Information Deficiencies in the Reporting of Litigation Loss Contingencies

Accounting standards dealing with contingent losses often emphasise quantification and accrual of the losses under certain conditions. Where litigation loss contingencies are involved, this emphasis is at the expense of providing guidelines for the reporting of the uncertainties surrounding these events. This paper examines the uncertainty surrounding litigation loss contingencies and the need for more articulate guidelines for their reporting.     

The effects of the Yuan‐dollar exchange rate on agricultural commodity trade between the United States,China, and their competitors

The United States claims that the undervaluation of Chinese currency, the Yuan, causes U.S. exports to China to decrease and imports from China to increase. Furthermore, because the Yuan is undervalued only against the dollar, U.S. competitors have an advantage in exporting to China and China has an advantage over its competitors in exporting to the United States. This study develops a theoretical model to analyze the effect of the Yuan undervaluation on prices, supply, demand, and trade in the United States, China, and their competitors. This study applies a cointegration/error‐correction model to empirically quantify the short‐run and long‐run effects of the devaluation of the Yuan on important agricultural commodities traded between the United States, China, and their competitors. These commodities include Chinese imports of milk, soybeans, and cotton from the United States and U.S. imports of beans, fruit juice, and fruit from China. The results show that Yuan devaluation causes Chinese imports of U.S. milk, soybeans, and cotton to decline and U.S. imports of beans, fruit juice, and fruit from China to increase in the short run and in the long run.     

The Relationship between Shareholder Return and CEO Pay over a CEO's Full Period of Service

The author reports the findings of his examination of the relationship between CEO pay and performance, as measured by shareholder returns, using measures of compensation and returns that span a CEO's full period of service. Unlike studies that look at annual measures of CEO pay and stock returns—which are distorted by the widespread use of options and the arbitrary effects of when CEOs choose to exercise their options—the author finds a statistically significant connection between total compensation and shareholder return measured over full periods of service for 521 S&P 500 CEOs. Indeed, after one adjusts for differences in the length of a CEO's service, shareholder return is arguably the most important determinant of variation in the amount paid CEOs over their complete tenures. Besides answering the legion of critics of CEO pay, the author's analysis refutes the claim that bull markets are the main force driving executive pay by demonstrating that the increases in career pay attributable to increases in shareholder returns are almost exactly offset by reductions in pay when the Value‐Weighted (S&P 500) Index increases by the same amount. In other words, CEOs’ cumulative career pay is effectively driven by the extent to which their stock returns outperform the broad market. The analysis also casts doubt on the popular claim that the link between CEO pay and corporate size provides incentives to undertake even value‐reducing acquisitions to boost size. As the author's analysis shows, the estimated losses in career CEO pay associated with even small declines in shareholder returns are likely to be offset by the pay increases attributable to size.     

The Effect of CFO Personal Litigation Risk on Firms’ Disclosure and Accounting Choices

In Gantler v. Stephens (2009), the Delaware Supreme Court makes explicit that corporate officers owe the same fiduciary duty to the firm and shareholders as do board members. The decision increased the risk of non‐board‐serving officers being added as named defendants to investor litigation but did not change the risk of corporate litigation. Analyzing the effect of the Gantler ruling on non‐board‐serving CFOs, we find a significant change in their behavior as well as in their firms’ disclosure and accounting choices. Specifically, speech tone during earnings calls of non‐board‐serving CFOs becomes more negative when compared to board‐serving CFOs and the firm's CEO, and non‐board‐serving CFO firms disclose bad news earlier and report more conservatively. Results are stronger for firms incorporated in Delaware. Our findings suggest that CFOs respond to personal litigation risk over and above corporate litigation risk.     

中国固定资产投资的金融驱动力实证研究

通过使用面板数据的建模分析技术,研究了中国区域固定资产投资与金融机构存贷款量之间的关系。研究发现,金融机构是推动本地区固定资产投资增长的重要因素,但是受到政府的区域发展战略规划、地方行政性因素、非公有制经济信贷约束等诸多因素,从而金融机构对于投资的正向推动力度出现了由东向西依次递增的特殊现象。     

A dynamic quality ladder model with entry and exit: Exploring the equilibrium correspondence using the homotopy method

This paper explores the equilibrium correspondence of a dynamic quality ladder model with entry and exit using the homotopy method. This method is ideally suited for systematically investigating the economic phenomena that arise as one moves through the parameter space and is especially useful in games that have multiple equilibria. We briefly discuss the theory of the homotopy method and its application to dynamic stochastic games. We then present three main findings: First, the more costly and/or less beneficial it is to achieve or maintain a given quality level, the more a leader invests in striving to induce the follower to give up; the more quickly the follower does so; and the more asymmetric is the industry structure that arises. Second, the possibility of entry and exit gives rise to predatory and limit investment. Third, we illustrate and discuss the multiple equilibria that arise in the quality ladder model, highlighting the presence of entry and exit as a source of multiplicity.     

Marketing and politics: Models, behavior, and policy implications

The American presidential election is one of the largest, most expensive, and most comprehensive marketing efforts. Despite this fact, marketing scholars have largely ignored this campaign, as well as thousands of others for congresspersons, senators, and governors. This article describes the growth of interest in research issues related to political marketing. This emerging research area lies at the crossroads of marketing and political science, but these fields have developed largely independent of one another with little cross-fertilization of ideas. We discuss recent theoretical, empirical, and behavioral work on political campaigns, integrating perspectives from marketing and political science. Our focus is on (1) the extent to which paradigms used in goods and services marketing carry over to the institutional setting of political campaigns, (2) what changes are necessary in models and methodology to understand issues in political marketing and voter behavior, and (3) how the special setting of politics may help us gain a better understanding of certain topics central to marketing such as advertising, branding, and social networks.     

ON ERROR CORRECTION MODELS: SPECIFICATION, INTERPRETATION, ESTIMATION

Abstract. Error Correction Models (ECMs) have proved a popular organising principle in applied econometrics, despite the lack of consensus as to exactly what constitutes their defining characteristic, and the rather limited role that has been given to economic theory by their proponents. This paper uses a historical survey of the evolution of ECMs to explain the alternative specifications and interpretations and proceeds to examine their implications for estimation. The various approaches are illustrated for wage equations by application to UK labour market data 1855–1987. We demonstrate that error correction models impose strong and testable non-linear restrictions on dynamic econometric equations, and that they do not obviate the need for modelling the process of expectations formation. With the exception of a few special cases, both the non-linear restrictions and the modelling of expectations have been ignored by those who have treated ECMs as merely reparameterisations of dynamic linear regression models or vector autoregressions.