Feeling good,feeling bad,and feeling at‐risk: a review of incidental affect's influence on likelihood estimates of health hazards and life events

The recent increased interest among researchers in the ways in which emotion, mood, and affect influence risk perceptions is an important step in better understanding how people understand and perceive health risk information. However, the literature involving incidental affect (ambient mood) is not as well known. The 23 years of research examining incidental affect's influence on likelihood estimates of health hazards and life events has not previously been integrated and examined critically. This comprehensive review found that incidental affect influenced likelihood estimates in a predictable way. Individuals experiencing positive affect made more optimistic likelihood estimates than did individuals experiencing negative affect. Individuals experiencing negative affect made more pessimistic likelihood estimates than did individuals experiencing positive affect. Anger was unique among negatively valenced emotions by influencing judgments in the same way as positive affect (i.e., relatively optimistic likelihood estimates). Three theoretical explanations are offered, including one that addresses the role of anger specifically.     

Race to the top or bottom? Corporate governance,freedom of reincorporation and competition in law

Summary This paper investigates the governance structure choices of firms when there is competition between legal systems. We study the impact of the allocation of control over choice of governance and reincorporation on firms’ technologies and technological specialization of countries in the context of a model of the firm in which there are agency conflicts between shareholders and managers. We show that the allocation of control over firms’ reincorporation decisions determines the corporate governance choice ex ante and the outcome of the competition between legal regimes ex post. When managers have control over reincorporation then competitive deregulation and “runs to the bottom” ensue. When shareholders have partial or full control then there is diversity in governance structures. Runs to the bottom are not necessarily socially undesirable but they have a feedback effect on firms’ choices of technologies that may make the party in control worse off ex ante. We show that it is impossible for any country to achieve social welfare maximization of its existing and new enterprises. With competition between legal regimes, start-up and mature companies incorporate in different jurisdictions even when reincorporation is correctly anticipated.     

Exploring Sarbanes–Oxley’s effect on attitudes,perceptions of norms,and intentions to commit financial statement fraud from a general deterrence perspective

This paper uses an experiment to examine how deterrence mechanisms within the Sarbanes–Oxley Act’s (SOX) Sections 404 and 906 influence the fraudulent financial reporting behavior of individuals. The results indicate that the threat of potential jail time can be an effective mechanism for reducing financial statement fraud, but its effectiveness is limited and influenced by a wide range of social, environmental, and demographic factors. The findings show that the incremental increase in potential jail time imposed by SOX creates little deterrence beyond mechanisms that were in place pre-SOX. The findings also reveal that the effect of jail time is primarily a function of economic consequences, such as lost career opportunities that are created from serving just a minimal amount of time in jail. The results should be of interest to regulators and practitioners wanting to understand how SOX-based deterrence mechanisms can influence individual behavior. The results contribute to the general deterrence theory literature by showing how the effect of deterrence mechanisms on illicit behavior can be influenced by social, environmental, and demographic factors.     

Environmental regulation,green innovation,and export product quality: What is the role of greenwashing?

To facilitate sustainable growth, green innovation, and industrial upgrading, it is important to explore the relationship between environmental regulations and firm performance. Green innovation is increasingly being recognized as an important determinant of the quality of export products, which plays a critical role in international business and finance. Therefore, this paper empirically examines the impact of green innovation on export product quality at the firm level using relevant data from Chinese exporters. First, we identify a positive relationship between green innovation and export product quality. Second, environmental regulations are observed to have a negative effect on green innovation for highly-polluting firms but do not significantly impact those with lower levels of pollution. Third, our research reveals that the negative effects only exist in those highly-polluting firms that exhibit greenwashing behavior, with financial constraints strengthening these impacts. Therefore, this study reveals that the greenwashing suppression effect curbs the efficiency of environmental regulations on green innovation.     

