SIRCA e-Newsletter - Vol. 07
DECember 2004

In this issue:

1. SIRCA LAUNCHES FINRANK

SIRCA launched its new service called: FINRANK at the Australasian Banking and Finance Conference last week.

FinRank (Finance Academic Ranking System) is an on-line service which enables finance academics or academic institutions to determine their ranking by number of publications in scholarly finance journals. The user is able to select finance journals, and/or the geographical region and/or the years in which they would like their rank to be assessed. The FinRank database contains a list of publications in finance journals from the year 2000 to date, and classifies institutions (and their academics) according to the geographic regions - Australia, Asia-Pacific, Europe and America.

Congratulations to Professor Robert Faff from Monash University who was awarded FinRank first prize: “Most Productive Researcher in Australia/New Zealand”.

To see how you rank access FinRank at www.sirca.org.au/finrank
As this is the first release we welcome any comments on how we should develop FinRank.

Send your comments to sirca@sirca.org.au. We will collect all the comments and award a prize to the idea that is practical and innovative! Winner will be announced in March Horizon.

2. 17TH UNSW AUSTRALASIAN BANKING AND FINANCE CONFERENCE

The 17th Australasian Finance & Banking Conference was held this month 15th -17th December at Shangri-La Hotel Sydney. Keynote speakers included: Professor Allen Berger, Senior Economist, Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System and Senior Fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Centre; Professor Raghuram Rajan, Economic Counsellor, IMF; Professor Anthony Saunders, Stern Business School, New York University; Scientia Professor Peter Swan, School of Banking and Finance, UNSW.

SIRCA exhibited at the conference and it was a fantastic opportunity to meet our members and industry affiliates.

3. SIRCA LAUNCHES “The Demutualisation of the Australian Stock Exchange: Causes & Consequences.”

The Demutualisation of the Australian Stock Exchange: Causes & Consequences is the fourth book to be published by SIRCA. more

4. SIRCA WELCOMES MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY AS NEW SUBSCRIBING MEMBER

Macquarie University can now access SIRCA's extensive financial databases through its university member representative. This representative is responsible for approving all data consults before submission to SIRCA. The member representative of Macquarie University is Dr Mehdi Sadeghi (Department of Accounting and Finance).

5. SIRCA WELCOMES WORKPLACEMENT STUDENTS

SIRCA has recently hosted Workplacement students in our CBD office.

What is Workplacement? Workplacement is undertaken by students studying Vocational Education and Training (VET) as part of their HSC. It is a mandatory component that allows students to gain hands-on training and experience that are applicable to a particular industry. As the student’s workplacement is in the industry of their course, they come with real and useable skills. Workplacement allows them to further develop those skills and put them to use in an industry setting. This industry experience will be used to reinforce and consolidate the theoretical and practical learning that students receive in school.

The first two students were Miss Chantana Smith and Miss Amy Richardson from Campbelltown Performing Arts High School. Both girls are studying Business Services in Year 11 and to complete the requirements of the course undertook a week’s workplacement with SIRCA. Amy Richardson said “it was a great opportunity to use the skills I have learnt in my course in an office environment”.

All students made a fantastic contribution in their week at SIRCA and we look forward to welcoming more students in 2005.

6. SIRCA RESEARCH AWARD

SIRCA has announced the winners of the SIRCA Research Award at the 17th annual Australasian Finance and Banking Conference 2004. The cash prize of A$2500 was awarded to the best research paper using SIRCA data.

This year the award was jointly won by:
"An Empirical Analysis of Strategic Behavior Models" by Carole Comerton-Forde, Michael O'Brien and Joakim Westerholm

and

"Disclosure Regulation, Information Risks and Market Spreads" by Russell Poskitt.

SIRCA CEO, Associate Professor Michael Briers, presented the award at the Conference Dinner and was impressed by the calibre of research submitted this year.

The Australasian Finance & Banking Conference was held at the Shangri La Hotel, Sydney from 15 to 17 December 2004. Now in its 17th year, the conference showcases the research work of leading Australian and international academics.

7. CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM CEO

SIRCA CEO, Dr Michael Briers, on behalf of all of us at SIRCA, would like to wish all our university members, partners, board members and industry affiliates a merry Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.

8. TOP 5 DATA CONSULT QUESTIONS

1. How do I obtain data?
2. What data is available?
3. How can I streamline the data consult process?
4. What is confidential data?
5. Where can I access SIRCA's latest research findings?

Did you know...
If you have any suggestions or feedback on SIRCA's data, please send an e-mail to sirca@sirca.org.au

Look for the next issue of the SIRCA e-newsletter in March 2005.