Contagion from the crises in the Euro-zone: where,when and why?

The prevalence of contagion between the Euro-zone countries and other European countries since the Greek crisis of 2009 is now well – known, but the factors that influence the pattern of this contagion are not well understood. We investigate this question both within Europe and beyond to the USA and Japan, using an asymmetric M-GARCH model that focuses on extreme values of the risk premia on government bonds. We compare these extreme values with news of major events and find that they are highly correlated. We find a different pattern of contagion emanating from Ireland compared to the other crisis countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. We also examine the factors that have made countries vulnerable to contagion and find that financial factors are more important than trade ones. However, intra-Euro-zone trade has also been a significant factor between the major Euro-zone economies. There is little evidence that global factors affect contagion between EU member states, but some evidence that nominal exchange rate movements offer a degree of insulation from contagion for the non-Euro zone states.     

Housing and the Tax System: How Large Are the Distortions in the Euro Area?*

This paper presents new evidence on the impact of the preferential treatment of owner‐occupied housing in the euro area. We find that tax benefits to homeowners reduce the user cost of housing capital by almost 40 per cent compared with the efficient level under neutral taxation. On average, the tax subsidy translates into an excess consumption of housing services equivalent to 7.8 per cent of the value of owner‐occupied housing, or about 30 per cent of financial asset holdings in household portfolios. The bulk of the subsidy stems from undertaxation of the return to home equity, while the average contribution of the tax rebate for mortgage interest payments is driven down by relatively low loan‐to‐value ratios in the data. However, at the margin, the tax‐induced incentive to use mortgage debt to finance the purchase of the main residence is sizeable.     

“Clicks and bricks”:: e-Risk Management for banks in the age of the Internet

The banking industry realizes that a vital and profitable segment of its clientele demands a significant online presence that complements the traditional “bricks and mortar” presence. A virtual minefield of traditional and new issues and risks arises as banks adopt 24/7 transactional websites in their pursuit of a “clicks and bricks” strategy. Banks face operational, security, legal, and reputation risk with their foray into online banking. An innovative and proactive approach to risk management is essential as banks move into this new territory. Recent regulatory and legislative developments suggest that as electronic banking evolves, the earlier regulatory stance of “self-regulation” appears to be changing to one of increased scrutiny.     

‘Above the fray’: Interests,discourse and legitimacy in the audit field

Legitimacy is a crucial concern for the institutional field of auditing, given its reliance on perceived legitimacy for its political mandate and license to practice, in addition to its wider credibility and trust amongst stakeholders such as clients, investors and the public. In this paper, we explore the role of interest-discourse in the discursive strategies of legitimization in the audit field. We develop an Ethnomethodologically informed Discourse Analysis (EDA) perspective that enables us to theorise how institutional actors account for interests as a means for de-legitimization and re-legitimization. We ask: how do institutional actors in the audit field establish who or what is ‘above the fray’ and who or what is ‘interested’? We illustrate our argument by examining how the ‘Big Four’ audit firms handled a ‘crisis of legitimacy’ in the accountancy profession following the recent financial crisis, focussing in particular on a Parliamentary inquiry into market concentration in the audit industry in the UK. First, we show how de-legitimization is achieved through the discursive strategies of stake attribution, stake interrogation and stake mis-alignment. Second, we show how re-legitimization is achieved through the discursive strategies of stake inoculation, stake confession, stake alignment and stake transcendence. We conclude by examining the implications of the discursive processes we have studied for the future of the audit field in the UK.     

Commodity Prices and the Business Cycle in Latin America: Living and Dying by Commodities?

We analyze the dynamic interactions between commodity prices and output growth of the seven biggest Latin American exporters: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela. Using a novel definition of Markov-switching impulse response functions, we find that the response of each country's output growth to commodity price shocks is time dependent, size dependent, and sign dependent. The major evidence of asymmetries in output growth responses occurs when commodity price shocks lead to regime shifts. Thus, we conclude that the design of optimal countercyclical stabilization policies should consider that the reactions of economic activity vary considerably across business cycle regimes.     

The Impact of Austerity in the Framework of Corporate Rescue and the Rights of Workers in the EU: A Road to Recovery?

The financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis have been attributed to a number of causes. Whether these are economic, social, cultural or legal, they are all by and large also political. The aim of this article is not to delve into the myriad of heated political arguments that continue to dominate the scene but to assess the impact of the financial crisis on the employment protection rights and the corporate rescue regimes in Greece, Portugal, France and the UK. In light of the crisis, the rights of the workforce have been severely compromised to afford financially troubled companies a greater opportunity to recover. In order to minimise the catastrophic impact of financial turmoil on their economy and society, all four jurisdictions introduced reforms to their labour codes and corporate rescue mechanisms, often in the name of austerity. This article will offer a snapshot of the changes and their effects and an assessment whether or not the reforms of pre‐insolvency regimes have operated as an effective embankment for the protection of social and economic welfare. The purpose of this piece is to shed a light on the changes that have occurred and that have affected employment rights in the domestic legal systems of individual member states, as influenced to some extent by the EU in its expectations of improvements to increase labour market flexibility, and whether corporate rescue mechanisms in individual member states are able to provide some counterbalance to the erosion of employment rights generally. Copyright © 2017 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accounting and governance in the final years of the Papal States: Dual roles in the papacy of Pius IX (1846–1870)

The Papal States represent a unique and long period in Italian government and in the government of the Roman Catholic Church prior to Italy's unification in 1870. The 25-year period prior to unification was a particularly tumultuous period when the Papal States struggled for survival, faced military and popular challenges and became increasingly indebted. Accounting could become an important tool to assist decision-making and enhance the Papal States' sustainability, as shown by the governance reforms promulgated by Pope Pius IX in this period. Nevertheless, accountants chose what to make visible and emphasised secular, rather than the sacred aspects of the Papal States. Despite reforms, there was a disconnection between the leaders and the accountants. This research therefore examines the role of accounting in such an institution, and extends the concept of a sacred-secular divide to a state government beset by resource constraints and challenged to fulfil its spiritual aims.     

Globalization and the state–profession relationship: the case the Bank of Credit and Commerce International

Globalization of businesses raises major questions about the regulation of corporations, both in the national and international context. The debate is marked by two competing views. The ‘hyperglobalists’ claim that in a globalized world, nation-states cannot take effective actions to regulate multinational businesses, especially those relating to banking and finance. In response, the ‘skeptics’ accept the view that to regulate corporations, the nation-state has always had to restructure itself. However, they challenge the contention that globalization has reduced the power, functions and authority of the state. The paper contributes to the debate through an examination of some of the processes leading to the forced closure (and the aftermath) of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a bank that operated from 73 countries. It particularly focuses upon the role of the banking regulators and their reliance upon auditing technologies to regulate major banks. The paper sides with the ‘skeptics’ and argues that the nation states, especially major Western states, remain important players in the regulation of global businesses. It concludes that the nation-state’s capacity to regulate global enterprises is compromised by history, domestic concerns and relationships with class and capitalist interests rather than by globalization per se.     

Underwriting and investment risks in the property-liability insurance industry: evidence prior to the 9–11 event

Underwriting and investment are two important and related business activities of insurance companies. However, studies on the interrelation between underwriting and investment risks of Property-Liability (P-L) insurance companies are sparse in the literature. Using a sample of US P-L insurers, this article conducts an empirical investigation of how these two risks are associated with each other in the 1994–2000 period (before the September 11th terrorist attack in 2001). Our results, robust to various estimations, suggest that there is no significant relationship between the underwriting and investment risks among our sample firms. Such results based on pre 9–11 event period provide some support for the conjecture of Achleitner et al. (Geneva Pap Risk Insur Issues Pract 27:275–282, 2002) that many insurance companies may have failed to take an integrated approach to risk management. This resulted in a heavy loss due to dual exposures in both underwriting and investment in the 9–11 event. In the aftermath of the recent global financial crisis, risk taking and risk management of financial institutions have received more attention and increasing scrutiny. We believe the current paper provides some useful insights in this vein.     

The measurement of harmonization in the form and content of the auditor’s report in the European Union

This study attempts to determine the degree of harmonization in the form and content of the auditor’s report in the European Union. To accomplish this goal, audit reports from 1995 annual reports of the largest industrial companies in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom are analyzed. The analysis uses the basic elements of the auditor’s report listed in the International Standard on Auditing, “The Auditor’s Report on Financial Statements” as the control. Comparability is tested using the chi-square statistic which tests for equality of the proportions of the various elements in the auditor’s report across the Member States. The results reveal that harmonization exists in three of the five elements in the auditor report relating to form (appropriate title, the dating of the report and the listing of the location of the auditor’s office). Harmonization does not exist for the remaining two elements related to form, nor does it exist for any of elements related to content.     