What drives investment bank performance? The role of risk,liquidity and fees prior to and during the crisis

This paper examines factors that affect the performance of investment banks in the G7 and Switzerland. In particular, we focus on the role of risk, liquidity and investment banking fees. Panel analysis shows that those variables significantly impact upon performance as derived from Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Given our sample also comprises the financial crisis, we further test for regime switches using dynamic panel threshold analysis. Results show different underlying regimes, in particular over the financial crisis. In addition, a strong positive effect of Z-Score on performance for banks in the regime of low default risk is reported, while fee-income ratio has also a positive impact for banks with low level of fees. On the other hand, liquidity exerts a negative impact. Notably, there is a clear trend of mobility of banks across the two identified threshold regimes with regard to risk a year before the financial crisis. Our results provide evidence that recent regulation reforms regarding capital adequacy and liquidity requirements are on the right track and could enhance performance.     

What is the risk of European sovereign debt defaults? Fiscal space,CDS spreads and market pricing of risk

We estimate the pricing of sovereign risk for fifty countries based on fiscal space (debt/tax; deficits/tax) and other economic fundamentals over 2005–10. We focus in particular on five countries in the South-West Eurozone Periphery, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Dynamic panel estimates show that fiscal space and other macroeconomic factors are statistically and economically important determinants of sovereign risk. However, risk-pricing of the Eurozone Periphery countries is not predicted accurately either in-sample or out-of-sample: unpredicted high spreads are evident during global crisis period, especially in 2010 when the sovereign debt crisis swept over the periphery area. We match the periphery group with five middle income countries outside Europe that were closest in terms of fiscal space during the European fiscal crisis. Eurozone Periphery default risk is priced much higher than the matched countries in 2010, even allowing for differences in fundamentals. One interpretation is that these economies switched to a “pessimistic” self-fulfilling expectational equilibrium. An alternative interpretation is that the market prices not on current but future fundamentals, expecting adjustment challenges in the Eurozone periphery to be more difficult for than the matched group of middle-income countries because of exchange rate and monetary constraints.     

What do friends and the media tell us? How different information channels affect women’s risk perceptions of age‐related female infertility

This paper investigates through which channels women receive information about the general risk levels of age‐related female infertility and how the different channels affect women’s perceptions of the risk. We find that the media reaches women of all ages, while only about one woman in four has received information from the health care system. We also find that friends and relatives are an important source of information that affects women’s risk perceptions. However, the information from friends and relatives seems to generally make female recipients more likely to overestimate the risks. We conclude that the information sources have different, sometimes even opposite, impacts on the risk perceptions, possibly making it harder for a woman to be aware of the true general risks of age‐related infertility.     

Did mega-regional trade agreements reshuffle the financial influence of the US,China, and Japan in ASEAN? Evidence from the volatility-spillover effects

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the succeeding Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) were widely viewed as trade agreements aiming at containing the influence of China and raising that of the US and Japan in Asia. This study utilizes the outward volatility-spillover effect of the equity market as a proxy for a country’s financial influence and analyzes whether the signing of the TPP and CPTPP reshuffled the financial influence of the US, China, and Japan in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The study finds that the TPP and CPTPP did boost the financial influence of the US and Japan in some ASEAN countries; however, there is no evidence that they have reduced the financial influence of China in ASEAN.     

What went wrong? The Puerto Rican debt crisis,the “Treasury Put,” and the failure of market discipline

What went wrong? Why did seemingly rational, forward-looking bond investors continue to purchase Puerto Rican debt with only a modest risk premium? Why did financial markets fail to exercise market discipline and restrict capital flows to Puerto Rico?This paper examines the hypothesis that investors believed Puerto Rican debt was implicitly insured by the U.S. government by studying a rare situation where this “Treasury Put” was extinguished. The expectation of a federal bailout was perfectly reasonable given past behavior by the federal government. Evaluating the Treasury Put hypothesis with a minimal set of assumptions is possible given three unique features of the economic environment. The key feature is an exogenous “seismic shock” – the non-bailout of the city of Detroit in 2013 that effectively extinguished the Treasury Put, estimated in this paper as 350 basis points. Institutional reforms that would eliminate the Treasury Put are considered, but none are found satisfactory. How to extinguish the Treasury Put on an ongoing basis in a democratic society remains an open question.     

