Consumer fraud and Latino immigrant consumers in the United States

Disadvantaged consumers are often the victims of consumer fraud; low‐income Latino a immigrants are especially likely to be victims due to their lack of English proficiency and inexperience in the local marketplace. A qualitative research study using purposeful sampling was conducted to identify areas of consumer fraud experienced by 45 Latino immigrants. Types of unscrupulous practices are identified, including sales of automobiles, prepaid telephone cards and counterfeit documents. Problems with fraud are discussed in terms of a model of disadvantaged consumers and implications for education are suggested to counteract the identified problems.     

Liar’s Loans,Mortgage Fraud,and the Great Recession

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to research on misrepresentation in private residential mortgage-backed securities by using new data on losses from foreclosure to estimate higher than expected losses associated with income overstatement and adverse selection in no/low documentation loans, using full documentation loans as a counterfactual. Overall, no/low documentation loans account for $350 billion of the $500 billion lost from 2007 to 2012. No/low documentation loans lost an additional $5200 per loan, implying $97 billion of total no/low documentation losses were higher than expected. I also find underwriting exceptions differentially predict loss by documentation type, which provides evidence consistent with originator-led adverse selection.     

Comparing risk aversion in a probability triangle

An agent's acceptance set consists of the probability distributions preferred to the status quo. One agent is more risk averse than another if the more risk averse agent's acceptance set is a proper subset of the less risk averse agent's acceptance set. An agent's odds premium expresses the odds in favor of winning the largest cash prize in a lottery over the best and worst alternatives that is indifferent to the the agent's initial wealth. Comparisons of two agents odds premia completely characterizes the risk aversion relations between them when facing lotteries in a probability triangle. The result applies to expected utility and some non-expected utility theories. Received: December 30, 1998; revised version: February 10, 1999     

Detecting origin fraud with trade data: the case of U.S. honey imports*

Following the 2001 U.S. imposition of antidumping tariffs on imported honey from China and Argentina, industry press noted patterns of trade suggesting that honey was being transshipped to circumvent tariffs, origin fraud that was later uncovered in criminal cases. This article presents three approaches that use trade and production data to flag countries for possible instances of origin fraud and then compares these countries with those implicated in criminal cases and media reports. In our preferred empirical method, we also find that countries with higher corruption scores are more likely to show increases in suspicious trade patterns following the tariffs.     

上市公司财务欺诈问题的研究

目前,对于财务欺诈的研究,集中在成因理论和制度防范上,大多采用规范分析的方法。本文从财务欺诈的成因分析入手,结合我国证券市场己披露案例的研究,我国证券市场的现状,深入分析了财务欺诈的成因。主要有外部环境制度上的缺失因素,也存在企业内部治理结构缺陷的影响。尤其在我国特殊的市场体制下,财务欺诈更是有它自身形成的诱因,阐述了从独立审计的角度,建立应对财务欺诈的防范体系的对策。     

Japanese stock market reaction to announcements of news affecting auditors’ reputation: The case of the Olympus fraud

The revelation of accounting fraud by the Olympus Corporation gave rise to shareholder allegations of audit failure against Olympus’ auditors—Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC and KPMG AZSA LLC—in 2011. In this study, we investigate whether the auditors’ affiliation with Olympus contributes to divergent perceptions of audit quality in the event of news announcements affecting the reputation of Olympus’ auditors. First, we use a nonparametric generalized rank event study methodology on 918 sample firms from the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) to observe Japanese investors’ perceptions of auditor reputation as proxied by abnormal returns. Second, we perform a multivariate linear regression on firms’ abnormal returns after controlling for firm-specific variables. We find that Japanese investors do not respond to negative or neutral reputational information arising from news announcements concerning Olympus’ auditors for firms affiliated and not affiliated with those auditors. In the absence of legal penalties imposed on Olympus’ auditors, we argue that Japanese investors consider the Olympus fraud case as an expected occurrence of audit failure due to a lack of evidence suggesting systematic audit failure on the part of Olympus’ auditors and an expectation of lower audit quality in the Japanese capital market. As a result, Japanese investors do not consider news announcements affecting the Olympus auditors’ reputation as sufficient evidence to change their prior expectation regarding the reputations of the audit firms affiliated with the Olympus fraud case.     

Cleaning house or jumping ship? Understanding board upheaval following financial fraud

Boards experience elevated levels of turnover among outside directors following financial fraud. Scholars have proposed two mechanisms that may drive this turnover. The first views turnover as part of a board's efforts to repair organizational legitimacy and avert resource withdrawal. The second argues that turnover is a byproduct of individual directors' efforts to safeguard their own reputations and mitigate professional devaluation. We use data on director departures following 63 fraud events to explore the relative importance of these two mechanisms. The results clarify our understanding of responses to governance failures and the challenges of reconstituting board membership following financial improprieties. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

我国卫生资源供需配置不和谐之初探

文章首先基于我国当前卫生资源供需现状，用数据引出“倒三角”与“正三角”的不和谐现象。然后分别从市场供需导向、价格杠杆机制、社会医保制度和医患之间心理契约等几个方面挖掘出该现象出现并繁殖的原因。最后，结合实际，系统性地针对各自原因给出几种对策方案。相信这对完善我国医疗行业体制改革有一定的借鉴意义。     

美国经理权益报酬体制弊端和争议

根据最优契约理论设计的美国经理报酬体制旨在激励经理最大化股东价值,然而这种体制在催动美国股市不断膨胀的同时,也带来经理收入操纵和财务造假的体制性弊端,并最终引爆了2001公司会计丑闻。这种权益为主的报酬体制仍存在广泛争议,有待完善。