Business Commons^™

Tercer Congreso Nacional De Organismos Públicos Autónomos, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Tercer Congreso Nacional de Organismos Públicos Autónomos

"Autonomía, Reforma Legislativa y Gasto Público"

The Association Between Excess Audit Fees And Audit Quality: A Us-Uk Comparison, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior studies that examine the association between excess audit fees and audit quality (measured by discretionary accruals) using US data fail to document a significant association. However, there is no convincing explanation for this result to date. In this study, we test a cancellation hypothesis, which suggests that the non-association might be due to the cancellation effect between the risk-effort effect and the bonding effect that excess fees capture. To the extent that excess fees capture the compensation for effort the auditor puts in for a risky client, which is not captured in the existing audit fee models (the risk-effort …

Do Family Firms Provide More Or Less Voluntary Disclosure?, Xia Chen, Shuping Chen, Qiang Cheng

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the voluntary disclosure practices of family firms. We find that, compared to nonfamily firms, family firms provide fewer earnings forecasts and conference calls, but more earnings warnings. Whereas the former is consistent with family owners having a longer investment horizon, better monitoring of management, and lower information asymmetry between owners and managers, the higher likelihood of earnings warnings is consistent with family owners having greater litigation and reputation cost concerns. We also document that family ownership dominates nonfamily insider ownership and concentrated institutional ownership in explaining the likelihood of voluntary disclosure. Using alternative proxies for the founding family's …

The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act On Security Analysts’ Performance, Sheryl-Ann Stephen

Sheryl-Ann K. Stephen

No abstract provided.

Takeover Defenses, Golden Parachutes, And Bargaining Over Stochastic Synergy Gains: A Note On Optimal Contracting, Atreya Chakraborty

Atreya Chakraborty

We incorporate managerial risk aversion and stochasticity of takeover synergy gains into Harris’ (Harris, E.G. 1990. Antitakeover measures, golden parachutes, and target firm shareholder welfare. Rand Journal of Economics 21, no. 4 : 614–25.) bargaining model for the coexistence of antitakeover defenses and golden parachutes in corporate charters.We show that: (i) it is not always optimal that the target-firm shareholders adopt antitakeover defenses, (ii) the size of the golden parachute is proportional to the riskiness of the synergistic gains, and (iii) the target-firm shareholders are unequivocally better-off with golden parachutes than takeover-contingent stock options.

Pre-Test Assessment, Thomas D. Berry

Thomas D Berry

An Examination Of Value Line’S Long-Term Projection, Andrew Szakmary, C. Mitchell Conover, Carol Lancaster

Finance Faculty Publications

Unlike previous papers, which have focused on the timeliness ranks, we examine Value Line’s 3–5 year projections for stock returns, earnings, sales and related measures. We find that Value Line’s stock return and earnings forecasts exhibit large positive bias, although their sales predictions do not. For stock returns, Value Line’s projections lack predictive power; for other variables predictive power may exist to some degree. Our findings suggest the spectacular past performance of the timeliness indicator reflects either close alignment with other known anomalies or data mining, and that investors and researchers should use Value Line’s long-term projections with caution.

Governance Role Of Auditors And Legal Environment: Evidence From Corporate Disclosure Transparency, Sam Han, Tony Kang, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines whether auditor size associates with disclosure transparency. Given thatprior studies generally focus on discretionary accruals to investigate the relation betweenauditor size and financial reporting quality, there is little evidence on how auditor size relates toother attributes of reporting quality. Further, studies that examine this associationinternationally produce mixed results as to how auditor size relates to reporting quality indifferent legal origins. Focusing on corporate disclosure transparency (i.e., disclosure levels), wefind that auditor size and disclosure level are positively associated across countries and that theassociation is stronger in code law regimes than in common law regimes. The latter findingsupports …

Novice And Expert Judgment In The Presence Of Going Concern Uncertainty The Influence Of Heuristic Biases And Other Relevant Factors, Asokan Anandarajan, Gary Kleinman, Dan Palmon

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose - Prior literature provides clear evidence that the judgments of experts differ from those of non-experts. For example, Smith and Kida concluded that the extent of common biases that they investigated often are reduced when experts perform job related tasks as compared to students. The aim in this theoretical study is to examine whether "heuristic biases significantly moderate the understanding of experts versus novices in the going concern judgment?" Design/methodology/approach - The authors address the posited question by marshalling extant literature on expert and novice judgments and link these to concepts drawn from the cognitive sciences through the Brunswick …

Putting Ethics Into Environmental Law: Fiduciary Duties For Ethical Investment, Benjamin J. Richardson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article argues that environmental law must target the financial sector, which sponsors and profits from environmental pillage. The rise of a system of finance capitalism has made the financial sector a crucial economic sector. A long-standing movement for socially responsible investment (SRI) has recently begun to advocate environmental standards for financiers. While the SRI movement has gained more influence in recent years, it has come at the price of jettisoning its former emphasis on ethical investment in favour of an instrumental, business case approach. Some modest legal reforms to improve the quality and extent of SRI have yet to …

