Financial crisis,GDP variation and earnings management in Europe

The purpose of this study is to examine the consequences of the financial crisis on the European companies’ in conjunction with earnings management practice. It focuses on financially distressed companies that audited by a big 4 auditor during recession years. The study makes use of discretionary accruals as a proxy for earnings management and studies the influence of big 4 auditor, in order to shed more light on possible causes for shifting earnings. The findings of the study provide evidence that financially distressed companies that audited by a big 4 auditor exhibit lower discretionary accruals. The results reveal that Greek and Spanish companies reduce earnings management manipulation during recession. In contrast, Portuguese, Irish and Italian companies show mixed results. They tend to reduce earnings management practices, but there are reasons that influence managers’ behavior to increase earnings management. The findings of this study can be useful for both investors and standard setting authorities.     

Dynamical macroprudential stress testing using network theory

The increasing frequency and scope of financial crises have made global financial stability one of the major concerns of economic policy and decision makers. This has led to the understanding that financial and banking supervision has to be thought of as a systemic task, focusing on the interdependent relations among the institutions. Using network theory, we develop a dynamic model that uses a bipartite network of banks and their assets to analyze the system’s sensitivity to external shocks in individual asset classes and to evaluate the presence of features underlying the system that could lead to contagion. As a case study, we apply the model to stress test the Venezuelan banking system from 1998 to 2013. The introduced model was able to capture monthly changes in the structure of the system and the sensitivity of bank portfolios to different external shock scenarios and to identify systemic vulnerabilities and their time evolution. The model provides new tools for policy makers and supervision agencies to use for macroprudential dynamical stress testing.     

Bailout uncertainty in a microfounded general equilibrium model of the financial system

This paper develops a micro-founded general equilibrium model of the financial system composed of ultimate borrowers, ultimate lenders and financial intermediaries. The model is used to investigate the impact of uncertainty about the likelihood of governmental bailouts on leverage, interest rates, the volume of defaults and the real economy. The distinction between risk and uncertainty is implemented by applying the multiple priors framework to beliefs about the probability of bailout.Results of the analysis include: (i) An unanticipated increase in bailout uncertainty raises interest rates, the volume of defaults in both the real and financial sectors and may lead to a total drying up of credit markets. (ii) Lower exante bailout uncertainty is conducive to higher leverage, which in turn raises moral hazard and makes the economy more vulnerable to expost increases in bailout uncertainty. (iii) Bailout uncertainty affects the likelihood of bubbles, the amplitude of booms and busts as well as the banking and the credit spreads. (iv) Higher bailout uncertainty is associated with higher returns’ variability in diversified portfolios and higher systemic risks, (v) Pre-crisis expansionary monetary policy reinforces those effects by inducing higher aggregate leverage levels. (vi) The larger the change in bailout uncertainty and the change in aversion to this uncertainty, the stronger the pre-crisis buildup and the deeper the ensuing crisis.A central policy implication of the analysis is that the vaguest is bailout policy prior to a crisis, the lower is the magnitude of investments destroyed or missed due to errors in evaluating bailout and other intervention policies. On the other hand, the clearer is bailout policy upon the eruption of a crisis, the smaller the contraction of credit and the destruction of investment activity.     

Spillovers among CDS indexes in the US financial sector

By employing the robust cross-correlation function approach proposed by Hong (2001), and conducting pre-tests for structural breaks in the variances as well as removing the causality-in-mean effects in the causality-in-variance tests, we investigate volatility and mean transmissions between the credit default swaps (CDS) indexes of three US financial sectors. We use daily series on five-year banking, insurance, and financial services sector CDS indexes at the sector level from January 2004 to December 2011. We find evidence of significant causality-in-mean effects running from the banking sector to the insurance and financial services sector CDS indexes and from the financial services to the insurance sector CDS indexes, suggesting the leading role of the banking and financial services sectors in terms of price discovery. Moreover, we find significant causality-in-variance effects from the financial services sector CDS index to that of the banking sector, implying the existence of information transmission and contagion from the former, the least regulated of the three. The implications of these findings on traders and policymakers are also provided.     

