Cointegration and control: Assessing the impact of events using time series data

Control groups can provide counterfactual evidence for assessing the impact of an event or policy change on a target variable. We argue that fitting a multivariate time series model offers potential gains over a direct comparison between the target and a weighted average of controls. More importantly, it highlights the assumptions underlying methods such as difference in differences and synthetic control, suggesting ways to test these assumptions. Gains from simple and transparent time series models are analysed using examples from the literature, including the California smoking law of 1989 and German reunification. We argue that selecting controls using a time series strategy is preferable to existing data‐driven regression methods.     

The Digital Transformation of Search and Recombination in the Innovation Function: Tensions and an Integrative Framework*

Search and recombination are important mechanisms in the creativity phase of innovation. Digital transformation and the resulting pervasive digitalization of the innovation function have often been associated with increasing possibilities for search and recombination. In this paper, by systematically integrating the search and recombination literature with the literature on digitalization, we demonstrate that digitalization may engender new idiosyncratic tensions in the organizational antecedents of search and recombination and, by implication, in their likely outcomes. We propose that, depending on the interactions among the idiosyncratic tensions identified herein, knowledge recombination might spur very different outcomes, including knowledge layering, knowledge integration, knowledge grafting, or even no recombination at all (which we label “search for the sake of search”). These outcomes may not always be the initially planned desired outcomes. Finally, we provide implications of our integrative framework pertaining to product development and to organizing for innovation.     

Social Security and the increasing longevity gap

Growth in overall life expectancy is straining the Social Security budget, and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is widening. Motivated by these facts, this paper does four things. First, we develop a simple way to summarize the degree of progressivity in a Social Security system. Second, we show that growth in the life expectancy gap over the last few decades unwinds three-quarters of the progressivity of the Social Security system. Third, we develop simple reforms to Social Security that maintain the progressivity of the system and restore fiscal solvency. Fourth, we estimate the welfare effects of these potential reforms.     

Fair Value Exposure,Changes in Fair Value and Audit Fees: Evidence from the Australian Real Estate Industry

This paper investigates the relationship between audit fees and both fair value exposure and changes in fair value of investment properties. The study is motivated by the limited and inconclusive evidence on the effect on audit fees of full fair value reporting for illiquid assets. Using hand‐collected data from the Australian real estate industry, we find a negative (positive) association between audit fees and fair value exposure (changes in fair value of investment properties). Our findings also indicate that the use of unobservable inputs in fair value estimates for investment properties does not significantly increase audit risk and audit fees. Further, we find that audit fees are higher for firms with fair values of investment – properties estimated by external and mixed valuers – compared to firms with fair values estimated by directors alone. This study enriches the audit fee literature by documenting auditors’ pricing decisions in an area that involves significant estimation and valuation risks.     

Risk management in Canada's agricultural sector in light of COVID-19

The unexpected introduction and spread of COVID-19 has presented significant challenges for every aspect of Canadian society. Although the food and agricultural sector is positioned better than most, there are many risks that will need to be managed in the coming months. The suite of Federal-Provincial-Territorial Business Risk Management (BRM) programs delivered under the Canadian Agricultural Policy framework are meant to assist farmers in managing risks; however, there are no corresponding specialized programs for agribusinesses. The underlying structure of the BRM program was developed decades ago and certainly not with any thought to the possibility of a global pandemic. This article considers to what extent the BRM program and, more broadly, government programming will assist farmers in managing new risks. By default, the article is speculative in nature given that we are currently at the onset of the pandemic in Canada.     

Forecasting the volatility of asset returns: The informational gains from option prices

A new class of forecasting models is proposed that extends the realized GARCH class of models through the inclusion of option prices to forecast the variance of asset returns. The VIX is used to approximate option prices, resulting in a set of cross-equation restrictions on the model’s parameters. The full model is characterized by a nonlinear system of three equations containing asset returns, the realized variance, and the VIX, with estimation of the parameters based on maximum likelihood methods. The forecasting properties of the new class of forecasting models, as well as a number of special cases, are investigated and applied to forecasting the daily S&P500 index realized variance using intra-day and daily data from September 2001 to November 2017. The forecasting results provide strong support for including the realized variance and the VIX to improve variance forecasts, with linear conditional variance models performing well for short-term one-day-ahead forecasts, whereas log-linear conditional variance models tend to perform better for intermediate five-day-ahead forecasts.     

Executive Compensation and Financial Performance Measures: Evidence from Significant Financial Institutions

We survey the use of financial performance measures in determining executive pay among significant Australian financial institutions. We document evidence of the pervasiveness with which externally disclosed non‐GAAP (non‐Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) financial measures are also used internally to determine variable remuneration, with the apparent popularity of cash profit after tax in short‐term incentives plans. Our evidence also highlights the increasing use of peer group‐adjusted measures (e.g., relative cash earnings per share and return on equity ranking against a peer group) in determining longer‐run incentives, despite the fact that members of the peer group do not measure financial performance in a directly comparable manner. Detailed analysis of the four major trading banks (Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac) reveals differences in the way non‐GAAP earnings measures are calculated across the major banks, as well as some variation over time in the way individual banks measure performance. We also document evidence of non‐GAAP earnings restatements, with around 25% of non‐GAAP results subsequently being restated. These restatements are more likely to result in a downward revision of the initially reported non‐GAAP result than an upward revision. We therefore conclude that existing measures of financial performance used to determine senior executive compensation are not as ‘objective’, as might be assumed.     

Dismantling the south-west coalition: further evidence of distributive politics in preemption legislation

Economics of Governance - The factors influencing legislative voting behavior have often been studied. This is especially true regarding antebellum federal preemption legislation. Several...     

Chinese investment in the Brazilian soybean sector: Navigating relations of private governance

This paper examines how Chinese agribusiness firms are engaging with established systems of private governance in the Brazilian soybean sector and how that engagement is variously accommodated, contested, and configured by local realities that reflect the uneven history of transnational agribusiness development across the Brazilian agro‐export region. Using qualitative data collected at three research sites that represent different historical moments in the Brazilian agro‐export region (Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Bahia), the paper argues that the social structures underlying the particular agrarian histories of these three subregions create unique contexts Chinese firms must navigate, which in turn shapes their engagement with the private agribusiness regime across space. Although the private agribusiness regime is often portrayed as a top‐down system of governance that subjugates the polity to the demands of capital, this framing neglects to understand how that system of power is contested, negotiated, and reshaped on the ground. These three cases serve to historicize the uneven penetration of Chinese firms across the Brazilian soybean sector.