Business Ethics in The Philippines

The plurality of languages and ethnicities, the geographic fragmentation, the predominant Roman Catholic religion, together with the still relatively short experience in nationhood account for a very peculiar understanding of "business ethics" in the Philippines. The rapid growth and liberalization of the economy, coupled with the inequitable distribution of wealth, the destruction of the environment and corruption are the main ethical concerns. Businesspersons and the academe endeavor to find creative solutions for these unique challenges.     

Measuring financial risks with copulas

This paper is concerned with the statistical modeling of the dependence structure of multivariate financial data using the concept of copulas. We select some special copulas and identify the type of dependency captured by each one. We fit copulas to daily returns and simulate from the fitted models. We compare the effect of the choice of copula on risk measures and assess the variability of one-step-ahead predictions of portfolio losses. We analyze extreme scenarios and fit extreme value copulas to the block maxima and minima from daily returns. The stress scenarios constructed are compared to those obtained using models from the extreme value theory. We illustrate the usefulness of the copula approach using two stock market indexes.     

Announcement effects of bank mergers in Europe and the US

We investigate the announcement effect of large bank mergers in the European and US stock market. Cumulative abnormal returns are calculated on the basis of the performance vis-à-vis the market and a sector index. Mergers result in small positive abnormal returns. Target banks realize significantly higher returns than bidders. In many respects, there is a difference between the announcement effects of European bank mergers compared to those in the US.     

An international study of internal audit function quality

We investigate organisational and environmental factors that influence firms’ incentives to develop high-quality internal audit functions (IAFs) by using a unique international sample formed by matching proprietary data from a global internal auditor survey with public data obtained from Worldscope. Concerning organisational factors, we find that a positive relationship exists between IAF quality and firm complexity and confirm that complex firms have a higher demand for monitoring and advising and, therefore, a greater need for formal controls. In addition, IAF quality is positively related to board monitoring and audit committee diligence but negatively associated with CEO power, which suggests that IAF quality is influenced by other key players in corporate governance. Regarding environmental factors, we document that IAF quality is positively associated with industry competition, which implies that a firm’s incentive for a high-quality IAF is enhanced when confronted with greater environmental uncertainty. Furthermore, IAF quality has a significantly positive relationship with our self-constructed index of IAF requirements included in national corporate governance codes, which indicates that strong home-country corporate governance codes play a role in fostering IAF development.     

Chebyshev interpolation for parametric option pricing

Recurrent tasks such as pricing, calibration and risk assessment need to be executed accurately and in real time. We concentrate on parametric option pricing (POP) as a generic instance of parametric conditional expectations and show that polynomial interpolation in the parameter space promises to considerably reduce run-times while maintaining accuracy. The attractive properties of Chebyshev interpolation and its tensorized extension enable us to identify broadly applicable criteria for (sub)exponential convergence and explicit error bounds. The method is most promising when the computation of the prices is most challenging. We therefore investigate its combination with Monte Carlo simulation and analyze the effect of (stochastic) approximations of the interpolation. For a wide and important range of problems, the Chebyshev method turns out to be more efficient than parametric multilevel Monte Carlo. We conclude with a numerical efficiency study.     

The potential of integrated reporting to enhance sustainability reporting in the public sector

This paper examines the influence of integrated reporting (IR) on the sustainability reporting practices of a state-owned enterprise through a content analysis of their reports and interviews with report preparers. The findings show a steady increase in the quantity and quality of sustainability disclosures. In 2012, the organization chose to adopt the IR framework in order to enhance sustainability reporting for all stakeholders. The IR process resulted in a more balanced disclosure of material aspects of sustainability. However, while IR has the potential to enhance public sector sustainability reporting, inter-generational equity issues were ignored.     

Bank net interest margins,the yield curve,and the 2007–2009 financial crisis

Using quarterly call report data from 2000 to 2016, we reexamine the relationship between net interest margins (NIM) and the yield curve for more than 5,500 U.S. commercial banks. In the full sample, yield curve and RGDP growth have positive effects on NIM, while inflation and deposit‐to‐loan ratios (D/L) have negative effects. Splitting the sample around the 2007–2009 crisis, we show the impact of yield curve and RGDP growth on NIM increasing during the “recovery” (2009Q3 to 2016Q4), and inflation and D/L changing signs. Positive effects of yield curve on profits vary with bank size and change over time.