The Effect of Executive Management Support and Cost Accountant Competency on CMS Design Effectiveness and Its Consequences： An Empirical Research of Manufacturing Business in Thailand＊

The objective of this research is to examine the antecedents and consequences of cost management systems （CMS） design effectiveness of manufacturing businesses in Thailand. The effect of CMS design effectiveness on cost information quality is investigated. Moreover, the effect of cost information quality on business success is investigated. Furthermore, executive management support and cost accountant competency are assumed to become the antecedents of CMS design effectiveness. Electronics manufacturing businesses in Thailand are samples of the research. A mail survey procedure via the questionnaire was used for data collection from accounting controllers. The results indicate that CMS design effectiveness has a positive significant effect on cost information quality. Moreover, cost information quality also has a positive significant effect on business success. Additionally, both executive management support and cost accountant competency have a positive significant effect on CMS design effectiveness.

Real estate market efficiency: Evidence from Chinese cities

The price in an efficient market can adjust to new information instantaneously to eliminate any arbitrage opportunities. Such a phenomenon is not always observed in the real estate market because of its unique characteristics, which include fixed location, heterogeneity and low transaction frequency. Using housing and office market data of some major cities in China, this paper examines the return and risk characteristics in these markets and assesses market efficiency. It finds that a number of instruments, including lagged quarterly and annual excess returns and, to some extent, the measure of the deviation of price from the intrinsic value, predict future returns. Therefore, weak form and semi-strong form efficiency can both be rejected in these real estate markets. These empirical findings suggest that there is slow price adjustment in real estate markets in China, which may be attributed to inefficient information transmission systems and long searching time in the markets.

How the Internet Promotes China’s Exports:A Firm-level Perspective

The development of information and communications technologyv(ICT),particularly the Internet,has reduced trade costs.However,it remains unclear whether these reduced costs are reflected in the “extensive margins”of firms'exports(which refer to the probability of firms exporting)or the “intensive margins”(which refer to the value of firms'export).To test this,we used the concepts of information cost and binary margins,an augmented trade model of firm heterogeneity,a two-stage Heckman estimation,and data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey of Chinese firms in 2012.The results revealed that reduced trade costs from the use of ICT were positively related to extensive margins but that the connection with intensive margins was not significant.The results lead to the conclusion that reduced information costs related to a firm's exporting behavior were primarily reflcted in variable trade cosis.This study offers theoretical and empirical evidence for China 3 policies towards the Internet,which are relevant for the export of manufactured goods.The government should encourage the use of ICT to enhance firms export opporunities while facing current trade policy uncerainty.

Buyer Search and the Role of Broker in an Emerging Housing Market:A Case Study of Guangzhou

This paper examines homebuyer＇s search process and the role of real estate broker in China＇s urban housing market, where inactive housing resale transactions and an immature brokerage industry are distinct characteristics. Guangzhou is used as a case study to model the intensity and duration of the search process. This study finds that buyers make trade-off between two search costs, activity cost and duration cost. The study also demonstrates that despite the industry＇s immature nature, buyers using brokers do increase search intensity and shorten search duration by reducing the activity cost. Empirical results show that there is no specific buyer group who can effectively lower their search cost by their own efforts, due to the poor information transparency in the current housing market. The broker-choice model shows that besides search cost, buyers＇ confidence in broker＇s service quality can also greatly influence their choice, so improvement in service quality and reputation has important implications for China＇s brokerage industry.