The Effects of Auditor Social and Human Capital on Auditor Compensation: Evidence from the Italian Small Audit Firm Market

Abstract

This study examines whether social and human capital influence the compensation of individual auditors in the small audit firm market. We employ a sample of Italian auditors and use measures from the network and auditing literatures to capture their professional connections, representing social capital, and their industry expertise, representing human capital. Our findings show a positive and economically meaningful association between these individual attributes and auditor compensation. We run several tests to address potential endogeneity issues in our research design. Our results suggest that, in the small audit market, clients perceive as valuable those auditors with higher social and human capital, and as a result, are willing to pay a premium for these specific auditor attributes.     

Toward Consumption Reduction: An Environmentally Motivated Perspective

Faced with the threat of climate change, there is a challenge to promote more environmentally friendly consumption patterns. This work seeks to unearth psychographic and socio‐demographic factors that could trigger environmentally motivated reductions in consumption. The context of empirical investigation is the European Union (i.e., a large‐scale sample of European citizens), with a focus on two key types of environmentally motivated consumption reduction: domestic and “out‐of‐home” (purchasing) activities. The findings show the interrelated effects of environmental knowledge and ecological motivations (in both aggregated and disaggregated forms) on positive and negative environmental attitudes, which in turn influence consumption reduction. There is also evidence of significant moderating influences of perceived environmental threat, gender, age, education, and country value orientation—particularly on “environmental knowledge” links. The findings reported here contribute to theory and practice toward environmental sustainability.     

Robust portfolio choice with stochastic interest rates

We determine the optimal investment strategy for an ambiguity-averse investor in a setting with stochastic interest rates. The investor has access to stocks, bonds, and a bank account and he is ambiguous about the expected rate of return of both bonds and stocks. The investor can have different levels of ambiguity aversion about the two types of risky assets. We find that it is more important to take model uncertainty about the stock dynamics than model uncertainty about the bond dynamics into account. Furthermore, the investor’s ambiguity increases his hedging demand. Consequently, the bond/stock ratio increases with his ambiguity and implies less extreme positions in the bank account. Altogether, our model yields portfolio allocations which are more in line with what is implementable in practice. Finally, we demonstrate that neglecting model uncertainty implies significant losses for the investor.     

火热经济与忧伤的中国人

金钱能买来幸福吗？没人回答能，包括那些改革开放中出现的中国暴发户。 可以肯定的是，中国确实在很多方面值得夸耀：现在已经是世界第二大经济体，仅次于美国，人均收入从1980年的不足200美元增长到2010年的3700美元，约3亿农民摆脱了绝对贫困。公民的预期寿命延长了十年。     

Profiling the segments of senior tourists throughout motivation and travel characteristics

Interest in tourism market segmentation of seniors has been increasing in recent years as the tourism industry has begun to be aware of their importance for the sector. This is a very heterogeneous group, with greater purchasing power and lifestyle-oriented entertainment and enjoyment of leisure time by performing travel than previous generations. This study strives to contribute towards the hitherto scarce research on segmentation in senior tourism. Specifically, this work aims to determine the existence of various profiles of senior tourism by means of using socio-demographic variables, motivation and characteristics of travel of seniors. For this, two complementary analysis techniques, the nonlinear canonical correlation (OVERALS) and a two-stage cluster analysis, were used. Five market segments were identified according to the behavioural variables analysed that allow marketers to target this group in the most convenient manner and to exploit new market opportunities.     

Innovation as a driver of eco‐innovation in the firm: An approach from the dynamic capabilities theory

The aim of this study is to investigate how innovative capabilities of the firm affect eco‐innovation from a dynamic capability lens. We build on OECD research to conceptualise eco‐innovation as the capacity with which firms modify, redesign, and create products, processes, procedures, and organisations in order to reduce environmental impact. We propose and test the temporal and relational properties of eco‐innovation as a capability. We demonstrate that eco‐innovation possesses two properties of innovative capabilities, namely, persistence over time and interrelation with other innovations. We thus shed new light on the mechanism through which firms engage in eco‐innovation. We also provide empirical evidence to the debate on the relationship between the “normal” innovation (technological or nontechnological) and eco‐innovation. We show that eco‐innovation and innovation are interrelated both simultaneously and sequentially. Moreover, we show that innovation capabilities and eco‐innovation are not only related, but they also have a complementary nature, which facilitates the development of future eco‐innovation.     

Capital Structure and Assets: Effects of an Implicit Collateral

This paper analyses a firm's capital structure choice when assets have outside value. Valuable assets implicitly provide a collateral and increase tax shield exploitation. The key feature in this paper is asset value uncertainty, implying that it is unknown ex ante whether the equity holders ex post optimally sell the assets or re‐optimise the capital structure. Ex ante, more uncertain asset value decreases leverage, but not firm value, and selling the assets becomes less likely. Firms should tend to invest in assets whose value is less correlated to changes in earnings and, in addition, asset sales are less likely when this correlation is low.     

Austerity Policies in the Eurozone: What Can We Learn After the Crisis?

International Advances in Economic Research -     

Anti-consumption beyond boundaries: From niche topic to global phenomena

The first anti-consumption special issue was published by Psychology & Marketing in 2002. More than a decade later, in 2018, the International Center for Anti-consumption Research held its seventh Symposium at the University of Almeria, Spain. This gathering was accompanied by an open call-for-papers in Psychology & Marketing to create a much-anticipated follow-up special issue. Many papers were received for both the symposium and official call. This editorial introduces the final 10 papers that comprise the Psychology & Marketing 2020 special issue on anti-consumption. While the area of anti-consumption has mushroomed into a vast array of work since 2002, this editorial provides four major themes that help to frame the contributions of the 10 new papers as well as set the scene for future work in anti-consumption. The four themes are: Conceptual clarity and refinement; ideological perspectives; environmental and sustainability focus; and novel outlooks on anti-consumption.     

Propuesta de un índice para evaluar la gestión del control interno

Derived from its humanitarian mission, to pay quality health care to the population, in hospitals and health facilities is needed reduce the occurrence of events that may threaten the physical and psychological integrity of the patients they serve. One of the strategies to consider to overcome this challenge is the proper implementation of the internal control system, to ensure the sustainability of insurers, by increasing efficiency in the care of people, feasible only within a care model that quantifies and management on population identified and addressed. The objective of this paper was to propose a coefficient to evaluate the internal control management for a hospital entity. This was conceived under the guidelines of the multi-criteria modeling in conjunction with the detection of critical points through Petri nets. For this, the order of importance and fulfillment of the components of Internal Control and in unison the unreliability of critical processes in the entity being identified practical application was determined.