Accounting as a legitimating institution

Recent attempts to reconceptualize the role of accounting in organizations and society have suggested that accounting may be examined as a “legitimating institution”. The concept of legitimation, however, has not developed within a single theoretic tradition, rather it emerges from three sociological traditions, each suggesting a distinct perspective on the phenomena and opening new areas for research. This paper reviews perspectives on legitimation, locates existing research on accounting within them, and suggests some areas for further research.     

Political geography and stock returns: The value and risk implications of proximity to political power

We show that political geography has a pervasive effect on the cross-section of stock returns. We collect election results over a 40-year period and use a political alignment index (PAI) of each state's leading politicians with the ruling (presidential) party to proxy for local firms’ proximity to political power. Firms whose headquarters are located in high PAI states outperform those located in low PAI states, both in terms of raw returns, and on a risk-adjusted basis. Overall, although we cannot rule out indirect political connectedness advantages as an explanation of the PAI effect, our results are consistent with the notion that proximity to political power has stock return implications because it reflects firms’ exposure to policy risk.     

Recurrent rescues of a financial institution: Enduring human features and socialised losses

This paper is directed at showing that there are features of accounting resistant to technical progress in legislation, auditing and accounting standards so that it is not so much that history repeats itself as that there remain elements of the practice of accounting beyond legislative reach. Such elements stem essentially from diverse and perhaps ungovernable characteristics of human nature and relationships. This situation is exemplified through two case studies documenting an extraordinary recurrence of financial mal-management in the case of the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ). Twice, the BNZ fell into the hands of forceful individuals with political connections who were able to control its management and influence lending policy with disastrous results. In both instances separated by nearly a century, creative accounting masked poor performance, and the government was persuaded to rescue what was once affectionately known as ‘The People's Bank’. Such rescues represented a socialisation of losses, not least because the BNZ was shareholder-owned and those responsible escaped largely unscathed. Reliance upon the possibility of rescue may even promote riskier behaviour.     

Local economic effects of a government-owned depository institution: Evidence from a natural experiment in Japan

Beginning in 2000, Japan’s postal saving system experienced a rapid outflow of funds as a large number of 10-year Postal Saving Certificates were maturing. This paper exploits this episode as a natural experiment in order to investigate the effects of a government-owned depository institution on local economic performance. The results show that the prefectures in which local funds were more heavily invested in the postal saving system in the early 1990s tended to experience a larger shift of funds away from the postal saving system and that these prefectures performed better in terms of output and small business creation in the early 2000s.     

Can alert models for fraud protect the elderly clients of a financial institution?

ABSTRACT

Using account-level transaction data at a major financial institution, we predict the incidence of suspicious activity that can be related to the external financial fraud of its elderly clients. The data consists of over 5 million accounts of clients aged 70 years and older, and over 250 million transactions extending from January 2015 to August 2016. Our main focus is to improve the detection of alerts within a proprietorial transaction monitoring system. Using logistic regression, random forest and support vector machine learning techniques, together with corrections for imbalanced alert samples, we provide a new alert model for the protection of elderly clients at a financial institution, with out-of-sample predictive accuracy. Our findings show the relative influence of client traits and account activity in our select external fraud alert models.     

Internal loss data collection implementation: evidence from a large UK financial institution

The paper conducts a critical analysis of internal loss data collection implementation in a UK financial institution. We use elite semi-structured interviews, with a sample of 15 operational risk consultants from a leading international financial institution. Using content analysis, the data covers a wide range of business areas, with particular attention drawn towards the development of internal loss collection and operational risk management. The results suggest that the development of operational risk management as a function stems from external compliance (Basel II) and the internal pressure to add value to the business portfolio. This need for compliance was augmented as a driver of internal loss data collection; however, participants also recognised that the function of loss data collection is a tool of solid internal risk management and enhances managerial decision-making. The research also highlights the problems in cleansing data in order to ensure that all information implemented in the capital allocation model is valid and reliable.     

Internal controls in an international financial institution

In 2005 the World Bank decided to undertake a review of the internal controls under the COSO framework which governed the operational compliance of its concessionary funding agency, the International Development Association (IDA). This was the first such review within the Bank and the first by any international financial institution. This article describes the purpose, scope, methodology and execution of that review, touching also on the main findings. The review involved both entity and transactions level design and controls testing, it used creative empirical tools to establish ‘pass rates’ and it provided the basis to uncover a material weakness and several significant deficiencies.     