Duration Measures For Corporate Project Valuation, Tom Arnold, David S. North

Finance Faculty Publications

Sensitivity analysis is a very common exercise performed with the forecasting of project cash flows. In this paper, a duration-type measure is generated that provides a single number for the assessment of project cash flows relative to changes in the discount rate (or adjusted for changes in a particular cash flow model parameter). The calculation is no more difficult than the duration measures that already exist for bonds. Yet, the calculation provides valuable insight that many times is lost when performing sensitivity analysis. Further, at a minimum, the measure provides a gauge for the consequences of mis-specifiying the discount rate …

The Eu Has Accepted Ias For Listed Companies: Will The U. S. Follow?, Karen Cascini, Anne Rich

WCBT Faculty Publications

International financial reporting standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), have become respected by many countries and regulatory agencies. The European Union (EU) has determined for most publicly held companies that IFRS promulgated by IASB meet the standards for cross-boarder listing. This paper will present a brief history of the development of international accounting standards and discuss the factors that led to the EU’s acceptance of them. The paper will then consider the case of the U.S. By examining the changes in the accounting environment in the U.S. and specifically looking at the role of the Securities …

So, What About Sox? Market Response To Government Regulation, Cindy J. Burrows

Inquiry Journal 2008

No abstract provided.

Determining Organization Excellence, Elliott Moseley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The hotel and hospitality industry are flourishing at a greater and more rapid pace in the global context than ever before and with each new projected location there is a certain inevitable risk faced by investors in that property. The level of risk varies from one situation to the next and such potential owners/investors must be able to act and plan with confidence when investing in hotel real estate. This confidence can be accomplished with full understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of economic and market analyses within any particular location. One important tool that these individuals use is market …

The Changing Components Of The Corporate Annual Report: An Update, Deborah S. Archambeault, John G. Fulmer Jr., Richard A. Turpin

Accounting Faculty Publications

Recent regulatory changes affect not only the content of annual reports but also the population of companies that are required to comply with these reporting regulations. Lenders need to stay abreast of the information provided in corporate reporting packages. This article provides an update on regulatory changes and discusses how these changes affect the information that can be found in corporate annual reports.

Pre-Acquisition Characteristics Of The Acquirers, Rupendra Paliwal

WCBT Faculty Publications

Existing empirical literature has extensively analyzed post-acquisition performance of the acquirers to evaluate success of the takeover. The academic literature tends to agree that target shareholders benefit from takeovers; however takeovers benefits for acquiring firm’s shareholders have been questioned. A majority of empirical literature indicate acquisition announcements are associated with a decrease in acquiring shareholder’s wealth. While pre-acquisition characteristics of takeover targets have been extensively analyzed, empirical literature has not directly and comprehensively analyzed pre-acquisition financial and operating characteristics of the acquiring firms. In this paper, I examine pre-acquisition operating performance and governance characteristics of acquirers. Results suggest that bidders …

The Impact Of Investor Protection Law On Takeovers: The Case Of Leveraged Buyouts, Jerry Cao, Douglas J. Cumming, Jeremy Goh, Meijun Qian, Xiaoming Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the impact of investor protection on the value creation of LBOs. We find that target shareholders’ wealth gain is higher in countries with better investor protection. The impact of investor protection on takeover premium is larger for LBO than non-LBO transactions. We also find evidence suggesting that club LBOs are not priced lower than non-club deals after accounting for endogeneity problem. These results suggest that investor protection law may act as an important safeguard for minority shareholders in LBO transactions.

Do Poison Pills Increase Firm Risk?, Thomas Turk, Jeremy C. Goh, Candace Ybarra

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Management scholars have argued that an active takeover market discourages risk-taking by managers and that takeover defenses serve to counter the risk-reducing pressures of an active takeover market. This study employs the Black and Scholes Option Pricing Model to determine whether or not adoption of poison pill securities increases investor perceptions of firm risk. The results provide evidence that the Option-Implied Standard Deviations of common stock returns increase significantly on the poison pill adoption date, on average. Furthermore, the implied standard deviations remained significantly above pre-adoption levels for several days after the poison pill adoption, suggesting that the perceived increase …

Non-Audit Service Fees And Audit Quality: The Impact Of Auditor Specialization, Chee Yeow Lim, Hun-Tong Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We posit that the effect of non-audit fees on audit quality is conditional on auditor industry specialization. Industry specialist auditors are more likely than nonspecialists to be concerned about reputation losses and litigation exposure, and to benefit from knowledge spillovers from the provision of non-audit services. We find evidence that audit quality measured by increased propensity to issue going-concern opinion, increased propensity to miss analysts' forecasts, as well as higher earnings-response coefficients increases with the level of non-audit services acquired from industry specialist auditors compared to nonspecialist auditors.

