Emigration from Zimbabwe: Migrant Perspectives

This article explores migration from Zimbabwe to the UK and South Africa and the experiences of the receiving countries from the perspective of the migrants. It provides a critical examination of the impact of structural barriers in both the UK and South Africa on the economic experiences of migrants. The effects of immigration status, due to the exclusion of asylum‐seekers in the UK and the presence of undocumented migrants in the UK and South Africa, is explored in relation to employment and remittance activities. The clear evidence of the deskilling taking place among the majority of Zimbabwean migrants – and its impact on remittances and other forms of transnational support – is also examined. The article concludes that any real commitment to alleviating global poverty on the part of the world's migrant receiving countries must include a re‐examination of barriers to employment, education and the use of skills, since these barriers not only have a short‐term impact on remittances to the sending country and fiscal capacity to contribute in the receiving country, but will also impact on longer‐term development should the migrants return to their country of origin.     

The impact of related party transactions on earnings management: some insights from the Italian context

Related party transactions have become a key issue as a result of recent financial scandals. This study examines whether firms use related party transactions for earnings management, and then, whether they try to minimize detection through the format of related party transactions disclosure. Firstly, we analyze the association between related party transactions structure (types and parties involved) and the probability of reporting small earnings increase. Related party transactions may have significant impact on, and implications for, earnings management. According to the agency theory, related party transactions are used opportunistically, while the efficient transaction hypothesis argues that related party transactions meet the economic needs of the business. We next investigate the association between the probability of reporting small earnings increases through related party transactions and disclosure quality. Disclosure quality should be studied in relation to impression management and investor attention; this approach takes account of the idea that earnings management behavior may influence the quality of disclosure as a possible way of lowering conflict of interest. In line with the agency theory, our findings show that revenue related party transactions are more likely to be used to manage earnings than other types of transaction; related party transactions with ultimate parents are associated with lower probability of reporting small earnings increases compared to operations with other related parties. Lastly, our results confirm that the decision to engage in earnings management is related to lower disclosure quality.     

The Marshall-Olkin Fréchet Distribution

We introduce a new distribution, namely Marshall–Olkin Fréchet distribution. The probability density and hazard rate functions are derived and their shape properties are considered. Expressions for the nth moments are given. Various results with respect to quantiles, Rényi entropy and order statistics are obtained. The unknown parameters of the new distribution are estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation method adopting three different iterative procedures. The model is applied on a real data set on survival times.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Communications in Statistics—Theory and Methods for the following free supplemental resource: A file that will allow the random variables from MOF distribution to be generated.]