Preparing a research proposal for a student research dissertation: a pedagogic note

When students are required to engage in research of one kind or another and to produce dissertations – whether as a substantial component of a research degree or as a lesser component in a taught degree – the research proposal is a crucial pedagogic mechanism. But whilst textbooks give guidance on the preparation of such a proposal they rarely provide an illustration of what a proposal might look like. This short note attempts to overcome this lack. It provides a fictitious proposal of a fictitious project in a form that may well be required of accounting and finance students. The note also provides some discussion about the process of construction of the proposal and then undertakes a brief auto-critique of the proposal itself. The note is intended, principally, to be used with students to help them in the construction of their own research proposals.     

International equity portfolio investment and enforcement of insider trading laws: a cross-country analysis

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - In this study, we examine the effects of stringent insider trading laws’ enforcement, institutions and stock market development on...     

Consumption-investment problem with transaction costs for Lévy-driven price processes

We consider an optimal control problem for a linear stochastic integro-differential equation with conic constraints on the phase variable and with the control of singular–regular type. Our setting includes consumption-investment problems for models of financial markets in the presence of proportional transaction costs, where the prices of the assets are given by a geometric Lévy process, and the investor is allowed to take short positions. We prove that the Bellman function of the problem is a viscosity solution of an HJB equation. A uniqueness theorem for the solution of the latter is established. Special attention is paid to the dynamic programming principle.     

A review of the IFRS adoption literature

This paper reviews the literature on the effects of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption. It aims to provide a cohesive picture of empirical archival literature on how IFRS adoption affects: financial reporting quality, capital markets, corporate decision making, stewardship and governance, debt contracting, and auditing. In addition, we also present discussion of studies that focus on specific attributes of IFRS, and also provide detailed discussion of research design choices and empirical issues researchers face when evaluating IFRS adoption effects. We broadly summarize the development of the IFRS literature as follows: The majority of early studies paint IFRS as bringing significant benefits to adopting firms and countries in terms of (i) improved transparency, (ii) lower costs of capital, (iii) improved cross-country investments, (iv) better comparability of financial reports, and (v) increased following by foreign analysts. However, these documented benefits tended to vary significantly across firms and countries. More recent studies now attribute at least some of the earlier documented benefits to factors other than adoption of new accounting standards per se, such as enforcement changes. Other recent studies examining the effects of IFRS on the inclusion of accounting numbers in formal contracts point out that IFRS has lowered the contractibility of accounting numbers. Finally, we observe substantial variation in empirical designs across papers which makes it difficult to reconcile differences in their conclusions.     

Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs: A Shift from Philanthropy to Institutional Works?

For Aristotle, virtues are neither transcendent nor universal, but socially interdependent; they need to be understood chronologically and with respect to character and context. This paper uses an Aristotelian lens to analyse an especially interesting context in which to study virtue—the state’s response when social order breaks down. During such periods, questions relating to right action by citizens, the state, and state agents are pronounced. To study this, we analyse data from interviews, observation, and documents gathered during a 3-year study of riot policing in the U.K. In doing so, we contribute by joining a number of other conversations within JBE, suggesting detailed empirical examination of this context is useful in opening up considerations relevant to ‘virtue’ elsewhere. This extreme context helps us raise interesting and empirically informed questions that can encourage future theoretical and empirical contributions to virtue in business ethics. One such question is on the role of habituation in virtue, which is not just the inculcation of a reflex or automaticity, but can also refer to a trained and developed tendency to behave in the right way, for the right reasons, at the right time. Whilst we stop short of a simplistic alignment of habituation and virtue, we show ways in which it can inform understanding of both courage and phronēsis.     

Vertical integration in West Africa's cotton industry: are parastatals a second best solution?

This article provides a framework to compare market outcomes among vertically integrated monopsonies in the cotton sector of West Africa and alternative, more competitive market structures. Based on a principal agent framework, in the presence of factor market constraints, as well as capital market failure, efficiently operated cotton parastatals increase sector welfare and efficiency by providing input credits. In equilibrium, outcomes with the principal agent model suggest growers receive the reservation income to participate in cotton production while the principal (cotton company) extracts the surplus above the reservation income. Competitive markets entail more equitable distribution of benefits than with parastatal vertical integration, but credit and factor market constraints can still persist. Promotion of a competitive market system will not support cotton productivity growth unless stakeholders pursue complementary programs to develop credit markets and research and extension institutions. In the presence of current market failures, parastatals may be a second‐best solution.     

Vertical Contracts and Downstream Entry*

We study the implications of different contractual forms in a market with an incumbent upstream monopolist and free downstream entry. We show that traditional conclusions regarding the desirability of linear contracts radically change when entry in the downstream market is endogenous rather than exogenous. By triggering more entry than two-part tariffs, wholesale price contracts can generate higher aggregate output, consumer surplus, and welfare. In light of this, the upstream monopolist may prefer to trade with wholesale price contracts as well as to give up part of its bargaining power when it is high.