Are Securitizations in Substance Sales or Secured Borrowings? Capital‐Market Evidence*

Two standard‐setting approaches have emerged globally to guide the choice of accounting for securitizations: the control and components approach (SFAS No. 125 and SFAS No. 140) and the risks and rewards transfer approach (IAS No. 39). A lack of consensus about derecognition accounting is a major impediment to achieving convergence in global standards that must be resolved. Thus, both SFAS No. 140 and IAS No. 39 will be reexamined, and evidence pertinent to the debate is timely and important. In this study, we present evidence consistent with the view of credit‐rating analysts, who view many securitizations as, in substance, secured borrowings. Specifically, for a sample of originators applying sale accounting guidance in SFAS No. 125 / 140 during the period 1997‐2003, we show that off‐balance‐sheet debt related to securitizations has, on average, the same risk‐relevance for explaining market measures of risk (that is, CAPM beta) as on‐balance‐sheet debt. We also find that, in a returns and earnings association framework, the pricing multiple on securitization gains declines as the amount of off‐balance‐sheet debt increases, implying that investors take off‐balance‐sheet debt into account when assessing the valuation‐relevance of such gains. For those who advocate the control and components approach to securitization accounting, our results suggest that, at least for frequent securitizers, the put option arising from implicit recourse is a “missing piece” that is not currently accounted for when calculating securitization gains. Our results challenge the extant measurement standards in SFAS No. 140.     

The impact on stock prices of deferral and elimination of internal control audit requirement for small firms

This paper examines the cumulative market reaction to the events related to deferral of internal control audit requirement under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and its elimination under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 for nonaccelerated filers (small firms). We document that small firms experienced negative cumulative abnormal returns around these events; and the differences between the cumulative abnormal returns for small firms and the two control groups (accelerated and large accelerated filers) were negative and significant at the 1% level. These results support the notion that market participants value the reliability of financial information irrespective of the firm size. Within the small firms, we find no firm characteristic significantly explains the market reaction to the events considered. That is, all small firms lost market value in reaction to the events that delayed and eliminated their internal control audit requirement.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

A critical appraisal of the reporting quality of published randomized controlled trials in the fall injuries

To evaluate the quality of reporting in published randomized controlled trials (RTCs) in the field of fall injuries. The 188 RTCs published between 2001 and 2011, indexed in EMBASE and Medline databases were extracted through searching by appropriate keywords and EMTree classification terms. The evaluation trustworthiness was assured through parallel evaluations of two experts in epidemiology and biostatistics. About 40%–75% of papers had problems in reporting random allocation method, allocation concealment, random allocation implementation, blinding and similarity among groups, intention to treat and balancing benefits and harms. Moreover, at least 10% of papers inappropriately/not reported the design, protocol violations, sample size justification, subgroup/adjusted analyses, presenting flow diagram, drop outs, recruitment time, baseline data, suitable effect size on outcome, ancillary analyses, limitations and generalizability. Considering the shortcomings found and due to the importance of the RCTs for fall injury prevention programmes, their reporting quality should be improved.     

The Challenge of Humanistic Economics

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Hospital Compare Program in 2003 to increase transparency between healthcare providers and consumers. Implemented in 2005, this transparency consists of hospitals' collecting and making publicly available a set of hospital quality score measures. The CMS induced participation by financially penalizing hospitals that did not publicly report a specific subset of these measures (called “starter” measures). Three years into the program, the penalty for non-reporting both the starter measures and other (“non-starter”) measures was increased. I use a difference-in-differences methodology to analyze the effect of the increased CMS penalty on the likelihood that a hospital publicly reported its starter and non-starter measure scores. I find that the penalty had an economically and statistically insignificant effect on the probability that a hospital publicly reported its starter scores, but a statistically significant 8.0 percent effect (p-value<0.01) on whether it reported its non-starter scores. These findings are robust to a series of alternative empirical specifications.     

少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系构建研究——以凤凰为例

关注游客对民俗旅游产品的体验需求,有利于做好游客的体验管理,提升游客的体验质量,实现少数民族地区民俗旅游产品的可持续发展。以体验经济为时代背景,从游客体验角度出发,在梳理旅游体验质量影响要素的基础上,提出少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系的理论模型假设;通过随机抽样的调查方式,采用因子分析和方差分析方法,构建了少数民族地区民俗旅游产品游客体验质量要素体系,包括产品体验、环境体验、管理体验和个人能力4个主要素;并在此基础上,提出了凤凰民俗旅游产品游客体验管理对策,即打造核心体验产品、构筑完美体验环境、加强全面体验管理和高度挑战个人能力。     

合作社生猪质量供给困境与治理研究——基于集体行动理论的视角

专业合作社成员在空间分布上呈现出明显的地缘性特征,使得合作社对生猪质量控制具有天然的优势,但仍无法避免成员“搭便车”的困境。文章以奥尔森的集体行动理论为指导,设计了选择性激励、允许成员异质性以及强制措施等治理机制,并通过对金诚众和合作社的案例分析,提出扶持合作社进行生猪品牌建设,提高生猪抽检比例,加强猪肉产品的认证管理等政策建议。     

科技特派员制度对农民科学素质提升的实践与思考

农民在我国的人口构成中占据相当大比例,提高他们的科学素养,对于改善其生活质量、实现全面小康生活目标至关重要,同时也关系着我国新农村的建设与发展。文章通过阐述广西科技特派员工作发展状况,强调了科技特派员制度是提高农民科学素养的有效途径,并提出进一步利用农村科技特派员提升农民科学素质的思路。     

高校函授站毕业生质量评价探析

办学模式的多样性给成人高等教育教学质量提出更高的要求,构建科学的评价体系是保障成人高等教育函授毕业生质量的关键环节。从普通高校函授站毕业生质量评价的基本原则、指标体系及保障机制方面,对高校函授站毕业生质量管理作些有益的探索。     

加强校园文化与企业文化的融合,促进高职学生职业素养的提升

高职学生能否在职场取得成功,不仅取决于他的知识和技能是否扎实,更在于其职业素养的高低。目前,高职生的整体素质难以满足用人单位的需求,其最大不足是爱岗敬业、踏实肯干、与人合作等职业素养欠缺。因此,如何以科学发展观为指导,通过校园文化建设,加强与企业文化的融合,促进学生职业素养提升,这是高职院校教育工作者面临的一个重要课题。