The impact of the judicial objective function on the enforcement of environmental standards

We investigate the influence of a judge’s objective function on the type of sanctions used for enforcing environmental standards. We focus on the difference between monetary and non-monetary penalties. We examine the extent to which judges take social costs of sanctions into account when making judgments in court in the context of environmental violations. We also conduct an empirical analysis to test the main findings of the theoretical model using court data from several Belgian jurisdictions. We find that besides minimizing environmental damages judges also take social costs of sanctions into account in their decision-making.     

The medical home bends cost curve

While the Affordable Care Act is trying to manage health insurance, as well as mandating coverage, a number of projects around the country are trying to manage the underlying cost of health care. By bringing back the concept of a true primary care physician, who provides 90% of your care and coordinates with your specialists, these programs are bending the curve of health care cost trends. Most are seeing a reduction in emergency room visits and hospital days in the double digits. Others that are taking fee-for-service insurance out of the picture altogether are experiencing even higher reduction rates. The goal is to increase patient health, which includes the patient having an active role in understanding his or her condition, treatment options and self-care strategies. It is estimated that if all Americans had access to a medical home, our nation could save $37 billion annually.     

The candidate experience: Is it damaging your employer brand?

The importance of the candidate experience has only recently gained attention as the war for talent ensues. Despite its importance, there is a paucity of research examining the exchange relationship between the job candidate and the organization during the recruitment process. This article presents a model—illustrating the connections and exchanges made among an organization, the job candidate, and the organization’s recruitment process—that forms the candidate experience and, in turn, affects the employer’s brand either positively or negatively. Based on this framework, guidelines are presented to assist organizations in ensuring a positive candidate experience that will result in the strengthening of the employer brand and improving recruitment and business outcomes. Some of these business outcomes include strengthening relationships with customers and investors, referring friends to the company, and participating in future searches conducted by the organization.     

The Impact of Ageing and the Speed of Ageing on the Economic Growth of Least Developed,Emerging and Developed Countries, 1990–2013

Studies relating ageing and countries’ economic performance address mostly developed economies. However, extant studies demonstrate that less developed countries (LDC) and emerging economies (EE) are reaching the transition process faster than those from developed regions, which renders the speed of ageing, besides ageing, a critical variable to explore in this context. Comparing system dynamic panel data estimations for 40 LDC, 19 EE and 28 developed countries (DC), between 1990 and 2013, we uncovered that ageing is detrimental to countries’ economic growth, with noticeable nuances depending on countries’ development level. The current level of ageing significantly and negatively impacts on DC's growth but not on that of LDC or EE. For these latter groups, the most relevant issue is the speed of ageing. The current annual growth of old age dependency ratio significantly diminishes EE's growth prospects whereas the lagged annual growth of the ageing index and the old age dependency ratio significantly curtails LDC's growth. Such results emphasize the need for urgent public policies that might mitigate the imbalance in LDCs’ age structure before the speed of ageing leads LDCs to become even much poorer.     

Entrepreneurship and Bank Credit Availability

The literature is divided on the expected effects of increased competition and consolidation in the financial sector on the supply of credit to relationship borrowers. This paper tests whether policy changes fostering competition and consolidation in U.S. banking helped or harmed entrepreneurs. We find that the rate of new incorporations increases following deregulation of branching restrictions, and that deregulation reduces the negative effect of concentration on new incorporations. We also find the formation of new incorporations increases as the share of small banks decreases, suggesting that diversification benefits of size outweigh the possible comparative advantage small banks may have in forging relationships.     

On the relation between ownership structure and capital structure

The agency relationship between managers and shareholders has the potential to influence decision-making in the firm which in turn potentially impacts on firm characteristics such as value and leverage. Prior evidence has demonstrated an association between ownership structure and firm value. This paper extends the literature by examining a further link between ownership structure and capital structure. Using an agency framework, it is argued that the distribution of equity ownership among corporate managers and external blockholders may have a significant relation with leverage. The empirical results provide support for a positive relation between external blockholders and leverage, and non-linear relation between the level of managerial share ownership and leverage. The results also suggest that the relation between external block ownership and leverage varies across the level of managerial share ownership. These results are consistent with active monitoring by blockholders, and the effects of convergence-of-interests and management entrenchment.     

The Timing of Option Repricing

We investigate whether executive stock option repricings are systematically timed to coincide with favorable movements in the company's stock price. For a sample of 236 repricing events, we observe sharp increases in stock price in the 20‐day period following the repricing date. In addition, repricing dates tend to either precede the release of good news or follow the release of bad news in the quarterly earnings announcements. Since information about stock option repricing is not generally released to the public around the repricing date, these findings suggest that CEOs opportunistically manage the timing of the option repricing date.