Does FIN 48 Improve Firms' Estimates of Tax Reserves?

This paper examines whether the increased accounting guidance and reporting requirements of FIN 48 impact the adequacy and accuracy of tax reserves and the effect of auditor‐provided tax services on tax reserves. While we do not find FIN 48 affected the adequacy or accuracy of tax reserves on average, FIN 48 eliminated the differences in the tax reserve adequacy of firms with and without auditor‐provided tax services that existed prior to its adoption. We also find evidence of less premature releasing of tax reserves post‐FIN 48. Our evidence is consistent with an increase in the comparability of reserves for firms that do and do not purchase auditor‐provided tax services, consistent with one of the FASB's objectives for FIN 48.     

Good neighbours matter: economic geography and the diffusion of human rights

Using multi-country panel data, this paper investigates the geopolitical and economic aspects of human rights performance. Human rights performance depends on the relative levels of economic development and spatial proximity to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ neighbours. The paper tests for basic effects of income, and applies spatial weighting models, to analyse the neighbours’ impact on human rights levels, treating this impact as partly endogenous. It takes into account size and distance when comparing each country’s human rights performance with what would be predicted from a weighted average of its neighbours’ performance. There are (1) geographical clusters and (2) size and proximity effects for human rights performance.