Carbon Trading Reporting: The Case of Spanish Companies

Policy makers, scientists, industry leaders, and academicians all have debated how to restrain global warming and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Three main methods are used: command and control laws and regulations, carbon taxes, and cap and trade schemes. Recognizing the consequences of global warming, all Scandinavian countries introduced a carbon emissions tax in the 1990s. They also ratified the Kyoto Protocol that ran from 2005 through 2012. The European Union (EU) instituted a carbon trading scheme (Emissions Trading System (ETS)) in February 2005 when Kyoto became operative. The three Scandinavian EU members had two methods in place during the 2005–08 period to encourage GHG reduction: taxing and trading. Norway, not in the EU, used just taxes. The other EU members, including Spain, applied just the carbon trading ETS scheme to encourage compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. The fundamental issue addressed is this one: Did publicly held firms headquartered in Spain adequately report participation in the EU carbon emissions trading mechanism? Data to answer this question were obtained from the 2011 and 2012 annual reports for domestic Spanish public companies that received tradable emissions permits. In addition to assessing investor-owned firms’ disclosure posture, the specific method of reporting about carbon emissions permits, whether companies used, banked, or sold the permits granted by the government, also is reviewed. This empirical research effort reports on a complete survey of all available data for the two financial reporting periods that concluded the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol.     

DISTRIBUTIONS OF FINANCIAL RATIOS IN THE COMMERCIAL BANKING INDUSTRY

Much research in banking assumes that the data are normally distributed. There has been little empirical confirmation of this assumption. In this paper, the normality assumption is subjected to an extensive test using data for virtually all U.S. commercial banks for several years. The statistical characteristics of 11 common financial ratios are investigated. The findings reject any broad assumption of population normality.     

Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards Has Enhanced Chinese Company Transparency

The research reported here shows that China＇s recent adoption （ASBE） has increased the quality of Chinese financial reporting of Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises With China＇s decade of World Trade Organization （WTO） membership marked by dazzling economic growth, it is useful to reflect on how financial reporting itself can assist in the country＇s future progress. Critical to the success of ensuring strength for this burgeoning economy is attraction of foreign investment capital. As China＇s internal consumption grows,