News Archive March 2012
28 March
Accounting Spring Camp on corporate governance and regulation in capital markets
The Accounting Spring Camp, held on March 29 at TiasNimbas Business School, has invited top scholars in the field of corporate governance and capital markets to discuss contemporaneous topics in the field of accounting. In the morning, the camp will focus on aspects of foreign capital markets. Besides operating abroad, Dutch firms often list on a foreign stock exchange as well. This involves a number of regulatory challenges. Nowadays, the AIM stock exchange market in London is a popular stock market for many growing firms across the globe. Examples of Dutch firms listed here are 2waytraffic and Direct Wonen. For many companies this market is more attractive than Alternext (a Dutch alternative for fast growing companies). Prof. Joseph Gerakos (University of Chicago School of Business) will talk about the characteristics of firms that opt to operate in this market. One of his conclusions is that AIM firms are often not the best performing firms, suggesting that this market attracts firms that significantly underperform compared to firms listed on regulatory exchanges. Prof. Suraj Srinivasan (Harvard Business School) will elaborate upon the extent to which investors hold independent directors accountable when firms are sued for financial fraud- a question that could also be asked in the Netherlands.
In the afternoon, topics that inform the corporate governance debate will be discussed. In Europe as well as in the rest of the world, many companies were saved by government bail-outs (e.g. ABN-Amro). Prof. Daniel Ferreira (London School of Economics) will discuss the consequences of shareholders’ empowerment in banks. Banks with stronger shareholder power were not necessarily the better performing banks during the crisis. He documents that these banks were more likely to be bailed out. His paper therefore sheds light on recent trends to provide shareholders more power in organizations to effectively deal with crises and bad management. Providing such power does not always translate into better performance for firms. Prof. Mary Ellen Carter (Boston College) talks about the degree to which firms adjust bonus plans for earnings management. One of the core issues of new government regulation, including code Tabaksblat in the Netherlands, is often to tie CEO pay more strongly to the firm’s economic performance. Nevertheless, one of the unintended consequences is that CEOs are likely to engage into more earnings management. Mary Ellen will talk about what types of compensation committees are more effective in dealing with this problem. She will offer guidance to regulators, investors and financial analysts on how firms (fail to) deal with this important problem.
The Accounting Spring Camp will be held in the TIASNimbas Building at Tilburg University on Thursday March 29, from 09:00 till 17:30 hours.
27 March
Interactive web lectures Bob van den Brand nominated for e-Learning Award 2012
The teaching method based on interactive web lectures, developed by Tilburg University Accountancy adjunct associate professor Bob van den Brand and colleagues, has been nominated for the Dutch e-Learning Award 2012. i-STAR, as the initiative is called, is one of three nominees in the category Best practice e-Learning. With i-STAR students cannot only view excerpts from lectures online, but they can also take short web seminars with assignments and cases, take web tests, ask questions and get online feedback on final exam results. The other Tilburg University colleagues that are involved in developing i-STAR are Gertjan Luijten, Prof. Dr. Eddy Cardinaels, Dr. Eric Dooms, Ivo van Amelsfoort MSc. and Dr. Peter de Goeij.
The e-Learning Awards will be presented on April 3rd, at the e-Learning Event 2012 in the Brabanthallen in Den Bosch.
This, however, is not the only award for which i-STAR has been nominated. The teaching method has also been nominated for the Learning Impact Awards 2012 of IMS Global (presentation on May 14-15 in Toronto). And in July (17-19) another award will be presented to Bob van den Brand in Newcastle, at the 13th World Conference of Accounting Historians : the Innovation in Accounting History Education Award.
Last year, i-STAR already received three awards. In February 2011 the project placed first in the OASE competition- a two-year education innovation project organized by SURFfoundation. In May 2011, this was followed by the Rich Media Impact Award presented jointly by Sonicfoundry and Media Mission, and by the prestigious Jim Bulloch Award for Innovation in Education in August of the same year.
23 March
NWO TOP Grant for Arthur van Soest
Tilburg University Professor of Econometrics Arthur van Soest has been awarded a TOP Grant of EUR 747.000 by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for the project 'Modeling Preferences and Decisions of Individuals and Households'. Arthur is the coördinator of the research project. Other group members are TiSEM researchers Laurens Cherchye, Marcel Das and Frederic Vermeulen.
This research project combines modern economic theories, expertise in micro-econometrics, and innovative data collection to improve understanding of individual and household preferences, expectation and decision processes. Various surveys among representative panels of the Dutch population will be held during the project, carried out by CentERdata.
The project will run for a period of five years. During this time, three interrelated research projects will be carried out by PhD students.
TOP grants offer researchers with a superb track record the opportunity to renew their group's Lines of research as far as content and collaboration are concerned.
20 March
Dutch Research Master's programs: top level internationally
Research Master's programs score high for quality and success rates. International experts, students and alumni are of the opinion that the 125 Dutch Research Master's programs measure up well against the best Master's programs in Europe. Final projects prove to be of a top level internationally, the drop-out rate is low and a high percentage of students successfully complete the programs without losing any time. Research Master's programs are peaks in the Dutch higher education landscape. This was the conclusion NVAO, the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders, reached based on a study conducted last year into the quality of the two-year Dutch Research Master's programs introduced in 2003.
Tilburg University offers a total of eight Research Master's programs, two of which are offered by the Tilburg School of Economics and Management (in Economics and Business).
The report entitled 'Peaks in Sight – Research Master Review 2011' includes contributions by the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) and the VSNU (Association of Universities in the Netherlands) and combines the outcomes of four sub-studies that consistently point out the high quality of Research Master's programs: 1) analysis of intake, drop-out rates and student success; 2) analysis of the outcomes of NVAO accreditation decisions; 3) a study into the differences in satisfaction levels between standard Master's and Research Master's programs among students as well as alumni, and 4) the results of the Theses Assessment Study, a study into the quality of Research Master's theses. This last sub-study was conducted in close cooperation with Master's programs in four disciplines, among which the Master's program of the Tilburg School of Economics and Management (for the discipline 'Economics and Business').
More information and the full report can be found on the NVAO website.
15 March
Arnoud Boot next guest Food for Thought
Arnoud Boot, Professor of Corporate Finance at the University of Amsterdam and alumnus of Tilburg University, Will be the next guest
of Food for Thought on March 20th. He is a member of the Dutch Social Economic Council (SER), the Bank Council of the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) and the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) in Frankfurt. He is also Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London and at the Davidson Institute of the University of Michigan.
Topics that will be discussed are:
- What is finance?
- What is the place of finance in our society>
- Finance: wealth or poverty?
6 March
Tilburg University wins the Dutch CFA Global Investment Research Challenge
For the second time in only three years, a team of Master's students of the Tilburg School of Economics and Management (TiSEM) has won the Dutch CFA InstituteGlobal Investment Research Challenge. This is an equity research competition among student teams from the world's top university business and finance programs. The Challenge aims at promoting best practices in research among the next generation of analysts through hands-on mentoring and intensive training in company analysis and presentation skills. The TISEM team consists of Zahra Afzal , Gergana Aleksieva , Suffian Tariq, and Talha Zafar. More information.
Global / English