Individual Large Shareholders,Earnings Management,and Capital‐Market Consequences

Using a large hand‐collected sample of all blockholders (ownership ≥ 5%) of S&P 1500 firms for the years 2002–2009, we first document significant individual blockholder effects on earnings management (accrual‐based earnings management, real earnings management, and restatements). This association is driven primarily by these large shareholders influencing rather than selecting firms’ financial reporting practices. Second, the market's reaction to earnings announcements suggests that investors recognize the heterogeneity in blockholders’ influence on earnings management. The results highlight the highly individualized effects of blockholders and a mechanism through which shareholders impact reported earnings.     

Too Good to be True? An Analysis of the Options Market's Reactions to Earnings Releases

Using option implied risk neutral return distributions before and after earnings announcements, we study the option market's reaction to extreme events over earnings announcements. While earnings announcements generally reduce short‐term uncertainty about the stock price, very good news does not reduce uncertainty and slightly bad news actually increases uncertainty. We also find that left tail probabilities decrease over earnings releases while right tail probabilities increase. We interpret these findings as evidence of maintained investor expectations that very good news is generally not released during earnings announcements, combined with skepticism in the form of lingering uncertainty at the release of such very good news.     

The Informational Role of Short Sellers: The Evidence from Short Sellers’ Reports on US‐Listed Chinese Firms

Using US‐listed Chinese firms as the setting, this paper studies a novel channel through which investors can acquire information about firms’ financial reporting quality, that is, the reports published voluntarily by short sellers. I find that short sellers tend to target firms that have financial reporting red flags and that exhibit ‘good’ operating performance and stock valuations. Targeted firms experience an average three‐day cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of ?6.4%, and ?13.6% for initial coverage of the firm, and the CARs are more negative when the reports allege more severe misconduct of the firms. Non‐targeted firms also experience losses in value following short seller reports, especially when they hire the same non‐Big 4 auditors as targeted firms and when their earnings quality is poor. In comparison, analysts fail to perform proper due diligence and are much less effective than short sellers in exposing misreporting risk in Chinese firms.     

CORRUPTION AND MICROCREDIT INTEREST RATES: DOES REGULATION HELP?

Misunderstandings about the structure of microcredit interest rates continue to generate rich criticism of the industry's high interest rates. Research has focused attention on the cost structure of interest rates and, more recently, on macroeconomic and macro‐institutional factors. While the cost structure is probably the most important determinant of interest rates, other factors also matter. In addition to other important results that usually validate the empirical literature, this paper finds that microcredit interest rates respond positively to corruption. The analysis shows that there is asymmetry between the effects of corruption, depending on whether or not the MFIs are regulated. While corruption has a positive and significant impact on interest rates of unregulated MFIs, it has a negligible impact on interest rates of regulated MFIs.     

To post or not to post: social media sharing and sporting event performance

Social networks are becoming increasingly important for consumers, especially in the context of sport, where the service experience is highly intense. Few studies have combined subjective event performance variables and social network variables to analyze social network content sharing by sports practitioners. This article investigates the use of social networks in relation to sporting events. An empirical study examined the role of social network variables and sporting event performance variables in social media use. The sample consisted of 410 triathletes (72.2% male) aged between 18 and 66 years (mean 37.03 ± 8.62). Four analyses were performed using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the causes of sharing comments through social media, sharing photos and videos on social media, participant satisfaction, and word‐of‐mouth (WOM). The event's general image was a necessary condition in all cases. The combination of participants’ satisfaction and positive event image and the combination of social network use and positive event image lead to social network content sharing by athletes. The combination of positive event image and participant satisfaction leads to a positive WOM.     

To blow or not to blow the whistle: the effects of potential harm,social pressure and organisational commitment on whistleblowing intention and behaviour

This study uses a rational ethical decision‐making framework to examine the influence of moral intensity (potential harm and social pressure) on whistleblowing intention and behaviour using organisational commitment as a moderator. A scenario was developed, and an online questionnaire was used to conduct an empirical analysis on the responses of 533 participants. The mean age and years of work experience of the respondents were 31 and 8.2 years, respectively. The results show, first, that while moral intensity is correlated with whistleblowing intention, only the potential harm is positively correlated with such intention. Second, potential harm and social pressure differentially affect whistleblower choice of using an internal or external channel. Third, organisational commitment has a moderated mediation effect among moral intensity, whistleblowing intention and behaviour. Fourth, whistleblowers may be grouped into four conceptual types: indifferent, rebel, mature and spoil. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

TRADE AND DIVERGENCE IN EDUCATION SYSTEMS

This article presents a theory on the endogenous choice of education policy and the two‐way causal relationship between trade and education systems. A country's education system determines its talent distribution and comparative advantage; the possibility of trade by raising the returns to the sector of comparative advantage in turn induces countries to further differentiate their education systems and reinforces the initial pattern of comparative advantage. Specifically, the Nash equilibrium choice of education systems by two countries interacting strategically are necessarily more divergent than their autarky choices, and yet less than what is socially optimal for the world.     

后金融危机时期全球创业教育与中国创业发展——基于全球创业观察最新数据分析的结论

通过2008年全球创业观察（GEM）获得的数据分析,可以认为创业的发生、发展与创业教育有很大关系。总体而言,创业教育和培训对创业能起到积极的促进作用。但创业教育的不同形式与不同来源对各国的创业所产生的作用各有不同,取得的效果也存在着差异。创业教育对创业产生的效果与其文化和价值观念、经济发展水平、社会保障体系成熟程度以及就业机会等因素有很大关系,同时与创业群体的年龄阶段、创业教育或培训的供给情况以及创业教育的质量等因素关系密切。本文在分析基础上得出的结论,为我国政府在创业教育和培训方面制定政策等提供了决策性参考依据。     

专有技术评估实务的法律思考

本文是一篇工作过程中的实务探索性总结，作者对专有技术投资实务中出资、评估、询证、验资、登记等关键问题的解决及各环节的法律责任进行思考，并从证据学的角度提出应当取得的法律文书，利于相关报告的审查与利用者理清思路，也利于实务操作中更好地发挥评估的作用。     

Discrete credit barrier models

The model introduced in this article is designed to provide a consistent representation for both the real-world and pricing measures for the credit process. We find that good agreement with historical and market data can be achieved across all credit ratings simultaneously. The model is characterized by an underlying stochastic process that takes on values on a discrete lattice and represents credit quality. Rating transitions are associated with barrier crossings and default events are associated with an absorbing state. The stochastic process has state-dependent volatility and jumps which are estimated by using empirical migration and default rates. A risk-neutralizing drift is estimated to consistently match the average spread curves corresponding to all the various ratings.