Accounting and Auditing at the Time of Blockchain Technology: A Research Agenda

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology expected to have significant impacts on the accounting and auditing profession. This study, applicable and timely for both accounting and auditing scholars and practitioners, explores blockchain technology and its main implications for the accounting and auditing profession. The research question addressed in this study is: What are the major themes emerging from academic research and professional reports and websites debating blockchain technology in the accounting and auditing context? A literature review of academic literature and professional reports and websites is performed to identify a taxonomy of emerging themes. The study finds that the most discussed themes in scholarly works and professional sources are governance, transparency and trust issues in the blockchain ecosystem, blockchain‐enabled continuous audits, smart contract applications and the paradigmatic shift in accountants' and auditors' roles. Based on these four themes, practical implications for accountants and auditors on how to approach the blockchain development are provided. Moreover, this study offers suggestions for future research on accounting and auditing in the blockchain era.     

The Intellectual Structure of Product Innovation Research: A Bibliometric Study of the Journal of Product Innovation Management, 1984–2004

Product innovation research has matured substantially in the last two decades. A great deal of knowledge has been produced on various aspects of the discipline, so it is of interest to assess the state of the art the scientific community has reached in this discipline and the route it has taken. This perspective is investigated through a bibliometric study of the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM), arguably the most important specialized journal on this topic. The work reviews all journal paper contributions in JPIM from 1984 to 2004 in determined time frames, assesses the citations contained in these papers, identifies how the citations are related to the various topics of production innovation research (topic‐related citation variety, topic‐related citation consistency, variation in topic‐related citation pattern), and offers a retrospective examination of the evolution of the field. The overall analysis of citations shows that most papers in JPIM cite at least one of the top 50 works identified by this study. This testifies to the strong impact of the most influential works on the intellectual structure of product innovation research. The observed citation pattern suggests that the top 50 papers gained influence in product innovation research either because they represent a relevant contribution on a fundamental topic that already has been authoritatively studied or because they investigate in a relevant manner a new topic. The paper suggests that JPIM might benefit in its aim to consolidate its position as one of the top academic business journals if published papers increasingly drew on the most influential works to inform their research design and explicitly stated the theoretical underpinnings they draw on in their research design. Overall, the analysis of the subperiods (1984–1988, 1989–1993, 1994–1998, and 1999–2004) provides evidence for the maturation of new product innovation research. Books covering a wide range of topics are replaced by journal papers addressing a specific topic; over time, specific topics emerge and become influential for the discipline's intellectual structure; papers published in JPIM augment their methodological rigor and increasingly address contingency factors. The paper also notes that obtaining relevance for JPIM authors constitutes a necessary condition for being considered by management researchers at large as an influential contribution to product innovation research.     

Dynamic no-good-deal pricing measures and extension theorems for linear operators on L ∞

In an L ^∞-framework, we present majorant-preserving and sandwich-preserving extension theorems for linear operators. These results are then applied to price systems derived by a reasonable restriction of the class of applicable equivalent martingale measures. Our results prove the existence of a no-good-deal pricing measure for price systems consistent with bounds on the Sharpe ratio. We treat both discrete- and continuous-time market models. Within this study we present definitions of no-good-deal pricing measures that are equivalent to the existing ones and extend them to discrete-time models. We introduce the corresponding version of dynamic no-good-deal pricing measures in the continuous-time setting.     

The Intellectual Structure Of Research Into PPPs

Abstract

Public–private partnerships (or PPPs) encompass a broad spectrum of public sector infrastructure and service initiatives. Recently, some scholars have undertaken literature review studies of the various definitions of the concept of PPPs and its research traditions, identifying several distinct PPP research approaches. This article aims to: (1) enhance the findings of these literature reviews; (2) identify the cited works and authors (intellectual structure) in the published research on PPPs; (3) define the subfields that constitute the intellectual structure of PPP research fields. The methodology is based on the bibliometric techniques of citation and author co-citation analysis applied to published research on PPPs included in the Social Science Citation Index.     

Optimal prepayment and default rules for mortgage-backed securities

We study the optimal stopping problems embedded in a typical mortgage. Despite a possible non-rational behaviour of the typical borrower of a mortgage, such problems are worth to be solved for the lender to hedge against the prepayment risk, and because many mortgage-backed securities pricing models incorporate this suboptimality via a so-called prepayment function which can depend, at time t, on whether the prepayment is optimal or not. We state the prepayment problem in the context of the optimal stopping theory and present an algorithm to solve the problem via weak convergence of computationally simple trees. Numerical results in the case of the Vasicek model and of the CIR model are also presented. The procedure is extended to the case when both the prepayment as well as the default are possible: in this case, we present a new method of building two-dimensional computationally simple trees, and we apply it to the optimal stopping problem.     

Potential ECB reaction functions with time-varying parameters: an assessment

This paper analyses the behaviour of the European Central Bank over the period 1999–2014 through the estimation of monetary policy reaction functions with time-varying coefficients and heteroskedastic error terms. This allows to evaluate whether relevant shifts in the conduct of monetary policy occurred and whether the current financial crisis had an influence on that. The paper considers two different specifications, one with contemporaneous regressors and one with regressors from surveys. The Taylor rule is then enriched with a set of macroeconomic and financial variables with the aim of testing their significance. Results show that forward-looking variables have a better explanatory power over interest rate policy. All the coefficients are found to be stable along the sample so that no shift in the reaction function can be identified and the financial crisis is found to only lead to a change in the size of the shock. Finally, we also provide evidence about the fact that the ECB has been actually constrained by the zero lower bound during the recent crisis.     

Agricultural price transmission across space and commodities during price bubbles

This article investigates agricultural price transmission during price bubbles. The empirical approach concerns the horizontal transmission of cereal prices both across different market places and across different commodities. The trade policy intervention put forward to mitigate the impact of price exuberance is considered. The analysis is performed using Italian and international weekly spot (cash) price data over years 2006–2010, a period of generalized turbulence of agricultural markets. Firstly, the properties of price time series are explored; then, interdependence across prices is specified and estimated by adopting appropriate cointegration techniques. Results suggest that the bubble had only a slight impact on the price spread and the temporary trade‐policy measure, when effective, has limited this impact.     

Who's boss? Physiological measures during performance assessment

Leadership in organizations consists of a complex process, which includes the interpersonal relationship with collaborators. By using a neuroscientific approach, we evaluated the effect of the presence of unidirectional versus reciprocal feedback (provided only by the leader or by both figures), as well as the assignment of a quantitative or just a qualitative assessment. Skin conductance level and response (SCL and SCR), as well as heart rate (HR), have been recorded during a role playing. Results revealed increased emotional engagement (SCL/SCR) during no rating and reciprocal condition, as well as a stressful response (increased HR) during rating and unidirectional condition.