The role of institutional investors in propagating the 2007 financial crisis in Southern Europe

The 2007 financial crisis has affected Southern European companies (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Greek) more than others. From a Minskyan bubble-burst cycle perspective (Minsky, 1986), we study the relation between institutional ownership structure and corporate risk-taking for a sample of non-financial listed companies from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece for the period 2001–2014. Our results suggest that the financial deregulation process, that lead to the financialization of the world economy before the 2007 financial crisis and the favourable macroeconomic scenario encouraged corporate risk-taking in those countries. We also find that the lack of effective control mechanisms provided an incentive for investment funds to assume a proactive role, encouraging companies to overinvest in risky projects.     

Investing against the wind: contagion during the recent financial crisis

This article examines the effect of Warren Buffett’s investment in Goldman Sachs on 24 September 2008, during the subprime mortgage crisis. Although this event is arguably perceived to be the biggest expression of confidence in the financial market during the crisis, by conducting event studies, we do not find the major counterparties of Goldman Sachs displayed positive abnormal returns. Moreover, the abnormal return is not significantly related to the counterparty connection. We have similar findings on these financial institutions’ default probabilities using credit default swap.     

Creating financial statements using FRx within Microsoft Dynamics GP: Learning vs. teaching

This project requires you to create financial statements using FRx within Microsoft Dynamics GP, an enterprise system. The project emphasizes the learner-centered paradigm rather than a teacher-centered educational paradigm. Researchers have found great importance in the learner-centered approach in educating students, especially in information systems (Landry, Saulnier, Wagner, & Longenecker, 2008; Saulnier, Landry, & Wagner, 2008). Major differences exist between the two approaches; for example, the professor gives information and evaluates, and emphasizes the right answer in a teacher-centered approach. The professor coaches and facilitates, and emphasizes that students generate good questions and learn from mistakes in a learner-centered approach. This project utilizes the learner-centered approach, an effective approach for you to use in today’s environment.     

Extent of corporate governance disclosure by banks and finance companies listed on Nepal Stock Exchange

Corporate governance disclosure has seen renewed interest by researchers, policy makers, and regulating bodies internationally, but has remained only an emerging construct in Nepal. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the extent of mandatory corporate governance disclosure in Nepal. The secondary purpose was to examine the associations between the extent of disclosures and five firm-specific characteristics. The third purpose was to assess the significant determinants to explain variations of disclosures. The study's sampling frame consisted of 125 banking and finance companies listed on Nepal Stock Exchange. A sample size of 59 companies was randomly selected. On average, companies disclosed 91% of items in the mandatory category, 48% in the voluntary category, and 74% in total. A significant positive correlation existed between governance disclosures and firm characteristics of size, leverage, and foreign ownership. There was no significant relation between governance disclosure and listing age or profitability. With regards to determinants, bank size was a significant predictor of governance disclosure. Three regression models for total disclosures (DScore), mandatory disclosures [DScore (M)], and voluntary disclosures [DScore (V)] with three predictors of size, leverage, and foreign ownership were significant and explained 47%, 24%, and 54% variations respectively in total, mandatory, and voluntary corporate governance disclosures in Nepal. This research provides guidelines to policy makers and standard setters for developing future regulations and accounting policies.     

The impact of equity ownership groups on investment: Evidence from Ukraine

We empirically investigate the impact of different ownership groups on companies’ investment in Ukraine with a novel dynamic investment model where investment is based on present and historical levels of profitability (market-to-book value of equity) and lagged investment. Groups include state, insider, non-domestic, financial and financial and industrial group (FIG) ownership. Contrary to the literature, we find that the past level of profitability significantly affects investment; the majority presence of and increases in state ownership have a negative impact on firms’ investment, as is the case for non-domestic and financial companies’ ownership. Insider and FIG ownership have no impact on investment. We explain the results by the extent of liquidity concerns (hard and soft budget constraints), measured by cash flow interacted with a dummy variable of majority ownership of the respective group, and the extent of asset stripping for the corresponding ownership group and relate them to over- and under-investment, and to the free cash flow or cash constraint hypothesis.     

Oil price shocks and American depositary receipt stock returns

In this paper we examine the impact of oil price shocks on twelve countries American Depositary Receipt (ADR) returns using monthly data from 1999.01 to 2014.12. The results show that oil price shocks have a positive and statistically significant impact on ADR return in all twelve countries. These results are robust to the inclusion of other explanatory variables such as oil price volatility and the spillover of the United States stock market. Further analysis shows that this effect is stronger in the post financial crisis time period compared to the pre-financial crisis time period.