To the Rescue!? Brokering a Rapid,Scaled and Customized Compassionate Response to Suffering after Disaster

Suffering comes in many forms that significantly impact organizations’ operations and performance. As a result, recent research on compassion organizing seeks to explain how efforts to notice, feel, and respond to suffering create organizational (and societal) benefits. Widespread suffering can be generated by natural disasters, which in turn can trigger compassionate organizational responses. In this paper, we build on social capital theory to theorize about how compassionate ventures leverage network relationships to identify and mobilize resources. We also explore how differences in these approaches influence the magnitude, speed, and customization of the response, all of which are theorized indicators of the effectiveness of compassion organizing in alleviating suffering. We use structural equation modelling to test our model and find that compassionate ventures with stronger ties to the local community are more likely to bundle (i.e., stretch) resources, which facilitates a speedy, customized, and large magnitude response. In contrast, those with stronger ties outside the local community are more likely to pursue (i.e., chase) new resources, which results in a large magnitude response, but one that is not associated with speed or customization. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations for future research.     

A multivariate distance nonlinear causality test based on partial distance correlation: a machine learning application to energy futures

This paper proposes a multivariate distance nonlinear causality test (MDNC) using the partial distance correlation in a time series framework. Partial distance correlation as an extension of the Brownian distance correlation calculates the distance correlation between random vectors X and Y controlling for a random vector Z. Our test can detect nonlinear lagged relationships between time series, and when integrated with machine learning methods it can improve the forecasting power. We apply our method as a feature selection procedure and combine it with the support vector machine and random forests algorithms to study the forecast of the main energy financial time series (oil, coal, and natural gas futures). It shows substantial improvement in forecasting the fuel energy time series in comparison to the classical Granger causality method in time series.     

State‐Led Financial Regulation and Representations of Spatial Fixity: The Example of the Spanish Real Estate Sector

This article offers a bottom‐up contribution to the fixity–motion literature. It aims to unravel the apparent contradiction of real estate spatial fixity in Spain, which is portrayed both as a barrier to accumulation and as a unique source of investment by different capitalist actors. Empirically, it describes the shifts in real estate ownership and changes in profit‐making strategies that have taken place across the real estate sector during the crisis years, and the role of the state in these shifts. The article asserts that the idea of spatial fixity representing a spatial barrier for accumulation does not necessarily apply in the Spanish case. It further claims that the tensions in capital circulation through real estate are not only to be found in the action of time, but in different state strategies pursued by various actors. The opposing representations of fixity are the result of state regulation of interest rates, taxation and risk weighting. The state also increasingly promotes land rents as a source of liquidity creation.     

Relying on the heuristic of trust: a case study

This study examines the reliance on trust as a heuristic by individuals when making personal financial decisions, using a qualitative case study. We show that in the face of complexity and choice, individual investors predominantly resorted to the heuristic of trust to make financial decisions. This demonstrates the need for industry and public policy‐makers to be aware that individuals can and will resort to simplified heuristics as a basis for financial decision‐making, particularly within an environment where substantial complexity and choice exist.     

Accounting practice,fiscal decentralization and corruption

In prior studies, accounting and decentralization corruption solutions have so far been analysed in isolation. In this article, we connect these two strands of literature on corruption. Understanding this connection is important because weak financial accounting and reporting systems can inhibit monitoring incentives and thus reduce decentralization benefits in countering corruption. We argue that the effectiveness of decentralization as an anti-corruption barrier is complemented by the quality of the accounting practice in a country. Using multiple sources of data, we find that decentralization has a positive and increasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with a high-quality accounting practice. In contrast, decentralization has a negative and decreasing effect on reducing corruption among countries with weak-quality accounting practices. These findings are robust to alternative measures of accounting, decentralization and corruption and to endogeneity tests. Our findings demonstrate the crucial information role of accounting in enhancing decentralization monitoring mechanisms and in thereby reducing corruption.     

‘Whatever it takes’ and the role of Eurozone news

This letter shows that the ‘Whatever it takes’ speech by ECB President Draghi on 26 July 2012 and the ensuing installation of the Outright Monetary Transactions’ framework are associated with a reduction in the domestic and cross-border effect of Eurozone news on absolute yield changes in Eurozone sovereign debt. These results are consistent with the popular view that these actions helped to avoid a collapse of the Eurozone.     

The Improbability of Fraud in Accounting for Derivatives: A Case Study on the Boundaries of Financial Reporting Compliance

ABSTRACT

This study responds to recent calls in the literature to examine fraud using detailed case studies, extending knowledge beyond individual incentives and capital market reactions towards a more contextualized understanding of the concept. We use an institutional logics perspective to challenge existing assumptions about a universally valid meaning of compliance, fraud, and faithful representation. Presenting the case of the Swedish bank HQ, we show how the interpretation of the accounting standard for option measurement varies across different enforcement bodies because the meaning of compliance is socially negotiated across the institutional logics of markets, financial regulation, and law. The independent decision-making of the different enforcement bodies leads to a systematic variation in the interpretation of principles-based accounting standards without ultimate coordination. To define consistent boundaries of compliance across institutional logics, and thus, to distinguish between fraud and allowable managerial discretion becomes problematic. Faithful representation, in turn, cannot be understood as financial statements reflecting a correct value or as financial statements being prepared in accordance with acceptable practice, as suggested in the earlier literature. Instead, faithful representation itself becomes a contextually bound concept, which can only be defined within an institutional logic.     

金融周期、行业技术周期与经济结构优化

本文首先采用马尔科夫区制转移模型测算金融周期和12类行业的技术投入周期,进而采用交叉谱分析法和OLS法分析金融周期对行业技术周期的影响,结果发现:不同金融变量的周期具有异步性,各行业的技术投入周期具有明显差别;不同金融变量周期与行业技术投入周期之间存在不同的数量关联性,对不同的行业技术投入具有不同的影响作用;在繁荣阶段,金融市场和银行对各行业的技术投入都具有正向推动作用,但金融市场对高密度创新行业技术投入的推动作用更为显著,银行对低密度稳定行业技术投入的推动作用更为显著;在紧缩阶段,金融市场对高密度创新行业技术投入的紧缩效应更为剧烈,银行却对低密度稳定行业的技术投资下行起到缓解作用。根据这些事实和规律,可以引导利用各金融变量对具有发展前景的行业强化技术投资助推作用,提升经济结构优化效率。     

Cultural distance and cross-border bank linkages

This study investigates the effect of cultural distance on global bank linkages using country-pair data for the period 1990–2013. We followed Schwartz (2006) to measure cultural distance, and employed the number of bank pairs involved in cross-border syndicated lending from the source to target countries as a measure of bank linkages. We found that cultural distance has a negative association with bank linkages. This effect is stronger in countries featuring higher informational asymmetries, as represented by weaker institutions, higher uncertainty, or revolution shocks. Our results hold even when employing alternative measures of bank linkages and cultural distance, and when considering the potential endogeneity of cultural distance.