The IFRS option to reclassify financial assets out of fair value in 2008: the roles played by regulatory capital and too-important-to-fail status

Amendment of IAS 39 by the IASB in 2008 provided an option to reclassify investments from fair value to historical cost. We predict that too-important-to-fail (TITF) banks took less advantage of this option because the political protection they enjoyed insulated them from regulatory pressure. Banks that did not enjoy this protection had greater reason to make use of this option since doing so would protect their Tier 1 capital. As predicted, findings reveal that TITF banks made less use of the reclassification option to protect their Tier 1 capital and there is a significant moderating influence of TITF status on the incentive to reclassify investments for banks with lower regulatory capital. This finding is consistent with TITF banks placing less weight on protecting regulatory capital and thereby retaining flexibility to sell assets. Our findings provide evidence that accounting choices are affected by the importance of banks to their economies.     

Harmonious Stock Prices

Stock price movements in China still remain highly harmonious, in spite of the many significant regulatory and structural changes over the recent years. A survey of the literature reveals that harmony in the stock price movements is related to a few salient features in China＇s capital market： high ownership concentration, high incidence of the use of pyramidal ownership structure, significant state ownership, and a lack of active institutional investors. In addition, we also point out that harmonious stock prices may generally result from low intensity of private information acquisitions by risk arbitrageurs.     

Assessing advertising content in a hospital advertising campaign: An application of Puto and Wells (1984) measure of informational and transformational advertising content

The following is a report of a study designed to measure advertising content based on the cognitive and affective elements of informational (i.e., information processing) and transformational (i.e., experiential) content using the measure of advertising informational and transformational content developed by Puto and Wells (1984). A university hospital advertising campaign designed to be high in transformational content did not appear to affect perceived quality of local university hospitals relative to private hospitals or increase the likelihood of choosing a university hospital in the future. Further, experiences with university hospitals that seemed to be in direct contrast to the content of the advertisements based on subject perceptions affected how university hospital advertisements were perceived in terms of content. Conclusions and implications for hospital advertising campaigns are discussed.     

Values,personality traits,and packaging-free shopping: A mixed-method approach

This research examines packaging-free shopping, which contributes to reducing the negative impact of plastic packaging on the environment, and its’ relationship with green consumption values, value consciousness, and psychological traits. A mixed-methods approach is adopted with quantitative followed by qualitative research. Study 1 recruits 240 respondents from social media and the lead author's university website to examine different factors that increase consumers’ likelihood of packaging-free shopping. Study 2 recruits packaging-free shoppers from Facebook Pages, explores these findings and provides further insights. Study 1 finds that consumers are driven more by green consumer values than by value consciousness, and consumers who are more conscientious are more likely to do packaging-free shopping. Study 2 supports this by finding that green consumer values drive packaging-free shopping, but this in only one part of their green efforts. The research contributes by illustrating the importance of conscientiousness specifically in the domain of packaging-free shopping and that these packaging-free shoppers are not driven in terms of value for money but by addressing their green consumer values. We recommend that packaging-free retailers and policy makers utilize promotional efforts to communicate how packaging-free shopping provides a balance with consumers’ green values for these shoppers, how it fits in with their other green efforts, and how these shopping efforts are making a difference in helping the environment.