The ethics of business intelligence

A review of the strategic management, policy, information management, and the marketing literature reveals that many large and medium sized companies now collect and use business intelligence. The number of firms engaging in these activities is increasing rapidly.While the whys and hows of this practice have been discussed in the academic and professional literature, the ethics of intelligence gathering have not been adequately discussed in a public forum. This paper is intended to generate discussion by advancing criteria which could be used as the basis for judging actions of those involved in business intelligence and for creating reasonable policies in this sensitive area of practice.Norm Schultz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Accounting and Taxation at Colorado State University.Allison Collins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Accounting and Taxation at Colorado State University.Mike McCulloch is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Colorado State University.     

Disparities in Mortgage Lending,Bank Performance,Economic Influence,and Regulatory Oversight

This study investigates factors affecting changes in the disparity of home mortgage denial rates between white and minority loan applicants in the U.S. during the period 1991–1997. We develop a two-stage least-squares regression model that incorporates applicant-level characteristics, neighborhood characteristics, regional economic data, and bank-specific data as explanatory variables. Some have argued that mortgage lenders were under increasing pressure from industry regulators to extend additional credit to minorities and low-income groups during the period under study. The model includes each institution's periodic CRA rating as a proxy for regulatory influence. An alternative explanation is that market forces, such as improvements in economic conditions and in bank financial condition and performance, affected default loss estimates and credit standards in a way that disproportionally benefited minority and low-income applicants. The empirical findings are consistent with the latter hypothesis. We conclude that policy makers should consider the impact of market factors when assessing the allocation of mortgage credit in a particular demographic market. The findings also underscore the importance of controlling for lender assessments of credit risk when evaluating compliance with CRA and fair lending statutes.     

English commercial bank liquidity, 1860-1913

This article presents new half-yearly time series for the asset ratios of commercial banks in England and Wales, 1860-1913. The series reveal new evidence on the nature of the banks' business and are, therefore, relevant to the debate on the role of banks in British economic development. The new estimates are used to examine trends and short-term changes in bank liquidity. Analysis is concerned with the changing stability of bank asset structure and with substitutability across different asset ratios. The main finding is of a sharp, long-term increase in liquidity and a concomitant decline in bank credit to the non-bank, private sector. The article also highlights the significance of short-term shocks to the trend increase in bank liquidity. The new findings are supportive of the argument that, over time, English banks became less involved with the non-bank private sector. In general, the results confirm that the English and Welsh bank asset structure became more liquid over time. However, no detailed breakdown of bank loans to the non-bank, private sector (for example, between business loans and personal loans), is available for this period. Moreover, the current study offers no evidence as to the trend in financial provision to the business sector from institutions other than the commercial banks. Nevertheless, the results are clear in showing a strong upward trend in commercial bank liquidity and a relative decline in private sector credit provision by the commercial banks.     

Corporate domicile and average effective tax rates: The cases of Canada,Japan, the United Kingdom,and the United States

We use financial statement information to estimate three alterantive average effective tax rates for firms domiciled in Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States during the period 1982 to 1991. While many of the firms we examine operate worldwide, we use the termdomicile to refer to the legal residence or site of incorporation of the parent company. Our objective is to determine themarginal impact of a company's domicile on its worldwide tax burden, with controls for industry and year. We find both among domestic-only companies and among multinational companies the domiciles are consistently ranked in descending order by average effective tax rates as Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. In comparing domestic-only companies and multinationals domiciled in the same jurisdiction, only U.S. multinationals consistently face a greater tax burden than their domestic counterparts.     

The impact of accounting restatements on CFO turnover and bonus compensation: Does securities litigation matter?

This paper examines the association between accounting restatements, class-action securities litigation and chief financial officer (CFO) turnover and bonus compensation. We identify income-decreasing earnings restatements that were the result of aggressive accounting policies, and hypothesize that these restatements will result in higher CFO turnover rates, and lower bonus compensation, especially when the firm is the target of a restatement-related class-action securities lawsuit. Our results indicate that CFO turnover and bonus compensation are affected by restatements, but only when the restatement firm is the target of a class-action suit. When we expand the analyses to consider other types of executives (e.g., CEOs and COOs), we continue to find that turnover only occurs in the presence of a class-action suit. However, bonus compensation penalties to other types of executives are not limited to litigation-related restatements.     

Errors in Estimating Accruals: Implications for Empirical Research

This paper examines the impact of measuring accruals as the change in successive balance sheet accounts, as opposed to measuring accruals directly from the statement of cash flows. Our primary finding is that studies using a balance sheet approach to test for earnings management are potentially contaminated by measurement error in accruals estimates. In particular, if the partitioning variable used to indicate the presence of earnings management is correlated with the occurrence of mergers and acquisitions or discontinued operations, tests are biased and researchers are likely to erroneously conclude that earnings management exists when there is none. Additional results show that the errors in balance sheet accruals estimation can confound returns regressions where discretionary and non-discretionary accruals are used as explanatory variables. Moreover, we demonstrate that tests of market mispricing of accruals will be understated due to erroneous classification of "extreme" accruals firms.     

Can we learn to live differently? Lessons from Going for Green: a case study of Merthyr Tydfil (South Wales)

Participation at the local level is an important factor in determining the success of programmes developed to achieve sustainable development. This paper is concerned with debates over the role of the individual citizen in relation to that participatory process. In particular, it focuses on the UK Governments’ citizens environmental initiative ‘Going for Green’ (GFG). Through this initiative a five‐point Green Code was developed to assist in the delivery of its sustainable development message to the general public. The initiative's overall approach to participation was based on an assumption that the primary barrier to translating environmental concern into local action was a lack of information, and that individuals would respond to messages in a similar way. As a research strategy, the case study was used to evaluate how the initiatives’ pilot Sustainable Communities Project was implemented in two comparative geographical communities in Merthyr Tydfil (South Wales). Research findings from this study have demonstrated that the case study was invaluable in terms of understanding the participatory process and experiences of broad a range of community stakeholders. Promoting a single model of participation, GFG was found to restrict the participatory process in terms of who was encouraged to participate, the scope of their participation, and those outcomes that could be achieved. This paper concludes that if significant progress is to be made in relation to achieving sustainable development, the role of the individual citizen needs to be extended beyond that of a consumer of the environment, and involve active participation in a process that is based on collective action.     

The Impact of Trust-Preferred Issuance on Bank Default Risk and Cash Flow: Evidence from the Debt and Equity Securities Markets

Trust‐preferred stock is a debt‐equity hybrid that offers the tax deductibility of dividends but is treated as equity capital by bank regulators and rating agencies. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether holders of bank debt securities benefit from trust‐preferred issuance in the form of lower default premia and whether bank shareholders benefit from the tax deductibility of trust‐preferred dividends. Using daily returns surrounding the Federal Reserve's announcement that trust‐preferred securities would be included as a component of commercial banks' Tier I equity capital, we find evidence to support both hypotheses.     

An Examination of the Equity Market Response to The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Across Commercial Banking, Investment Banking, and Insurance Firms

Abstract:  This paper examines the wealth effects of the events surrounding the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and changes in systematic risk from the pre-Act period to the post-Act period for commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance firms. The results suggest that investment banks and insurance firms are better positioned to exploit the benefits of product-line diversification opportunities allowed by the legislation compared to commercial banks that experience no significant market reaction. Further evidence indicates a significant risk shift and overall reduction in riskiness for the financial sectors under consideration around the event period.