Author Description

There are ten papers in this volume. They are: An Empirical Examination of The Intraday Return Volatility Process - this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the distributional and time-series properties of intraday returns. The purpose is to determine whether a GARCH model that allows for time variance in a process can adequately represent intraday return volatility. The Valuation of New Product Introduction Under Uncertain Competition: A Real Option Approach - this paper investigates how a stochastic competition process in a two-factor real option model could affect the value of future product development opportunities. Our results also indicate that product development opportunities are more valuable: in a more volatile environment; when the window of opportunities is longer; and when the competitive intensity is lower. Earnings, Dividends, and Equity Value of Multinational Firms - this paper develops and tests a valuation model, whose main prediction is that equity value is a function of earnings, dividends and book value, where the function depends on the relative level of multinationality. Benford's Law and Its Application in Financial Fraud Detection - this paper has discussed Benford's law, which explains that the leading (first or leftmost) digit in a series of natural numbers is not evenly distributed among the digits 1 to 9. The main purpose of this study actually seeks to explore a new methodological approach to datamining that can be of some real practical value; especially to the auditors and forensic accountants in detecting financial frauds. Estimation of the Degree of Integration in the U.S. Maturity Rates Using Semiparametric Techniques - this paper examines the order of integration of several U.S. Treasury maturity rates by means of using semiparametric techniques. The results show that the order of integration of the one and three year maturity rates is strictly above. It oscillates around one in case of the five-year rate, and the values a