The Implications Of Debt Heterogeneity For R&D Investment And Firm Performance, Parthiban David, Jonathan P. O'Brien, Toru Yoshikawa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

An assumption in prior research is that debt is homogeneous and provides inappropriate governance for R&D investments. We argue that debt is heterogeneous: although transactional debt does indeed impose strict contractual constraints that provide inappropriate governance for R&D investments, relational debt has very different characteristics that provide more appropriate governance. Using a sample of Japanese firms, we find that firms that align their debt structures with their R&D investments perform better than those that are misaligned. Furthermore, firms tend to align their debt structure with R&D investments, but only after deregulation permits relatively free access to various types of debt.

Information Asymmetry And The Cost Of Going Public For Equity Carve Outs, Steven D. Dolvin, Karen M. Hogan, Gerad T. Olson

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

We examine the relationship between asymmetric information and the cost of going public for equity carve-outs (ECOs) as compared to ordinary initial public offerings (IPOs). We decompose underpricing into the opportunity cost of issuance (OCI) and a measure of share retention. Compared to an average IPO, we find that ECOs have lower OCI and price revisions, but higher share retention and long-term returns. Compared to a matched sample of IPOs, however, we observe similar OCI and long-term returns, but still find ECOs have higher share retention. Our analysis suggests that documented pricing differences between ECOs and IPOs likely are attributable …

Corporate Governance, Transparency And Performance Of Malaysian Companies, Mohd Che Haat, H. R. Raaman, Sakthi Mahenthiran

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

The paper aims to examine the effect of good corporate governance practices on corporate transparency and performance Malaysian listed companies.

Underpricing, Overhang, And The Cost Of Going Public To Preexisting Shareholders, Steven D. Dolvin, Bradford D. Jordan

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

IPO underpricing has been extensively studied; however, its impact on the wealth of preexisting shareholders has not been closely examined. We address the question of whether or not periods of high underpricing adversely affect preexisting shareholders. We find that high levels of underpricing are associated with increased share retention, which effectively offsets much of the potential cost. Overall, we find that the percentage of shareholder wealth lost is surprisingly stable over time, unlike underpricing itself. We also find that many factors known to be related to underpricing are not significant determinants of the cost of going public to preexisting owners.

Golden Parachutes And Shark Repellents And Shareholders' Interests: Some New Evidence, Atreya Chakraborty

Atreya Chakraborty

In this paper we test for the motives for adopting golden parachutes and Anti-Takeover Amendments (ATAs). Firms that exhibited financial characteristics that were associated with a greater probability of hostile raids were also more likely to adopt golden parachutes or ATAs. We also find evidence to support the hypothesis that the adoption of golden parachutes and poison pills may in fact complement each other.

Designing A Litigation Hold Process, Robert L. Kardell

Robert L Kardell

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of 9/11 On The Stock Market Volatility Dynamics: Empirical Evidence From A Front Line State, Omar Farooq, Sheraz Ahmed

Omar Farooq

Did the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 change the volatility dynamics of stock markets? Using daily returns data from Pakistan, a front line state in the war against terror, we investigate whether important time series characteristics, for example first-order time dependence in the mean and conditional variance, the conditional variance risk premium, and the asymmetric response of the conditional variance to innovations, have changed during the post-9/11 period in comparison to these characteristics during the pre-9/11 period. Our results show that the volatility behavior changed significantly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We show that this sudden shift in …

Tourism Development In Aqaba And Human Sustainability, Philadelphia University

Philadelphia University, Jordan

No abstract provided.

Competing For Capital: The Diffusion Of Bilateral Investment Treaties, 1960-2000, Zachary Elkins, Andrew T. Guzman, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

Over the past forty-five years, bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the most important international legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment. Their proliferation over the past two decades in particular has been phenomenal. These intergovernmental treaties typically grant extensive rights to foreign investors, including protection of contractual rights and the right to international arbitration in the event of an investment dispute. How can we explain the diffusion of BITs? We argue that the spread of BITs is driven by international competition among potential host countries - typically developing countries - for foreign direct investment. We …

A Simplified Approach To Understanding The Kalman Filter Technique, Tom Arnold, Mark J. Bertus, Jonathan Godbey

Finance Faculty Publications

The Kalman filter is a time series estimation algorithm that is applied extensively in the field of engineering and recently (relative to engineering) in the field of finance and economics. However, presentations of the technique are somewhat intimidating despite the relative ease of generating the algorithm. This article presents the Kalman filter in a simplified manner and produces an example of an application of the algorithm in Excel. This scaled-down version of the Kalman filter can be introduced in the (advanced) undergraduate classroom as well as the graduate classroom.

Corporate Social Responsibility For Solving The Housing Problem For The Poor In South Africa, Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman, Basheera Mia

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.