Belle Selene Xia’s research while affiliated with Ghent University and other places

The asymptotic variance and normality of a general class of nearest neighbor based residual variance estimators is analyzed. Based on the asymptotic results, a method for estimating confidence intervals is proposed and demonstrated via empirical simulations. The computation is easy to implement using an auxiliary estimator and a simulation technique to precompute asymptotic coefficients.

Research Question: One of the aims of this paper is to examine accounting conservatism using a robust set of data collected from the recent years to better understand how accounting conservatism affects the relations between stock returns and accounting variables. Motivation: Financial reporting is increasingly dependent on an in-depth understanding of the imperfections in the capital markets as well as the impact of the accounting standards on firm performance. Idea: The effect of accounting regulations on the firms’ reporting practices can be evaluated via a firm’s change in cash investments and its operating assets. Data: This study employs a robust set of data with different market to book ratios and corporate governance characteristics collected from Compustat North America Fundamentals Annual firm year observations for the time period of January 1998 to December 2015 fiscal years to better understand how accounting conservatism affects the relations between stock returns and accounting variables. Tools: Compared to the previous studies, any potential improvement in the research method is provided using a regression weight averaged over the years. Findings: There is an improvement in the explanatory power of the estimates of the coefficients on earnings levels and earnings changes when the variables associated with accounting conservatism are incorporated in the analysis. Contribution: Given the ample amount of research done in the international aspects of financial reporting, analyses of differences in results compared to the previous studies and future research opportunities will be provided.

In the modern society intellectual capital (IC) disclosure offers valuable insights on the information transparency between the organisation and its stakeholders. The purpose of the present study is to analyse the determinants of IC disclosure based on the firm data collected from the Scandinavian countries. We have chosen to analyse 123 annual reports in the local language for the period of 2008 to 2012. The annual reports act as one of the best sources of data revealing important information about firms that are beyond the reporting requirements of the accounting regulations. This paper combines the empirical research of IC disclosure with the previous literature to identify its strategic implications on corporate governance. The aim is to examine the relationship between firm size, leverage ratio, information asymmetry and industry-specific factors on the level of IC disclosure. Our results call the potential need for more IC disclosure.

Purpose The Scandinavian boards are known for their “best practices” for corporate governance. This paper aims to examine the management incentives behind corporate disclosure via an empirical study. Design/methodology/approach Many of the previous empirical work have focused on the US data, but the generalizability of such findings is geographically bounded. The set of management incentives in this paper is examined using a total sample of 123 local annual reports via some of the largest publicly listed firms in the Scandinavian countries between the years 2008-2012. Findings The findings of this study reveal that a firm’s financial success originates from the different attributes of corporate governance. Correlation and regression analyses reveal that in terms of firm size, leverage ratio, the existence of audit committee and the independence of CEO, there is a correlation between firm-specific factors and the level of disclosure. In contrast to the previous literature, a positive relationship between corporate disclosure and information asymmetry was not found. Originality/value The results of this study are valuable to the policymakers when implementing regulations on corporate governance control. The strategic implications of the findings on business decisions and future research are also discussed.

p class="JLDAbstract">Previous research has shown that, despite the importance of programming education, there is limited research done on programming education experiences from the students’ point of view and the need to do so is strong. By understanding the student behaviour, their learning styles, their expectation and motivation to learn, the quality of teaching can be improved. The goal of this paper is to examine the connection between educational theories and student-centred pedagogy via an empirical study. While research results have confirmed student difficulties in learning programming in terms of the retention and completion rates of the programming courses, we will propose some of the solutions to overcome these challenges. We will also classify the various definitions of learning goals both theoretically and empirically in order to further our understanding in the subject field. New research opportunities are opened in the applied work of a personalised learning environment.</p

Previous research has shown that especially novice students may find learning programming to be difficult in terms of programming concepts and program design. Many students fail to write correct program codes after the course and achieve the level of skills set by the learning goals of the course. In order to overcome the challenges of learning programming, we are interested in the pedagogical techniques of learning and teaching programming as well as some of the learning tools used to support programming education. This knowledge would help us to better align the design of programming courses with the teaching goal of these courses. New research opportunities are opened in the field of contributing student pedagogy in programming education.

The benefits of using online exercises have been analysed in terms of distance learning, automatic assessment and self-regulated learning. In this study, we have not found a direct proportional relationship between student performance in the course exercises that use online technologies and the exam grades. We see that the average submission rate to these online exercises is not positively correlated with the exercise points. Yet, our results confirm that doing exercises along supports student learning and skill accumulation equipping them with the knowledge of programming. While the student performance in programming courses is affected by factors such as prior background in programming, cognitive skills and the quality of teaching, completing the course exercises via learning-by-doing is an indispensable part of teaching. Based on the student feedback from the course survey, the students are highly satisfied with using online technologies as part of learning.

Citation counts can be used as a proxy to study the scholarly communication of knowledge and the impact of research in academia. Previous research has addressed several important factors of citation counts. In this study, we aim to investigate whether there exist quantitative patterns behind citations, and thus provide a detailed analysis of the factors behind successful research. The study involves conducting quantitative analyses on how various features, such as the author’s quality, the journal’s impact factor, and the publishing year, of a published scientific article affect the number of citations. We carried out full-text searches in Google Scholar to obtain our data set on citation counts. The data set is then set up into panels and used to conduct the proposed analyses by employing a negative binomial regression. Our results show that attributes such as the author’s quality and the journal’s impact factor do have important contributions to its citations. In addition, an article’s citation count does not only depend on its own properties as mentioned above but also depends on the quality, as measured by the number of citations, of its cited articles. That is, the number of citations of a paper seems to be affected by the number of citations of articles that the particular paper cites. This study provides statistical characteristics of how different features of an article affect the number of citations. In addition, it provides statistical evidence that the number of citations of a scientific article depends on the number of citations of the articles it cites.

Given that the amount of elderly population in Finland is growing fast, the author takes a look at the economic policies that aim at combating the challenges brought by aging population in developed countries. The degree of urbanization of a capital city can be determined by the level of demographic changes over time. In this study, the author uses the urban data to analyze the determinants of demographic changes, which have a significant impact on regional policies and regulations. The results reveal important insights on the implications of migration and employed labor force on the regional economy. It is acknowledged that factors such as quality of human capital, labor mobility and housing facilities are integral parts of demographic development. One of the important predictors of demographic changes is labor mobility. The results of ARIMA-models show how the number of employed labor force will change in future in the capital region. New research opportunities are opened in the policy control of inbound and outbound migration to the capital city as well as in the strategic implications of income gap on the regional economy.