Personal loan users’ mental integration of payment and consumption

Buying a good on a loan entails numerous consumption and payment episodes. Loan users can either mentally integrate or separate these episodes. In order to identify the actual mental structures, we conducted 29 semi-structured interviews with current and prospective loan users. A content analysis revealed that a majority of loan users established a hedonically efficient one-way connection from the loan to the good; i.e., the good was perceived as unrelated to the loan, whereas, concurrently, payments were buffered by thoughts of the good. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that mental structures are less stable than sometimes assumed.     

Truthfulness in Accounting: How to Discriminate Accounting Manipulators from Non-manipulators

Accountants preparing information are in a position to manipulate the view of economic reality presented in such information to interested parties. These manipulations can be regarded as morally reprehensible because they are not fair to users, they involve in an unjust exercise of power, and they tend to weaken the authority of accounting regulators. This paper develops a model for detecting earnings manipulators using financial statements’ ratios in a sample of Spanish listed companies. Our results provide evidence that accounting data can be extremely useful in detecting manipulators. This approach can be used by a large category of users of accounting information among which we can cite stock exchange supervisors or investing professionals.     

State intervention and the microcredit market: the role of business development services

We analyze in this paper how various forms of state intervention can impact microfinance institutions’ lending behavior. Using a simple model where entrepreneurs receive individual uncollateralized loans, we show that, not surprisingly, state intervention through the loan guarantee increases the number of entrepreneurs receiving a loan. However, after modeling business development services (BDS) provided by the microfinance institution, we show that the loan guarantee can have a counterproductive effect by reducing the number of entrepreneurs benefiting from such services. We therefore analyze an alternative policy: BDS subsidization. We show that if BDS are efficient enough and are targeted toward less performing borrowers, then—for fixed government expenditures—such subsidies do better in terms of financial inclusion than the loan guarantee. Moreover, we argue that—under similar conditions—BDS subsidization alone does better in terms of financial inclusion than a mix of policies.     

转型期货币渠道与信贷渠道有效性的实证研究

本文运用基于VAR模型的时间序列分析方法对我国转型期货币渠道与信贷渠道的有效性进行了实证研究。脉冲响应函数分析表明产出和通货膨胀对贷款冲击的响应比其对货币供给冲击的响应更为显著,预测方差的分解结果证实贷款对产出和通货膨胀的贡献率均远远大于货币供给量的贡献率,故转型期内信贷渠道相对于货币渠道更为有效。因此,为增强货币政策的有效性,中央银行应同时监控货币和信贷指标,货币政策操作也要以有效调节私人部门的信贷可得量为基础。     

资产减值准备政策选择的经济学分析

资产减值准备政策为提高会计信息质量起到推动作用,但也为企业在一定范围内操纵利润留下空间。从经济学角度,对资产减值准备政策选择的原因和动机进行分析,以达到提高会计信息质量的目的,实现对企业资产减值政策的有效监督。     

Credit Where None Is Due? Authorized‐User Account Status and Piggybacking Credit

“Piggybacking credit” is a new practice that helps consumers improve their credit scores by paying to become “authorized users” on established accounts. Authorized users are not liable for paying an account, but because of Regulation B (which implements the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act), the account's history factors into their credit scores. As a result piggybacking can be used to manipulate the signal of creditworthiness that scores provide and may help borrowers obtain credit for which they would not have otherwise qualified. This article investigates the policy questions raised by piggybacking. First, we evaluate whether the credit history disparities that motivated these provisions of Regulation B have persisted since they were written. Then, we assess the potential for score improvement through piggybacking. Finally, we evaluate the likely score effects of allowing credit scoring models to exclude authorized‐user accounts, the most widely proposed policy response to the emergence of piggybacking.     

Predictive Strength of Lending Technologies in Funding SMEs

Using a proprietary database of lending decisions (N = 9,898) for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), the paper investigates how banks cope with the adverse selection dilemma. Based on an intertemporal framework, we qualify incorrect and correct lending decisions of banks and investigate the power of lending technologies to predict errors and correct choices. Findings suggest that adverse selection can be better controlled by a durable bank–firm relationship, as well as by an atomistic loan decision process, at the local level. By contrast, a loan decision‐making process based exclusively on hard financial information about SMEs may lead to adverse selection errors.     

