Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder value maximization: Evidence from mergers

Using a large sample of mergers in the US, we examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) creates value for acquiring firms' shareholders. We find that compared with low CSR acquirers, high CSR acquirers realize higher merger announcement returns, higher announcement returns on the value-weighted portfolio of the acquirer and the target, and larger increases in post-merger long-term operating performance. They also realize positive long-term stock returns, suggesting that the market does not fully value the benefits of CSR immediately. In addition, we find that mergers by high CSR acquirers take less time to complete and are less likely to fail than mergers by low CSR acquirers. These results suggest that acquirers' social performance is an important determinant of merger performance and the probability of its completion, and they support the stakeholder value maximization view of stakeholder theory.     

Payment card rewards programs and consumer payment choice

By using a unique data set that contains detailed information about consumer payment choice and consumers’ attitudes toward each payment method, we estimate the effects of payment card rewards on consumer choice of payment methods. Our approach allows us to control for consumer heterogeneity. We find the effects of rewards to be statistically significant across five retail types. Our policy experiments suggest that for the sub-population who hold both credit and debit cards, removing rewards would increase their share of paper-based payment methods (i.e., cash and checks), measured in terms of in-store transactions, by no more than 4 percentage points.     

并购重组需要发挥并购基金和高收益债券等债券产品的作用

中国人民银行、银监会等机构从2009年开始设立并购基金,引导和支持金融机构积极参与企业并购重组业务等活动,鼓励规范上市公司通过并购重组,促进资源整合和有效配置。当前应进一步解决支付手段单一和手续繁琐而导致的融资困难等瓶颈问题,同时应加大开发高收益债券等债券产品力度,使其发挥更大的作用。     

Robust anomalies? A close look at accrual‐based trading strategy returns

The last 40 years have seen an extensive literature documenting so‐called anomalies in major capital markets. Evidence of ‘abnormal’ returns associated with trading strategies based on readily observable phenomena such as accounting‐based data involves experimental design choices that can be expected to influence the results. We show how evidence of an accrual anomaly in Australia is sensitive to research design specifications such as the choice of proxy for total accruals; the definition of abnormal returns (i.e. the return generating model); the impact of data trimming as a response to exceptionally large returns; and the choice between value and equal weighting of returns. We show that research design choices do matter and help reconcile conflicting prior evidence of any accrual anomaly in Australia. More broadly, our results suggest the need for caution in drawing inferences from trading strategy tests which claim to identify anomalies.     

我国M2/GDP过高的原因分析——基于宏观金融效率视角

近三十年来,我国M2/GDP呈逐年上升趋势,且目前明显高于世界其它国家.文章针对这一情况,首先回顾了我国学者对这一现象的研究蚬状;并进一步分析了问题的原因,得出宏观金融效率偏低导致了我国M2/GDP的过高,最后提出相应的政策建议.     

中国企业跨国并购中的竞争情报保障研究

从竞争情报的角度分析了中国企业跨国并购中的成败得失，挖掘跨国并购行为中的情报需求，弄清竞争情报该如何为跨国并购行为发挥应有的保障作用．让中国企业成功实现“走出去”的目标。     

Does incorporating non-linearity into discretionary accrual models improve their performance?

Using a large sample of firms that restated earnings, this study investigates whether incorporating non-linearity (conditional conservatism) into discretionary accrual models improves their performance in detecting earnings management. The findings of this study are important because discretionary accrual models play a prominent role in several streams of accounting research and the models' ability to isolate the discretionary (managed) component from the non-discretionary (unmanaged) component of total accruals is critical. If the conventional linear discretionary accrual models are mis-specified, it is likely to result in misleading inferences about earnings management behavior. The findings indicate that the non-linear specification improves the performance of most linear models. The findings also indicate that a more sophisticated linear model that incorporates a performance measure and a future growth measure outperforms other simple models.     

Governmental budgeting as ex ante financial accounting: The United Kingdom case

For many years now the academic governmental-budgeting literature has concentrated almost exclusively on the politics and economics of the budgetary process at the expense of the mechanical foundations. Consequently, we see an interesting but insulated discussion about political involvement and about the strengths and weaknesses of planning models. What we do not see is a discussion of the accounting perspective. This paper offers such a discussion. It explains local government budgeting as “ex ante financial accounting” and offers some important implications of this re-interpretation.     

Taking a positive approach to organizational downsizing

We drew from the literature on positive organizational behaviour (Luthans & Youssef, 2007) to test a process model relating generalized optimism (Carver & Scheier, 1999) to the cognitions, affect, and behaviour of 237 Canadian federal government managers during and following a major organizational downsizing. Our data supported a model in which generalized optimism measured 18 months prior to the downsizing (T1) associated positively with managers' cognitions, attitudes, job performance, and self‐reported coping effectiveness measured 12 months postdownsizing (T3). Analyses suggested that some of these associations were partially mediated by a positive thinking coping strategy and expectations for future career and job success reported during the downsizing (T2). We advocate for more research that draws from the positive organizational behaviour literature to study the effects of downsizing on survivors. Copyright © 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Agenda formation and accounting standards setting: lessons from the standards setters

There are many studies on lobbying of accounting standards, but the technical agenda of regulators is taken as ‘given’ and why a particular topic was admitted to the agenda is not investigated. Agenda formation is important as control of the agenda determines which topics get regulated and the form of the regulatory response. A few studies have explored agenda formation across regulatory institutions but are largely silent on the role of individual decision makers and technical staff. However, the standards setters have sought to explain their agenda processes. This paper reviews statements by the members of accounting standards setting agencies about their experiences of agenda formation. It identifies insights gained from standard setters and makes some suggestions for future research.