Earnings management and abnormal returns: Evidence from the 1970–1972 Price Control Regulations

We examine the association between abnormal returns and earnings management in the context of price control regulations to test the construct validity of the earnings management model. Abnormal returns are used as a market–based measure, and discretionary accruals are employed to measure earnings management. Our results support the hypotheses that (1) price control regulations affect firms' security prices negatively, (2) firms make income–decreasing discretionary accruals to increase the likelihood of price increase approval, and (3) firms that are affected most negatively by the regulations manage earnings more aggressively. We conclude that the earnings management model we use in this study is capable of predicting opportunistic discretionary accruals.     

Uncertainty Associated with Future Environmental Costs and the Market's Differential Response to Earnings Information

This study examines whether the uncertainty arising from a firm's exposure to future environmental costs (environmental uncertainty) affects the market's price sensitivity to reported earnings. Specifically, when environmental uncertainty is significantly high, are investors more responsive to reported earnings released by 'high-polluting' firms than reported earnings announced by 'low-polluting' firms within the same industry? The initial impact of Title IV (the acid rain provisions) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (1990 CAAA) on the US electric utility industry provides the research setting required to isolate the effects of environmental uncertainty while addressing this question. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that the earnings response coefficients (ERCs) of high-polluting electric utilities are significantly greater than those of their low-polluting counterparts during a predicted period of elevated environmental uncertainty. In adjoining sample years associated with lower environmental uncertainty, we observe no statistical difference in the magnitude of the ERCs between these two groups. In addition, the study's findings suggest that the magnitude of the ERC is increasing in the firm's exposure to future environmental costs, after controlling for other factors that potentially affect ERCs.     

Bank Monitoring and Environmental Risk

Abstract:  Loan announcement effects for 152 Canadian companies are examined to investigate the efficiency of monitoring by banks facing lender environmental liability. Market reaction to the announcement of bank debt to 'environmental' firms is more positive and significant than for 'non-environmental' firms and, for firms in industries with a higher likelihood of experiencing spill events, is more positive and significant, reinforcing earlier results that establish a relationship between specific loan/borrower characteristics and announcement period excess returns and providing further evidence on the 'uniqueness' of bank loans by demonstrating the superior ability of banks to monitor corporate borrowers exposed to environmental liability.     

Dividend Imputation and Shareholder Wealth: The Case of New Zealand

On April 1, 1988, New Zealand stopped the double taxation of dividends by implementing a full dividend imputation program. Because many believed that the tax advantage of debt had led to more highly leveraged firms subject to greater financial risk than was socially optimal, it was hoped the removal of incentives to finance with debt would result in a more efficient allocation of capital. The empirical results suggest that the shareholder wealth gain from dividend imputation was more than offset in firms with large debt levels. Moreover, an examination of debt ratios indicates debt levels declined in the post–imputation period.     

Customer ignorance, price-cap regulation, and rent-seeking in mobile roaming

Mobile phone usage when traveling abroad is expensive. Although the network connection switches frequently between available networks, the choice of network is largely independent of wholesale prices. As a consequence, we show that wholesale prices are strategic substitutes. The recent European price-cap regulation forces firms to reduce wholesale and retail roaming prices, but does not solve the underlying problem. There may thus be a permanent need for regulation analogous to what we have for domestic call termination. Furthermore, we show that there is a risk that wholesale price-cap regulation stimulates wasteful rent-seeking activity.     

宽松的环境政策能吸引更多的外商直接投资吗——基于中国工业省级面板数据的分析

利用我国1997~2009年的工业省级面板数据和动态面板GMM估计方法,考察了相对宽松的环境政策是否是吸引FDI的主要原因。研究发现,环境政策较宽松的地区能够吸引更多的外资流入,但这种影响并不大,所以,以降低环境标准、牺牲环境为代价来吸引FDI不是明智之举;与东、中部地区相比,西部在吸引FDI上处于明显劣势,这在一定程度上加剧了我国经济结构的失衡。     

基于要素流动的环境规制贸易效应与政策研究--TPP《环境合作协议》的启示

文章在梳理环境规制与贸易相关文献基础上,构建两部门模型,从部门内和部门间要素流动的视角分析环境规制与产出和污染的关系,论述环境规制影响出口贸易的路径以及要素可流动下环境规制贸易效应的多面性;然后分解投入产出模型并重估能源排放系数,计算中国29个行业部门出口贸易的国内碳排放,提出我国在转变经济发展方式背景下行业碳排放规制策略;最后结合TPP贸易新标准趋势和我国投入要素变动情况,提出我国提高环境规制强度、转变高消耗经济发展方式的未来方向。     

Connecting National Safety Nets: The Dialectics of the Basel II Contracting Process

Basel II consists of supervisory guidelines negotiated by representatives of central banks and national regulatory commissions that were members of the Basel committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS). The BCBS is itself a regulatory response to globalization, which is connecting national safety nets in market-driven ways. A country’s financial safety net is a social contract established by short-lived agents for principals in long-lived economic sectors. Restraints placed on the authority of the BCBS members to contract for their principals by domestic politics explains: why Basel II authorizes individual countries to implement the agreement in markedly different ways; why US implementation of Basel II ran into so much doubt, controversy, and delay; and how the implementation debate set small and large banks and the Federal Reserve and other federal regulators against one another.

The Motivation and Effectiveness of Gas Industry Economic Regulation in New South Wales, 1912–39

The oldest industry in Australia subjected to economic regulation is the gas supply industry in the state of New South Wales. In this paper the aims and motivation of the New South Wales Government in establishing the regulatory regime in 1912 and the subsequent effectiveness in achieving them are determined. Initially the regulatory regime was based on ad hoc arrangements, but eventually a more permanent structure was devised that effectively defused political controversy over gas market pricing and stabilised prices rather than substantially lowered them.