Are college students at greater risk of credit card abuse? Age,gender, materialism and parental influence on consumer response to credit cards

Two studies examine age, gender, parental influence and materialism effects on consumers’ credit card attitudes and behavior. Credit card commitment and use are greater among older adults than college students. Women outperform men in managing balances. Materialism heightens commitment, trust and use, but interferes with outstanding balance management. Parental influence can improve students’ commitment, trust, use and balance management while discouraging overuse. Parental influence also mediates materialism's effect on trust and balance management. Overall, findings show college students are not more vulnerable than older adults to credit card abuse, but that students who are female, materialistic and with less parental influence are at more risk.     

What Drives Acquisitions in the EU Banking Industry? The Role of Bank Regulation and Supervision Framework,Bank Specific and Market Specific Factors

We investigate the determinants of commercial bank acquisitions in the former fifteen countries of the European Union by evaluating the impact of bank‐specific measures, such as size, growth and efficiency of banks, and external influences reflecting industry level differences in the regulatory and supervision framework, market environment and economic conditions. Our empirical analysis involves multinomial logit estimation at various levels in order to identify those characteristics that most consistently predict targets and acquirers from a sample of over 1400 commercial banks. The overall results indicate that, relative to banks that were not involved in the acquisitions, (i) targets and acquirers were significantly larger, less well capitalized and less cost efficient, (ii) targets were less profitable with lower growth prospects, and acquirers more profitable with higher growth prospects, (iii) external factors have affected targets and acquirers differently, and their effects have not been consistent or robust to sample size changes.     

What Determined the Great Cap Rate Compression of 2000–2007, and the Dramatic Reversal During the 2008–2009 Financial Crisis?

In this paper we revisit the many studies that have attempted to explain the determinants of commercial real estate capitalization rates. We introduce two new innovations. First we are able to incorporate two macroeconomic factors that greatly impact cap rates besides treasury rates and local market fundamentals – the variables most commonly used in such research. These are the general corporate risk premium operating in the economy, and the growth rate of debt relative to GDP in the general economy (liquidity). The addition of these factors greatly adds to the ability of previous models to explain the secular fall of cap rates in the last decade and their recent rise – in terms of traditional measures of within-sample fit. Our second innovation is methodological; our analysis uses a large and robust quarterly panel data set of over 30 US metropolitan areas from 1980q1 through 2009q3. With this data we compare 3 models: a “base model” and then one that selectively adds each of our macro-economic variables. We test the ability of each of these models to fit the 2002–2009 period using “back test” dynamic forecasts. Our conclusion is that much of the secular decline in cap rates from 2000 through 2007 and their subsequent rise seem attributable to the macro-economic factors and less to movements in market fundamentals.     

A Proposal of an International Environmental Reporting Grid: What Interest for Policymakers,Regulatory Bodies,Companies, and Researchers?: Reply to Discussion of “Mandatory Environmental Disclosures by Companies Complying with IAS/IFRS: The Case of France,Germany and the UK”

This article offers the authors' insights concerning the issues raised by Professor Trevor Wilkins in commentaries on the article “Mandatory environmental disclosures by companies complying with IAS/IFRS: the case of France, Germany, and the UK” (Barbu et al., 2014). As suggested by Professor Wilkins, we demonstrate the utility of the international environmental reporting grid proposed in Barbu et al. (2014, Table 3): (1) for IASB policymakers and other regulatory bodies, (2) for companies to improve their environmental reporting, (3) for further research, and (4) for understanding the economic and financial consequences of IAS/IFRS-compliant environmental information.     

What have we learned from a decade of empirical research on growth? Comment on "Growth Empirics and Reality," by William A. Brock and Steven N. Durlauf

World Bank economists are mostly practical people—peoplewho try to answer the question, "What exactly should this particularcountry do right now?" But if they had hoped that the growthregression lessons summarized in William Brock and Steven Durlauf'sarticle would enhance their practical advice giving, they mightfeel some dissatisfaction. How would they change their adviceto, say, Brazil? But that is why this article is important conceptually.It goes to the heart of the matter by proposing a change inthe empirical growth literature's fundamental methodology—frommodel testing to decision theoretic. The article's valiant but flawed attempt reveals the difficultiesin making this shift, however. I'd like to make three points:There is a tension between the interests of academics and practitionersin growth regressions. Output response heterogeneity is a hugepractical problem. And policy decisions can be guided only inbroad outlines by growth regressions.