How capital markets assess the credibility and accuracy of CSR reporting: Exploring the effects of assurance quality and CSR restatement issuance

This research examines how the credibility and accuracy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures enhance market confidence by exploring their effect on the cost of capital. How do capital markets react to higher-quality assurance of CSR reporting? Can the hypothetical reduction in the cost of capital that assurance quality produces be explained by restatements of previous information given in these CSR reports? We explore the relationship between assurance quality, as a proxy for credibility and market confidence, and the mediating effect of CSR restatements as indicators of accuracy. We propose regression models with a sample of CSR reports issued by European companies. Building upon the signalling and legitimacy theories, the results support the positive effect of higher assurance quality statements on market confidence by confirming a decrease in the cost of capital; assurance quality gives an indication of credibility to the capital market and restatements related to methodological updates signal accuracy. The reduction in the cost of capital brought on by higher assurance quality appears to be determined by the issuance of CSR restatements, which create legitimacy for both client companies and assurance providers. CSR reporting and assurance have reached a greater level of maturity as demonstrated by the evolution of these practices and financial market perceptions.     

Separating microstructure noise from volatility

There are two variance components embedded in the returns constructed using high frequency asset prices: the time-varying variance of the unobservable efficient returns that would prevail in a frictionless economy and the variance of the equally unobservable microstructure noise. Using sample moments of high frequency return data recorded at different frequencies, we provide a simple and robust technique to identify both variance components.     

Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Livelihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes

Social movements have been viewed as vehicles through which the concerns of poor and marginalized groups are given greater visibility within civil society, lauded for being the means to achieve local empowerment and citizen activism, and seen as essential in holding the state to account and constituting a grassroots mechanism for promoting democracy. However, within development studies little attention has been paid to understanding how social movements can affect trajectories of development and rural livelihood in given spaces, and how these effects are related to movements’ internal dynamics and their interaction with the broader environment within which they operate. This paper addresses this theme for the case of social movements protesting contemporary forms of mining investment in Latin America. On the basis of cases from Peru and Ecuador, the paper argues that the presence and nature of social movements has significant influences both on forms taken by extractive industries (in this case mining) and on the effects of this extraction on rural livelihoods. In this sense, one can usefully talk about rural development as being co-produced by movements, mining companies, and other actors, in particular the state. The terms of this co-production, however, vary greatly among different locations, reflecting the distinct geographies of social mobilization and of mineral investment, as well as the varying power relationships among the different actors involved.     

Analysing the factors influencing clean technology adoption: a study of the Spanish pulp and paper industry

Technological change has a relevant role to play in the transition towards a sustainable industry. However, slow diffusion of clean technologies can be observed in OECD countries. The analysis of the determinants and barriers to clean technology adoption should be a main goal of economists and social scientists. This paper shows that three sets of interrelated factors prevent but also stimulate the widespread adoption and diffusion of clean technology: these are factors external and internal to the firm, conditions of the potential adopters and characteristics of the environmental technology. These factors are included in the so‐called ‘triangular model’, which is further applied to the analysis of clean technology adoption in the pulp and paper industry in Spain. The empirical study shows that clean technology adoption decisions are the result of an interaction between these factors, often involving contradictory signals for the potential adopter. The paper closes with some public policy recommendations for the effective and efficient promotion of clean technology diffusion. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Researching with whom? Stability and manipulation

This paper explores the existence of stable research teams, when the preferences of each agent depend on the set of researchers who are collaborating. We introduce a property over researchers’ preferences, called top responsiveness, guaranteeing the existence of stable research teams configurations. We also provide a stable mechanism, induced by the so-called top covering algorithm, which is strategy-proof when researchers preferences satisfy top responsiveness. Furthermore, we find that, in this framework, the top covering mechanism is the only strategy-proof mechanism that always selects stable allocations.     

Regional innovation and small high technology firms in peripheral regions

This paper highlights the difficulty of developing HT firms in a peripheral region of Spain. Although the endogenous development of HT firms in these regions is possible, their evolution depends on more central regions. The firm's geographical location and the type of HT production are the most important endogenous factors governing the firm's success.     

Assessment of Interjudge Reliability in the Open-Ended Questions Coding Process

In the process of coding open-ended questions, the evaluation of interjudge reliability is a critical issue. In this paper, using real data, the behavior of three coefficients of reliability among coders, Cohen’s K, Krippendorff’s α and Perreault and Leigh’s I _r are patterned, in terms of the number of judges involved and the categories of answer defined. The outcome underlines the importance of both variables in the valuations of interjudge reliability, as well as the higher adequacy of Perreault and Leigh’s I _r and Krippendorff’s α for marketing and opinion research.     

Pseudo empirical likelihood method in the presence of missing data

In this paper, we propose an estimator for the population mean when some observations on the study and auxiliary variables are missing from the sample. The proposed estimator is valid for any unequal probability sampling design, and is based upon the pseudo empirical likelihood method. The proposed estimator is compared with other estimators in a simulation study.     

Drivers and implications of entrepreneurial orientation for academic spin-offs

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This paper has been designed with a dual goal. On the one hand, the paper aims to examine the role of management teams, industry agents, and...     

The equilibrium set of two-player games with complementarities is a sublattice

Summary. I prove that the equilibrium set in a two-player game with complementarities, and totally ordered strategy spaces, is a sublattice of the joint strategy space. Received: May 31, 2001; revised version: October 4, 2002