Conditionality and Aid Effectiveness Re‐evaluated

This paper evaluates aid by considering how effective aid has been in exerting leverage on policy choices. It is rather easy to demonstrate that if a country is unwilling to implement policy reforms, attaching conditions to aid will not ensure sustained reform. In this sense conditionality does not work. This ignores the fact that donors, through aid and conditions, can influence recipient policies. The argument of this paper is that if the analysis focuses on channels of influence, one can better identify ways to enhance aid effectiveness. Reform is a slow and difficult process and donors would be more effective ‘development partners’ if they see their role as being to support rather than force this process. In simple terms, donors should provide the information and technical assistance to help governments to make policy choices, rather than dictating choices by imposing conditions.     

Estimating the effects of nutrition label use on Canadian consumer diet‐health concerns using propensity score matching

The overarching goal of nutrition labelling is to transform intrinsic credence attributes into searchable cues, which would enable consumers to make informed food choices at lower search costs. This study estimates the impact of nutrition label usage on Canadian consumers’ (n = 8,114) perceived diet‐health concerns using alternative propensity score matching (PSM) techniques. We apply a series of tests and sensitivity analyses to overcome issues of endogeneity and selection bias frequently found in studies of diet‐health behaviour and to validate the impact of exposure to nutrition facts labels for users vs. non‐users. Our results support the notion that consumer uncertainty and related food‐health concerns are linked to their information behaviour, but not in straightforward manner. Dominant subjective food attributes, such as taste, convenience and affordability, may in fact outweigh the benefits of information about healthier, alternative food choices. In order to change dietary health behaviour, food manufacturer and policy makers alike need to adopt communication instruments that better account for differences in preferences, shopping habits and overall usage patterns of nutrition labelling information.     

Does an Overdraft Facility Influence the Customer Costs of Using a Personal Current Account?

This study examines whether personal current accounts offering an overdraft facility cost customers less to use than accounts not offering this service. This analysis uses a UK data set of 222 personal current accounts, recorded monthly between 1995 and 2011, in combination with interest rates from 1200 instant-access deposit accounts offered contemporaneously by the same firms. Our results indicate personal current accounts offering overdraft facilities have higher deposit and payment service costs than accounts not offering this service. The finding is robust to varying service attributes. This result is inconsistent with suggestions that overdraft users have been cross-subsidising other personal current account users as widely reported in theoretical and policy literatures. It is concluded that implicit and inertia costs of personal current account use may be more influential than previously reported in the pricing of these accounts.     

Corporate governance and accounting conservatism in Islamic banks

We examine whether Islamic banks are more likely to be conservative in their financial reporting than conventional banks, as well as how Islamic banks' unique corporate governance system affects accounting conservatism behaviors. Using a large sample of Islamic banks and their matched non‐Islamic banks; based on total assets and geographic location, in 15 countries, we find Islamic banks are more likely to deploy accounting conservatism as measured by loss avoidance, abnormal loan loss provisions, and C‐score, respectively. Islamic banks are about 95% more likely to be more conservative in accounting practices than their counterparts, depending on different model specifications. In addition, we report several board characteristics, such as size, independence, reputation, tenure, and diversity, are important determinants of accounting conservatism in Islamic banks. This relationship indicates certain board traits lead to greater monitoring roles, consequently reducing unethical behavior and increasing the degree of conservatism in accounting practices.     

The path of lease resistance: How changes to lease accounting treatment may impact your business

In this installment of Accounting Matters, we examine potential consequences of the Financial Accounting Standards Board's Proposed Accounting Standards Updates for Leases. In the context of a previous accounting change (FIN 48), we investigate how these changes will affect firms’ accounting choices, investment decisions, debt covenant requirements, and analysis of other key financial data. Changes in accounting standards may have significant indirect economic effect on companies as they can trigger debt covenant violations, restrict access to capital, and distort key financial information used by investors and lenders. New accounting standards may also directly affect the calculation of employee bonuses and incentives that utilize EBITDA or operating income as benchmarks. We include recommendations for managers and identify specific debt covenant components that may limit the negative consequences of the proposed change to lease accounting.     

