The impact of audit firms’ characteristics on audit fees following information security breaches

Given the importance of auditors’ assessing business risks and evaluating internal controls, we investigate whether an audit firm’s industry expertise, tenure, and size can help its auditors better understand external and internal threats faced by the client with less effort. Using reported information security breach incidents from 2004 to 2013, we find that, consistent with prior studies, audit fees are higher after the occurrence of an information security breach. However, such an association is negatively moderated when the audit firm has industry-specific expertise, longer experience with the client, and is one of the Big 4 firms. Our results suggest that because of their better knowledge about a specific industry, increased familiarity with the client’s operations, and more resources to understand a client’s vulnerabilities and/or information security policies and procedures, these auditors are more capable of assessing the potentially changing information security risks implied by the occurrence of information security breach incidents. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks.     

Stock price response to new‐CEO earnings news

New‐CEO earnings news exhibits asymmetric effects on stock prices. Stock prices rise more on good earnings news announced by firms with new CEOs compared with those with established CEOs. By contrast, stock prices tend to fall by a smaller amount on bad earnings news for new CEOs. Both the new‐CEO quality effect and the new‐CEO honeymoon effect are more pronounced for CEOs appointed during challenging situations. The new‐CEO quality effect is stronger for firms followed by fewer analysts, while the honeymoon effect is stronger for firms followed by more analysts – illustrating the importance of a transparent information environment.     

The changing technological environment and the future of behavioural research in accounting

In an era where the pace of change continues to escalate, behavioural research provides an ongoing avenue for explaining the likely effects of emergent changes on decision‐making by providers, users and assurers of accounting information, and for providing ex ante enlightenment for policy‐makers. The purpose of this discussion is to identify contemporary changes affecting the accounting environment, discuss the potential impact to individual and organisational decision‐making, and explore how behavioural research can be utilised to examine these changes. Specifically, this discussion focuses on the impact that technological changes have had on financial reporting, external auditing and managerial accounting, with an eye towards the potential for these changes to radically alter the future of accounting and auditing research.     

Information linkages between emission allowance and energy markets

We employ a rational expectations framework similar to that proposed by Fleming et al. (1998) to examine the source, and nature of, information linkages between the emission allowance and energy markets as gauged by the correlation of return volatilities. Estimating the model for bivariate pairings of securities suggests that market linkages arise from sensitivities to common information rather than from indirect spillovers, with emission allowances most strongly linked to the crude oil market.     

How good can heuristic-based forecasts be? A comparative performance of econometric and heuristic models for UK and US asset returns

This paper systematically investigates the sources of differential out-of-sample predictive accuracy of heuristic frameworks based on internet search frequencies and a large set of econometric models. The volume of internet searches helps gauge the degree of investors’ time-varying interest in specific assets. We use a wide range of state-of-the-art models, both of linear and nonlinear type (regime-switching predictive regressions, threshold autoregressive, smooth transition autoregressive), extended to capture conditional heteroskedasticity through GARCH models. The predictor variables investigated are those typical of the literature featuring a range of macroeconomic and market leading indicators. Our out-of-sample forecasting exercises are conducted with reference to US, UK, French and German data, both stocks and bonds, and for 1- and 12-months-ahead horizons. We employ several forecast performance metrics and predictive accuracy tests. Internet-search-based models are found to perform better than the average of all of the alternative models. For several country-asset-horizon combinations, particularly for UK bond returns, our heuristic models compare favourably with sophisticated econometric methods. The heuristic models are also shown to perform well in forecasting realized volatility. The baseline results are supported by several extensions and robustness checks, such as using alternative search keywords, controlling for Fama–French and Cochrane–Piazzesi factors, and implementing heuristic-based trading strategies.     

Performance of information criteria for selection of Hawkes process models of financial data

We test three common information criteria (IC) for selecting the order of a Hawkes process with an intensity kernel that can be expressed as a mixture of exponential terms. These processes find application in high-frequency financial data modelling. The information criteria are Akaike’s information criterion, the Bayesian information criterion and the Hannan–Quinn criterion. Since we work with simulated data, we are able to measure the performance of model selection by the success rate of the IC in selecting the model that was used to generate the data. In particular, we are interested in the relation between correct model selection and underlying sample size. The analysis includes realistic sample sizes and parameter sets from recent literature where parameters were estimated using empirical financial intra-day data. We compare our results to theoretical predictions and similar empirical findings on the asymptotic distribution of model selection for consistent and inconsistent IC.     

Market ambiguity and individual investor information demand

We examine whether ambiguity in the market leads to an increase in information demand by individual investors. Drawing on the asset-pricing model proposed by Mele and Sangiorgi (2015), which incorporates market ambiguity, we measure individual information demand using daily Google searches and measure market ambiguity using a metric based on the market trades of institutional investors. We find that individual investors increase their information demand during periods of greater market ambiguity. We also provide evidence that information demand from individual investors spikes around earnings announcement days primarily when market uncertainty is driven by net-selling activity. Overall, these results suggest that the disagreement among institutional investors either represents uncertainty or contributes to the uncertainty related to a stock, leading to increased demand for information from individual investors.     

征信机制、信用信息与信贷约束 ——基于中小企业板上市公司的实证

本文从理论上阐述了征信机制缓解信息不对称,降低企业融资成本,提高信贷可 获得性的作用机理,并以中小企业板上市公司为研究对象,实证检验了企业基本信息、财务信 息、商业信用信息等各类信用信息对中小企业信贷规模和融资成本的影响。实证研究发现：中 小企业基本信息对信贷可获得性的影响存在异质性,对信贷规模影响不显著。企业财务信息、 商业信用信息与贷款可获得性、贷款规模、融资成本支出显著正相关。     

宅基地使用权收回的流程规范

宅基地使用权收回制度在整个宅基地使用权制度中处于重要的节点地位。宅基地使用权收回流程的现行法律规定与实践比较混乱,需要进一步规范。宅基地使用权收回程序的启动者应是集体经济组织。对因公共利益而收回和因非公共利益而收回的不同情形,应采用不同的程序。政府负责审查和涂销登记。宅基地使用权收回后,被收回人有获得补偿和重新申请宅基地使用权的权利。未来立法应对宅基地使用权收回流程做出规范,切实保护农民合法权益。     

土地承包权、土地经营权的性质阐释

着眼于农地“三权分置”改革的政策目标,以既有土地承包经营权制度为基础,通过对“所有权—用益物权”之他物权生成逻辑的拓展,土地经营权得以建立源自“用益物权—次级用益物权”的权利架构。土地经营权是土地承包经营权人设定的次级用益物权,其生成是土地承包经营权人行使其用益物权的结果,分置出土地经营权的土地承包经营权即为土地承包权。通过扩大解释《物权法》第117条中“动产”的含义以及登记技术信息化对物权类型和内容的扩容,物权法完全可以容纳土地经营权这一新型物权。“成员权说”对土地承包权性质的阐释,“总括权利说”“两权说”“债权说”对土地经营权性质的阐释都有偏颇之处,并可能引发实践中的现实问题。