Revolution. The aims of this project are to analyse and benchmark Australia’s climate change strategy and positioning in terms of its readiness to take advantage of a clean technology revolution, and to analyse what the revolution might look like and how it will evolve. Scientific evidence points to the increasingly urgent need for action on climate change and investment in cleaner technologies on a large scale. This need for action coincides with emerging policy and technological developments that are already taking place. The project aims to provide new decision-making frameworks for the timing and extent of investments in new technologies. Analysing Australia's positioning and the coming clean technology revolution would benefit policy-makers, corporations and investors.Read moreRead less
Surviving financial crises: a study of the Australian Government securities market. This project assesses the capacity of the Australian Government securities market to meet investor demand in times of financial crises. The outcomes will provide governments in Australia and other countries with the necessary tools to enhance the efficiency of securities markets and to flag liquidity problems in a timely manner.
Capital Management in a Stochastic Earnings Framework. Many large Australian firms have on-going capital management programs. These programs are aimed at ensuring that the firm maintains an optimal capital structure. This is often done according to rules of thumb or benchmarked against a few financial ratios. To the extent that more rigor can be introduced into the analysis of optimal capital structure, there is a clear benefit to Australian firms. Of course, the reason firms engage in capit ....Capital Management in a Stochastic Earnings Framework. Many large Australian firms have on-going capital management programs. These programs are aimed at ensuring that the firm maintains an optimal capital structure. This is often done according to rules of thumb or benchmarked against a few financial ratios. To the extent that more rigor can be introduced into the analysis of optimal capital structure, there is a clear benefit to Australian firms. Of course, the reason firms engage in capital management initiatives in the first place is to lower their cost of capital and to increase value. Any initiative that lowers the cost of capital of Australian firms will result in increased productivity and economic growth.Read moreRead less
Australian Costs of Equity. The goal of this project is to identify the most appropriate framework and estimation methodology for estimating the cost of equity capital for Australian firms. The outcome of the project will be the identification of precise costs of equity of all industries and exchange-listed companies in Australia. Our final product will not only attain high academic value by providing comprehensive examination of all popular asset pricing models, but will also serve as a compreh ....Australian Costs of Equity. The goal of this project is to identify the most appropriate framework and estimation methodology for estimating the cost of equity capital for Australian firms. The outcome of the project will be the identification of precise costs of equity of all industries and exchange-listed companies in Australia. Our final product will not only attain high academic value by providing comprehensive examination of all popular asset pricing models, but will also serve as a comprehensive benchmarking tool for all investment decisions (both corporate and government) in Australia. This will bring about economic efficiency and benefits to the business community via more accurate valuation of assets and more appropriate evaluation of potential new projects.Read moreRead less
What do boards do? The measurement of board activity, its impact on firm valuation and board responses to the financial crisis. This study examines what corporate boards do using a novel measurement approach. It is expected that this measure will be widely adopted by industry and academia.
Novel econometric techniques for dealing with point processes in high frequency financial data with applications to financial risk management. The recent global financial crisis highlighted the inherent risk involved in investing in financial assets. This project aims to develop novel statistical methods for forecasting the onset of instability in asset prices. The outcomes of this research will lead to improvements in the management of financial risk.
MANAGING AND MODELLING RISK AND COMPLEXITY IN THE INVESTMENT AND HEDGE FUNDS INDUSTRY. The project will develop an evolutionary learning algorithm for modeling non-linear financial asset price movements and conduct simulations to gain a better understanding of price formation in securities markets with a focus on the equity market. We will focus on extreme market conditions to calibrate the benefits and efficiency of risk management techniques. The models will be applied to benchmarking and eval ....MANAGING AND MODELLING RISK AND COMPLEXITY IN THE INVESTMENT AND HEDGE FUNDS INDUSTRY. The project will develop an evolutionary learning algorithm for modeling non-linear financial asset price movements and conduct simulations to gain a better understanding of price formation in securities markets with a focus on the equity market. We will focus on extreme market conditions to calibrate the benefits and efficiency of risk management techniques. The models will be applied to benchmarking and evaluating portfolio decisions of hedge funds; investment risk management and dynamic portfolio selection strategies. The research will result in new theoretical approaches and empirical methods to study price movements and evaluate fund performance.Read moreRead less