Corporate Governance and the Prediction of the Impact of AIFRS Adoption

This study examines whether a firm's corporate governance system, particularly with respect to the characteristics of the board of directors and senior management, affects how accurately the impact of accounting changes is reported to shareholders. We concentrate on the relation between corporate governance measures and accounting forecast errors that arise with adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards by listed Australian firms. Evidence reveals that corporate governance mechanisms are associated with the likelihood and magnitude of managerial forecast errors.     

Modelling money demand in open economies: the case of selected Asian countries

While early work on money demand estimation focused primarily on the importance of domestic variables, many studies in later years have suggested that foreign variables also influence the domestic demand for money in an open economy. With the rapid financial market liberalization in some of the Asian economies in the last couple of decades, open economy factors have become very important in the determination of money demand. Therefore, this paper aims to ascertain the degree to which foreign opportunity cost variables influence money demand in the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea. Cointegration analysis is performed and an error correction model estimated using quarterly time-series data. The empirical results support the inclusion of foreign opportunity cost variables in the money demand function.     

Dividend Payouts and Information Shocks

We examine changes in firms’ dividend payouts following an exogenous shock to the information asymmetry problem between managers and investors. Agency theories predict a decrease in dividend payments to the extent that improved public information lowers managers’ need to convey their commitment to avoid overinvestment via costly dividend payouts. Conversely, dividends could increase if minority investors are in a better position to extract cash dividends. We test these predictions by analyzing the dividend payment behavior of a global sample of firms around the mandatory adoption of IFRS and the initial enforcement of new insider trading laws. Both events serve as proxies for a general improvement of the information environment and, hence, the corporate governance structure in the economy. We find that, following the two events, firms are less likely to pay (increase) dividends, but more likely to cut (stop) such payments. The changes occur around the time of the informational shock, and only in countries and for firms subject to the regulatory change. They are more pronounced when the inherent agency issues or the informational shocks are stronger. We further find that the information content of dividends decreases after the events. The results highlight the importance of the agency costs of free cash flows (and changes therein) for shaping firms’ payout policies.     

Officer retention and military spending: the rise of the military-industrial complex during the Second World War

This article examines how the regional distribution of US military personnel contributed to military expenditures around the country. We first discuss a theory of political economy for military spending—officers who remain in service can eventually help channel military funds and employment to their respective regions of origin, through direct military spending decisions or indirect political channels. Further, if officer retention is positively related to less industrialization at home (fewer work opportunities at home induce greater service lengths), this channel will induce greater progressiveness in military spending. To test these ideas we use the personnel records of officers serving in the US Navy from 1870 to the late 1930s. Tracking the tenure of all officers, we construct measures of ‘military representation’ across US counties. Through ordinary least squares, Tobit, and instrumental variable approaches, we find that senior naval officer representation across regions positively and robustly predicts regional naval spending (but not spending from other branches) during the Second World War.     

Corporate Scandals and Regulation

Are regulatory interventions delayed reactions to market failures or can regulators proactively pre‐empt corporate misbehavior? From a public interest view, we would expect “effective” regulation to ex ante mitigate agency conflicts between corporate insiders and outsiders, and prevent corporate misbehavior from occurring or quickly rectify transgressions. However, regulators are also self‐interested and may be captured, uninformed, or ideological, and become less effective as a result. In this registered report, we develop a historical time series of corporate (accounting) scandals and (accounting) regulations for a panel of 26 countries from 1800 to 2015. An analysis of the lead‐lag relations at both the global and individual country level yields the following insights: (1) Corporate scandals are an antecedent to regulation over long stretches of time, suggesting that regulators are typically less flexible and informed than firms. (2) Regulation is positively related to the incidence of future scandals, suggesting that regulators are not fully effective, that explicit rules are required to identify scandalous corporate actions, or that new regulations have unintended consequences. (3) There exist systematic differences in these lead‐lag relations across countries and over time, suggesting that the effectiveness of regulation is shaped by fundamental country characteristics like market development and legal tradition.     

信贷需求:小额信贷覆盖率的决定因素之一-来自中国北方四县调查的证据

过去对小额信贷项目覆盖率的研究集中在供给方面,本文应用大规模农户调查的数据,从需求方面研究了中国三个小额信贷项目覆盖率低的问题。研究发现,在中国贫困地区试验的孟加拉乡村银行模式的小额信贷项目不能自动地瞄准贫困地区的贫困人口,许多贫困农户将自身排除在小额信贷市场之外。本文的结论是,尽管中国的小额信贷试点项目没有能自动瞄准贫困地区的贫困户,它们仍然对中国的扶贫做出了积极贡献。为了提高小额信贷项目对贫困人群的覆盖率,需要通过减少对贫困人口的其他约束、依照贫困人群的需要定制小额贷款产品等方式来提高贫困农户对小额贷款的需求。     

Slack budgeting,information distortion and self-esteem*

Abstract. A week after taking a self-esteem test, subjects were provided with false feedback (either positive or negative) and neutral feedback about their self-esteem score. They were then asked to make two budgeting decisions, one cost estimate first and then one sales estimate for a fictional budgeting decision. In general, the individuals who were provided with information which temporarily caused them to lower their self-esteem were more apt to distort input information than those who were made to raise their self-esteem. It is concluded that, whereas slack budgeting may be consistent with generally low self-esteem feedback, it is inconsistent with generally high or neutral self-esteem feedback. Résumé. Une semaine après avoir subi un test d'estime de soi, on a présenté aux sujets un faux “feedback” (soit positif ou négatif) et un “feedback” neutre relativement aux résultats de leur test. On leur a alors demandé de prendre deux décisions budgétaires dans une situation fictive: la première sur une estimation de coûts et la deuxième sur une estimation de ventes. En général, les individus qui recevaient l'information qui temporairement les amenait à diminuer leur estime de soi, étaient plus aptes à déformer l'information reçue que ceux qui étaient amenés à augmenter leur estime de soi. On conclut, qu'un budget qui a du jeu, peut être compatible avec les “feedback” qui sont généralement du type faible estime de soi, et non compatible avec les “feedback” qui sont généralement du type haute ou neutre estime de soi.