Motivators of Mobilization

Using data on shareholder-initiated class action lawsuits in the US, I investigate the corporate scandals of US-listed foreign firms. The shareholders of scandal firms suffer considerable loss in both the short term and the long term. I document that firms domiciled in countries with weak institutions are more likely to be embroiled in corporate scandals, but such a relation can be moderated by the presence of Big 4 auditors. Investors automatically adjust for undiscovered misconduct when valuing the stocks of non-scandal firms (i.e., the spillover effect). Investors rely on the audit quality to form their expectations about the severity of undiscovered misconduct, and thus impose less negative spillovers on firms with Big 4 auditors, especially when the firms are from countries with weak institutions. Taken together, my results suggest that listing on US exchanges does not fully compensate for weak local institutions; voluntarily bonding to a more stringent audit process has an incremental effect on protecting shareholder interests and enhances the confidence of investors in firms’ financial integrity.     

Store brands and retail differentiation: the influence of store image and store brand attitude on store own brand perceptions

Store's own brands can provide important opportunities for retail differentiation if they are considered by consumers to be uniquely associated with store image. A survey of shoppers measured attitudes toward individual stores’ images and store brand perceptions, as well as general attitudes toward store brands. A regression analysis demonstrates a positive relationship between consumers’ perceptions of individual store own brands and their associated store's image dimensions and attitudes toward store brands in general.     

A Canadian Response to the Pursuit of Global Sustainability Reporting Standards*

As business, government, and society continue to emphasize the importance of sustainability—both of individual organizations and of the natural world—accounting standard-setting bodies want to be part of the process. In September 2020, in response to “urgent and growing demand” for more “consistent and comparable” sustainability reporting, the IFRS Foundation (the Foundation) released for comment a Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting. In the paper, the Foundation proposed the creation of a Sustainability Standards Board (SSB), which it would oversee alongside the IASB. The SSB would become, de facto, the global sustainability reporting standard setter. The Foundation received 577 responses to its proposal. These responses came from around the world and from a wide range of stakeholders. Thirty-eight of the responses came from Canada. This study profiles the Canadian responses, contrasting them with the wider set of worldwide responses. Some uniquely Canadian features include user responses from a large number of pension funds and preparer responses solely from the energy sector. There was also a significant response from the Canadian accounting community, including from the full set of Canadian standard-setting organizations. Five auditors general also responded. Overall, Canadian respondents supported both globalized sustainability reporting standards and the Foundation's creation of the SSB. This support aligns Canada's response with the worldwide response.     

The simultaneous sponsorship of rival teams: Beyond ingroup favoritism and outgroup animosity

The current research broadens the scope of sponsorship research to empirically examine ambivalence as a consumer response to the increasingly popular strategy of brands engaging in the simultaneous sponsorship of rival teams (i.e., a joint sponsorship). Specifically, our research considers the effects of ambivalence and team identification on sponsorship responses across three different types of brand-team partnerships: a joint sponsorship of two rival teams, a favored team sponsorship, and a rival team sponsorship. Our results indicate that a joint sponsorship elicits ambivalence which directly and indirectly has a negative impact on attitudes and intentions toward the sponsoring brand. Joint sponsorships were also found to diminish the well-established link between team identification and attitudes and intentions. Our research also identified argument strength as a brand messaging strategy for mitigating some of the negative effects of simultaneously sponsoring rival properties.     

The amenity value of natural views

We estimate nonmarket values for natural views in an urban setting. These views contain the aesthetics of natural areas commonly found in public parks and open space, and offer an aspect of property valuation that previous research is unable to disentangle from proximity to parks and open space. We incorporate machine learning techniques on Google Street View images to identify natural views in an urban setting. We find positive capitalization rates associated with household views of park-like properties. Estimates are robust to a variety of specifications, including models that are identified off of new developments on neighboring properties and falsification tests that help to rule out the effect of a broader neighborhood environment. From a policy perspective, our results inform as to the optimal size, location, and shape of open space. Furthermore, machine learning methods used in the construction of our view variable provide a potentially powerful tool for other nonmarket valuation studies.     

When Appraisers Go Low,Contracts Go Lower: The Impact of Expert Opinions on Transaction Prices

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - Using home purchase loan application data, we study buyer responses to the uncommon occurrence of the appraised value coming in below the contract...     

Two steps forward,one step back? Quantifying the pecuniary costs of debt account aversion and the debt snowball

The interest-minimizing strategy to paying multiple debts is to make all minimum payments and allocate remaining funds to the debt with the highest interest rate. However, cognitive biases such as debt account aversion and financial advisors encourage borrowers to instead allocate remaining funds to debts with lower outstanding balances, a strategy known as the Debt Snowball. The author uses the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances to quantify the pecuniary costs for American households of following the Debt Snowball and finds that the average household pays an additional 1.8%–4.3% in interest, leading to an aggregate transfer of wealth from borrowers to lenders of between $46.2 and $53.9 billion in excess of what would occur if borrowers instead minimized interest accrual. Due to differences in household debt structure, the Debt Snowball strategy imposes greater pecuniary penalties on low-income households, on Black households, and on households with more initial debts.