Cost of Capital for Exempt Foreign Private Issuers: Information Risk Effect or Earnings Quality Effect? It Depends

We examine whether the information risk accompanying Foreign Private Issuers' (FPIs) exemptions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting requirements is associated with capital market penalties (measured by a higher cost of equity capital) and, further, the extent to which this information risk is mitigated by earnings quality. Our overall results indicate that exempt FPIs exhibit a higher cost of equity capital than reporting FPIs, and this relation still persists after controlling for earnings quality. Furthermore, we partition our sample into firms from strong and weak investor protection environments. Interestingly, similar to the results in Francis et al. (2008), for FPIs from strong investor protection regimes we find no difference in the cost of capital between exempt and filing FPIs, even after controlling for earnings quality. To the contrary, for FPIs from weak investor protection regimes, we find that the exemption is associated with a higher cost of equity capital, and that earnings quality does not significantly reduce the premium paid by these issuers.     

A Partnership Model of Corporate Ethics

The stock market crash of 1987 had a profound effect on corporate Australia and the Australian community in general. The fall-out revealed that some of our most respected business figures had not been as ethical, or even as lawful, as we would have hoped. This impropriety produced in Australia an awakening to business ethics. Whilst many companies endeavoured to introduce ethical practices into their corporations, they perceived ethics as a way of minimising damage to the corporation and in some cases as a means of competitive advantage. What was lost was the reason that one should embark on business ethics; and that is to make the society and corporate Australia a more ethical place in which to exist.This paper proposes a model based on 2 factors: commitment and partnerships, as a means of enabling corporate Australia to refocus attention on the main purpose of being inherently ethical in all that we do. This ethical model requires a commitment to partnerships with all stakeholders both internal and external in an attempt to enhance the level of ethical business practices that are contemplated and pursued within corporate Australia. Whilst the research agenda and the information collected is Australian-based, it is hoped that the ideas contained within this paper will have a wider appeal to corporations in similar cultural settings.     

An Instrument to Measure Level 5 Leadership

The objective of this research project was to develop a validated scale to measure Level 5 Leadership using the Collins ( 2005 ) Level 5 attributes. An expert panel reduced the 99 attributes from Collins to 74. The 349 participants evaluated their bosses on a 10‐point semantic differential scale for each attribute. A review of the literature suggested that Level 5 leadership and servant leadership represent the same concept; thus the study used a 10‐item servant leadership scale to check for concurrent validity. Additionally, Collins proposed eight untested questions to determine if individuals qualify as Level 5 leaders. Principal component analysis resulted in two factors that explained 55.2% of the variance; these factors matched Collins's proposed personal humility and professional will constructs. The final instrument contains five attributes of personal humility and five attributes of professional will that yield Cronbach alphas of .83 and .83, respectively. The analysis also revealed statistically significant positive relationships between the Level 5 attributes, servant leadership, and a single factor that represented Collins's eight questions.     

Violence,Aggression, and Ethics: The Link Between Exposure to Human Violence and Unethical Behavior

Can exposure to media portrayals of human violence impact an individual’s ethical decision making at work? Ethical business failures can result in enormous financial losses to individuals, businesses, and society. We study how exposure to human violence—especially through media—can cause individuals to make less ethical decisions. We present three experiments, each showing a causal link between exposure to human violence and unethical business behavior, and show this relationship is mediated by an increase in individual hostility levels as a result of exposure to violence. Using observational data, we then provide evidence suggesting that this relationship extends beyond the context of our experiments, showing that companies headquartered in locations marked by greater human violence are more likely to fraudulently misstate their financial statements and exhibit more aggressive financial reporting. Combined, our results suggest that exposure to human violence has significant and real effects on an individual’s ethical decision making.     

TBT and SPS impacts on Korean exports to China: empirical analysis using the PPML method

Since diplomatic relations were established between China and Korea, the two countries have expanded their relationships, especially in trading commodities and services. However, in recent years, as tariff levels have fallen, China has sought to implement other protectionist mechanisms. The use of non‐tariff measures has added another dimension to international trade activities that need to be better understood. The paper analyses the impacts that two forms of non‐tariff measures, technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, have on Korean exports to China. To measure the impacts, we use an adapted version of the gravity model and the Poisson pseudo‐maximum likelihood method. The results show that Chinese sanitary and phytosanitary measures, estimated using both the coverage ratio and the frequency index, have positive correlations with Korean agricultural exports; however, Chinese TBT measures, when estimated by the coverage ratio, were found to depress Korean manufacturing exports and exports as a whole. However, using the frequency index, Chinese TBT measures were found to have a statistically insignificant negative impact on Korean exports to China.     

Are There Investor Clienteles in Rental Housing?

The possible existence of investor clientele groups has received little attention in the real estate finance literature. In this paper we develop a clientele model, which in equilibrium produces a clustering of investors by tax characteristics. Low-tax-bracket investors are concentrated in low-value rental housing that attracts rents which are high in relation to property values. On the other hand, only high-tax-bracket investors will be observed in high-value rental housing, and they charge rents that are low in relation to property values. An empirical model is specified and estimated using a cross section of investors in Australian private rental housing markets. Investor clienteles are detected among property investors, though there is a weak diversification effect indicating that clientele effects may be stronger among single property investors.     

Stop tank abuse

Large volumes of fluids are processed or stored in tanks of all shapes and sizes and occupy a major portion of the landscape within our chemical plants and refineries. These tanks serve the industry very well but occasionally they suffer from improper design or abusive conditions and failures occur.