上市公司会计政策选择分析

随着新企业会计准则的实施,上市公司会计政策有了较大的可选择空间。同时,也必须认识到,上市公司一方面可以根据其生产经营目标和特点选择更适宜的会计政策,以保证会计信息的真实与公允,另一方面,新会计准则增加了上市公司利用会计政策选择进行盈余管理、报表粉饰甚至利润操纵的可能性。应控制会计政策的滥用,使企业会计政策选择剩余权不宜过大;健全上市公司的内部监控机制;完善上市公司会计准则。     

Spatial agent-based modeling of household and firm location with endogenous transport costs

The paper describes a spatial economic agent-based model (ABM), consistent with the principles of new economic geography (NEG), which allows the discrete-time evolutionary simulation of complex interactions of household and firm location choices. In contrast with the current ABM approaches, it considers a multi-regional (multi-urban) setting to enable a more realistic representation of decisions related to commuting, migration and firm (re)location. The model allows simulating spatially differentiated, multi-commodity markets for land and labor in a system of cities and the behavior of profit-maximizing firms with multi-regional asset investment decisions, incorporating endogenous transport costs with congestion effects. It also accounts for the impact of agglomeration forces on industrial location choices and the formation of urban development patterns. The conceptual framework and main components of the spatial ABM are presented and several implementation issues are discussed with regard to possible case-specific applications and policy scenarios.     

Do You See What I See? A Simulation Analysis of Order Bundling within a Transparent User Network in Geographic Space

The Physical Internet (PI) concept presents a radical change with the aim to revert the unsustainable practices that are used for transporting goods. It identifies dedicated freight flows and transforms them into transparent open logistics networks which can be accessed by other users, such as shippers and carriers. In this paper, we test the universal network openness in which the users can tap into the PI network and place orders that will be assigned to the nearest available transport service and consequently delivered to the order sender. The objective of our paper is to investigate the impact of inserting extra service points into existing dedicated freight flows of a service‐driven company. We simulate different transparency levels and routings to new pickup locations and evaluate the impact in terms of altered lead times, covered distances, and fill rates. The novel aspects presented herein are (1) deliveries based on decentralized location detection of the nearest order sender, (2) dynamically changing speed parameters of agents within specific geographic clusters based on their geo‐locations in order to account for congestion levels, (3) more realistic routing strategies that consider the urban layout, and (4) transparent querying of nearest agents in space and time that meet specific conditions such as current ongoing processes, available capacity, and position. Finally, we identify the impact from a general/holistic perspective that emerges once extra orders are assigned to the service‐driven company's fleet.     

全球创意产品贸易发展趋势及中国机遇

对全球创意产品贸易发展的趋势及其特点进行了简要分析,并剖析了中国当前创意产品贸易的发展趋势、特点以及在全球创意产品贸易中所处的地位。分析认为,作为全球贸易新的增长点和新引擎,全球创意产品贸易的快速发展为中国带来了新的机遇,应从增加创意产业的科研投入以及加强创意产品贸易的政策支撑力度等方面,提升中国创意产品贸易的国际竞争力。     

浅谈编制中期财务报告需注意的五大问题

财务会计报告所提供的会计信息质量好坏,直接影响会计信息使用者做出正确的判断和决策.投资者想要及时有效地了解公司的财务状况、经营成果及其现金流量,已不再满足于传统的年报,他们对于中期财务报告的编制要求越来越迫切.     

Leasing Versus Borrowing: Evaluating Alternative Forms of Consumer Credit

A straightforward method for evaluating lease versus borrow (buy) decisions facing consumers is presented and illustrated with actual financing cost data reported to new car purchasers. In general, individuals should consider the after-tax cash flows associated with alternative borrowing arrangements, the period of time in which these cash flows occur, and the opportunity cost of capital in order to identify the least costly financing alternative. The decision framework provided in this article can be used to make informed and intelligent choices between alternative types of consumer credit contracts.     

Sectoral credit reallocation: An excessive bank risk-taking explanation

This paper develops a theoretical model to provide an alternative explanation for the credit to nontradable sector growing faster than credit to tradable sector, after a US expansionary monetary policy, based on an excessive risk-taking channel. This is, a reduced foreign interest rate decreases bank default probability, which in turn diminishes banks’ incentives to take excessive risk. This produces a reallocation of loan supply to nontradable sector since tradable loans are riskier. Using monthly sectoral credit data at the bank level for the Peruvian economy in the 2004–2019 period, we find evidence of the excessive bank risk-taking channel on sectoral credit reallocation.