要强化银信合作监管

随着银信合作业务爆发式的增长,潜在交易风险不断累积,第三方理财公司多如牛毛,信托业风险极易转嫁为银行业风险,监管寻租与监管套利滋生,银信合作考验着政府的监管智慧     

赤道原则:金融机构践行企业社会责任的国际标准

企业社会责任运动背景下赤道原则的产生与发展 自上世纪70年代以来,西方主要发达国家掀起声势浩大的企业社会责任运动,NGO(非政府组织)、媒体、学术界、企业界和政府都参与到这场运动中.到了90年代,企业社会责任运动进入高潮,该运动最直接的一个形式就是企业生产守则运动,其重要的两项内容是维护劳工权利和保护环境.     

传统农区金融需求与机构布局调研报告

传统农村区金融市场发展空间到底有多大?机构布局是否合理?是否需要新型金融机构?为此,《银行家》研究中心先后对四川、河南、吉林三省的6个县的农村金融供给与需求进行了调研。     

Asset pricing implications of benchmarking: a two-factor CAPM

The paper considers the equilibrium effects of an institutional investor whose performance is benchmarked to an index. In a partial equilibrium setting, the objective of the institutional investor is modelled as the maximization of expected utility (an increasing and concave function, in order to accommodate risk aversion) of final wealth minus a benchmark. In equilibrium this optimal strategy gives rise to the two-beta CAPM: together with the market beta a new risk-factor (termed active management risk) is brought into the analysis. This new beta is defined as the normalized (to the benchmark's variance) covariance between the asset excess return and the excess return of the market over the benchmark index. The empirical test supports the model's predictions. The cross-section return on the active management risk is positive and significant, especially after 1990, when institutional investors became the representative agent of the market.     

《多德—弗兰克法案》与金融机构衍生产品业务发展

2010年美国颁布的《多德-弗兰克法案》首次将场外衍生产品市场纳入监管。该法案对场外衍生产品市场监管改革提出了原则性要求,但由于其未明确域外管辖权,这可能会对我国金融机构相关业务的开展产生负面影响。本文梳理了法案有关衍生产品业务的七条新规定,分析了其对我国金融机构衍生产品业务的影响,并提出相关建议。     

现代商业银行操作风险及其管理机制探讨

操作风险管理一直是摆在商业银行面前的一个十分重要而紧迫的课题,操作风险事件纷繁复杂,比之于信用风险和市场风险更难以防范,然而操作风险管理也并非没有规律可循.本文从全面认识操作风险的内涵与特征入手,借鉴国际一流银行操作风险管理经验,通过连点成线,实施集成连贯的操作风险管理;点线结合,培育相互协作的内部关系和经纬交织的内部控制环境;定性和定量相结合,搭建有效的操作风险管理框架,构建起商业银行操作风险管理的长效机制.     

泰国民营金融机构--盤谷银行

众所周知,商业银行形如一条滋养国家经济和社会进步成长的大血管,无论哪一个经济领域的开发都依靠商业银行为主要融资来源,因为由开始实施国家社会经济开发计划直至目前为止的整个阶段中,银行一直是国家金融体制中实力最雄厚的金融机构之一,商业银行在推进为适应世界市场需求的各种工业发展和从事现代化生产中提供了积极的支持,发挥了重大的作用,此中包括在现阶段刚起步和正在成长中的制造业和农产品加工业.     

中美商业银行内部控制制度比较研究

商业银行内部控制是商业银行为实现经营目标,通过制定和实施一系列制度、程序和方法,对风险进行事前防范、事中控制和事后监督和纠正的动态过程和机制(中国人民银行2002年9月《商业银行内部控制指引》)。完善的内控制度可以有效地防范经营风险,有利于银行实现三大目标,即业绩目标、信誉目标和合规性目标。近年来,巴塞尔委员会发布的一系列文件都涉及了商业银行内控制度。我国自2004年2月开始实施的《商业银行法》也以法律形式明确提出“商业银行应当按照有关规定,制定本行的业务规则,建立健全本行的风险管理和内部控制制度”。一、巴塞尔《…     

New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions

This article introduces a large new cross-country database,the Database of Political Institutions. It covers 177 countriesover 21 years, 1975–95. The article presents the intuition,construction, and definitions of the different variables. Amongthe novel variables introduced are several measures of checksand balances, tenure and stability, identification of partyaffiliation with government or opposition, and fragmentationof opposition and government parties in the legislature.