CSR-Washing is Rare: A Conceptual Framework,Literature Review,and Critique

Growth in CSR-washing claims in recent decades has been dramatic in numerous academic and activist contexts. The discourse, however, has been fragmented, and still lacks an integrated framework of the conditions necessary for successful CSR-washing. Theorizing successful CSR-washing as the joint occurrence of five conditions, this paper undertakes a literature review of the empirical evidence for and against each condition. The literature review finds that many of the conditions are either highly contingent, rendering CSR-washing as a complex and fragile outcome. This finding runs counter to the dominant perception in the general public, among activists, and among a vocal contingent of academics that successful CSR-washing is rampant.     

Contingent Commissions,Insurance Intermediaries,and Insurer Performance

This research investigates the relationship shared by contingent commission usage and insurer performance. We assess performance using both frontier efficiency and financial performance measures. Our findings reveal that the relationship is complex and varies across differing insurer business models. We find that nonusers of contingent commissions are more cost and revenue efficient than are users of contingents. However, among insurers that use contingents, relatively higher levels of use are associated with more efficient operations and also better financial performance. Additionally, these findings are conditioned on the type of distribution system the insurer employs.     

Agricultural arbitrage and risk preferences

A structural intertemporal model of agricultural asset arbitrage equilibrium is developed and applied to agriculture in the North Central region of the US. The data are consistent with a unifying level of risk aversion. The levels of risk aversion are more plausible than previous estimates for agriculture. However, the standard arbitrage equilibrium is rejected; perhaps, this is due to the period and the shortness of the period studied.     

Could the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 be Helpful in Reforming Corporate America? An Investigation on Financial Bounties and Whistle-Blowing Behaviors in the Private Sector

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the availability of financial bounties and anonymous reporting channels impact individuals’ general reporting intentions of questionable acts and whether the availability of financial bounties will prompt people to reveal their identities. The recent passage of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 creates a financial bounty for whistle-blowers. In addition, SOX requires companies to provide employees with an anonymous reporting channel option. It is unclear of the effect of these provisions as they relate to whistle-blowing. Our results indicate that a financial bounty has the potential to increase participants’ propensity to report questionable acts and their willingness to reveal their identities when reporting, but the availability of an anonymous reporting channel does not affect participants’ propensity to report questionable acts. These findings could potentially help corporate management, government policy makers and accounting researchers to assess the effectiveness of their internal compliance programs and help determine if financial bounties in the private sector could encourage whistle-blowing.     

Grade-Risk: An Insurable Event in the Classroom

Grade-risk provides a powerful ally in establishing relevance between course content and the lives of students. As used in this article, grade-risk refers to the potential for the loss of points on examinations, quizzes, etc. This article describes the rationale and feasibility associated with the introduction of a student-centered grade insurance project that provides some measure of protection against grade-risk. The project engages students on multiple levels and in various capacities resulting in a significantly enriched learning experience. The authors include examples employed in their own classroom in demonstrating the feasibility and validity of grade insurance as a learning tool.     

Production and savings under uncertainty

This paper studies an integrated model of production and savings under uncertainty in which production inputs and the amount of savings are jointly chosen. The analysis shows that if the agent's risk preferences exhibit constant absolute risk aversion, then all results from nonintegrated or separate models of savings and production extend to the integrated framework. Under decreasing absolute risk aversion, the comparative static properties of optimal production decisions with respect to mean preserving spread and spread preserving mean parameters extend from the non-integrated to the integrated framework. However, extension of the savings model results for the same parameters requires a restriction on production technology.     

Professionals in two employment systems

This article reports the results of a cross national study of how professional employees experience two very different employment systems: the ‘individualist’ of America and the ‘collectivist’ one of Poland. The authors conclude that further research and development of the concept of employment systems should focus on the degree of congruence between employment policies and cultural attitudes of employees.     

THRESHOLD AUTOREGRESSIVE MODELING IN FINANCE: THE PRICE DIFFERENCES OF EQUIVALENT ASSETS1

Threshold autoregressive (TAR) models condition the first moment of a time series on lagged information using a step-function-type nonlinear structure. TAR techniques are expected to be relevant in financial time-series modeling in situations where deviations of prices from equilibrium values depend on discrete transaction costs and where market regulators follow intervention rules based on threshold values of control variables. an important finance application is in modeling the difference in prices of equivalent assets in the presence of transaction costs. the focus of this paper is on motivating the use of TAR models in this context and on the statistical estimation and testing procedures. the procedures are illustrated by modeling the difference between the prices of an index futures contract and the equivalent underlying cash index. It is found that the hypothesis of linearity is conclusively rejected in favor of threshold nonlinearity and that the estimated thresholds are largely consistent with arbitrage-related transaction costs.