Preparing for the unknown… unknowns: ‘doomsday’ prepping and disaster risk anxiety in the United States

This article examines the collapse-based thinking energising ‘doomsday’ prepping: a growing American phenomenon centred on storing food, water and weapons for the purpose of surviving disasters. Existing understandings of prepping indicate that its practitioners are driven to prepare by peculiar and delusional certainty that apocalyptic collapse will occur in the near future. This view, however, has not yet been tested by empirical research. This article draws on ethnography with 39 preppers in 18 American states to present a new understanding of this phenomenon, as it shows prepping consistently being practiced in the absence of both apocalyptic predictions and certainty regarding the future occurrence of disaster. Demonstrating that preppers’ activities are undergirded by precautionary projections around numerous non-apocalyptic ‘threats’, the article argues that prepping principally responds to uncertain anxieties around disaster risks. Moreover, it establishes that these imprecise anxieties are regularly influenced by preppers’ consumption of disaster-based speculation in mainstream news media – showing that their concerns tend to emerge in response to numerous disaster risks that are widely reported and recognised in wider American culture, rather than marginal conceptions of ‘threats’. The article, therefore, contends that, rather than being a marginal apocalyptic practice, prepping is a phenomenon with clear, previously unacknowledged links to broader risk communications and concerns in the twenty-first century United States – one that must be understood as a reflection of the broader resonance of disaster-based speculation and uncertainty in this cultural context.     

Survival of the Fittest or the Fattest? Exit and Financing in the Trucking Industry

This paper studies the impact that capital market imperfections have on the natural selection of the most efficient firms by estimating the effect of the prederegulation level of leverage on the survival of trucking firms after the Carter deregulation. Highly leveraged carriers are less likely to survive the deregulation shock, even after controlling for various measures of efficiency. This effect is stronger in the imperfectly competitive segment of the motor carrier industry. High debt seems to affect survival by curtailing investments and reducing the price per ton-mile that a carrier can afford to charge after deregulation.     

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nting rate is,and cumulative number of signal energy is the linear rela-tionship with strain.acoustic emission;carbon steel;stretching experiment;fracture0声学技术Technical Acoustics34-38TB302B020;13;A;B;B020_13;龚斌;30-34声子晶体的研究进展及应用前景张荣英;姜根山;王璋奇;吕亚东;华北电力大学,华北电力大学,华北电力大学,中国     

Multiple safety net regulators and agency problems in the EU: Is Prompt Corrective Action partly the solution?

Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) provides a more efficient mechanism for dealing with problem banks operating in more than one European country. In a PCA framework, a bank's losses are likely to be substantially reduced. This reduction in the losses to deposit insurance and governments will improve the problem of allocating those losses across the various insurance schemes and make it less likely that any deposit insurer will renege on its obligations in a cross-border banking crisis. This paper presents a stylized mechanism aimed at dealing with the cross-border agency problems that arise in supervising and resolving cross-border banking groups in the European Union (EU). The authors assume that PCA policies have been implemented by the national supervisors and explore the institutional changes needed in Europe if PCA is to be effective as an incentive compatible mechanism. The paper identifies these changes starting with enhancements in the availability of information on banking groups to supervisors. Next, the paper considers the collective decision making by supervisors with authority to make discretionary decisions within the PCA framework as soon as a bank of a cross-border banking group falls below the minimum capital standard. Finally, the paper analyzes the coordination measures that should be implemented if PCA requires the bank to be resolved.     

Studies in Convergence? Post‐Crisis Effects on Corporate Rescue and the Influence of Social Policy: The EU and the USA

The financial crisis and the sovereign debt crisis that it precipitated in a number of peripheral EU Member States heralded massive changes in insolvency, corporate rescue and employment protection policies. The US and the EU both suffered greatly in the wake of the crisis, but their recoveries have occurred along very different tracks. The US has managed to regain much of its position in terms of relative growth and the UK has outpaced the recoveries of those European countries that are members of the European Monetary Union. The purpose of this treatise is to explore the context of the 2007–2008 financial crisis in the US and in the EU and its impact on legal reform in corporate rescue and restructuring as well as those aspects of social policy implicated within insolvency systems (notably collective redundancy and transfers of undertakings). It will also consider whether or not the corporate rescue and employee protection systems can be seen to be converging, and whether, in view of the different socio‐economic, political and cultural aspects of the US and the EU, such convergence might be beneficial. Copyright © 2015 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.