Is Talk Cheap?

For the steel import quota bill of 1999, each word in the Congressional Record costs $39 in campaign contributions from the steel industry. Consequently, our answer is "Yes, talk is cheap!"     

Group Dynamics of Corruption in Public Organizations

Abstract

When there are two groups of officials in a public organization, we show that depending on the groups’ behavior – collusive or competitive – increasing the level of monitoring and punishment may have different impacts on corruption. If the two groups of public officials had been demonstrating collusive behavior, increased monitoring or punishment reduces both the level of corrupt activities and the corrupt officials’ bribe revenues. However, if the groups had not been colluding, increased monitoring reduces the level of corruption, but increases the corruption revenues collected. Only after reaching the optimum level of monitoring, is this result reversed.     

Testing uncovered interest rate parity using LIBOR

We test uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) using London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) interest rates for a wide range of maturities. In contrast to other markets, LIBOR markets have minimal frictions. Whereas most previous studies reject UIP, we find that UIP holds for several short-term LIBOR maturities using block bootstrap panel unit root tests suggested by Palm et al. (2011) and cointegration techniques by Westerlund (2007). Furthermore, the estimation results suggest that the speed of adjustment to the long-run equilibrium marginally differs across the maturity of the underlying instrument, thus supporting the efficient market hypothesis.     

An empirical analysis of excess interbank liquidity: a case study of Pakistan

We investigate the drivers of excess interbank liquidity in Pakistan, using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach on weekly data for December 2005 to July 2011. We find that the financing of the government budget deficit by the central bank and nonbanks leads to persistence in excess liquidity. Moreover, we identify a structural shift in the interbank market in June 2008. Before June 2008, low credit demand was driving the excess liquidity holdings by banks. After June 2008, banks’ precautionary investments in risk-free securities drive excess liquidity holdings. Monetary policy is less effective if banks hold excess liquidity for precautionary reasons.     

Exploring satisfaction in business-to-business services: a path-analytic approach

In this article, we propose a path-analytic approach to model the relationships among overall satisfaction, satisfaction with higher order performance domains and the lower order performance attributes for business-to-business services. The model is estimated using data from the business customers of a large provider of electronics products and services. Our results show that overall satisfaction in such contexts may be driven by satisfaction on multiple higher order performance domains and the relevant lower order performance attributes may not drive satisfaction. An adoption of our modeling approach can help service providers make resource allocation decisions across performance domains and identify the micro-level performance levers that they can pull to manage satisfaction levels of their business clients.     

Interaction of organizational commitment and job satisfaction of nurses and medical secretaries in Turkey

The main aims of this study is to explain the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment and to investigate the effects of gender, education level, age, monthly income, ownership type of the employed hospital, length of employment in the hospital, job and marital status on organizational commitment and job satisfaction. The research was carried out in three hospitals in Turkey. The research population includes 872 people: 677 nurses and 195 medical secretaries. All the questions on the research instruments were answered by 55.4% of the population. A significant and positive relationship was found between job satisfaction and organizational commitment.     

Audit Partner Tenure and Internal Control Reporting Quality: U.S. Evidence from the Not‐For‐Profit Sector

This study examines the effects of audit partner tenure and audit partner changes on internal control reporting quality for large U.S. not‐for‐profit (NFP) organizations. Regulators contend that audit partners lose their objectivity over successive audits, reducing audit quality. A large body of research has examined this issue, primarily in non‐U.S. jurisdictions, with mixed results. We examine the associations between audit partner tenure and audit partner changes and the incidence of reported internal control deficiencies (ICDs), the quality of internal control reports (following PCAOB audit quality indicators), and the severity of reported ICDs. We find negative associations between audit partner tenure and the incidence of reported ICDs, the quality of internal control reports, and the severity of reported ICDs. Together, these findings indicate that internal control reporting quality deteriorates with audit partner tenure. However, we find no association between audit partner changes and internal control reporting, which is consistent with partners lacking client specific knowledge in their first year with a client. Finally, we find no association between either audit partner tenure or changes and the likelihood of remediation. Our findings contribute large‐sample U.S. evidence on the association between audit partner tenure and internal control reporting quality and provide useful information to government regulators, NFP boards charged with the oversight of the external auditor and internal controls, and NFP stakeholders.     

Is an M&A self-dealing? Evidence on international and domestic acquisitions and CEO compensation

We examine the effect of international acquisitions on CEO compensation for US firms from 1995 to 2016 using both domestic acquisition and no acquisition firms as benchmarks. We find that acquisitions lead to a greater increase in CEO compensation (especially incentive-based compensation), which is consistent with agency theory and inconsistent with stewardship or reputation theory. We also find that international acquisitions lead to a greater increase in CEO incentive-based compensation than domestic acquisitions, supporting matching theory given that international acquisitions are larger and more complex to manage. Additionally, we document that CEO tenure has a positive effect on CEO compensation, whereas firm relatedness has a negative effect on post-acquisition CEO compensation. This is the first study of its type based on comprehensive data, and it contributes to our understanding of the role of international and domestic acquisitions in CEO compensation.     

The Impact of Visibility on Trade: Evidence from the World Cup

Success in the FIFA World Cup provides countries with substantial international visibility. This paper uses this information shock associated with the World Cup to show that visibility has a significant impact on trade flows. In isolating the visibility effect, two identification problems are solved. Match outcomes in the World Cup are subject to significant uncertainty. This uncertainty, when combined with controls for economic development, makes World Cup success exogenous to exports. By contrast, hosting the World Cup is potentially endogenous owing to self‐selection issues. The paper exploits FIFA's host selection policy to construct exogenous instruments for hosting. The results show that success in the World Cup raises exports temporarily by around 5%.