bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Listing BRICs: Stock Issuers from Brazil, Russia, India, and China in New York, London, and Luxembourg
Authors: Wójcik Dariusz , Burger Csaba 
Published: October 2015

abstractIn the past decade, hundreds of companies from emerging markets have listed their shares on American and European stock markets. Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) are the main countries of origin of issuers, and stock exchanges in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Luxembourg are the main destinations involved in the process. We use a comprehensive data set for these home and host markets for the end of 2008 to explore the intensity of foreign listings, the subnational geography of cross‐listed firms, and the destinations of foreign listings. Cross‐listing firms tend to be relatively large and come from capital‐intensive, export‐oriented, and high‐growth sectors. Trading links with and industrial specialization of the host markets affect the choice of destination markets. These patterns, however, are not universal across countries. There is a high concentration of cross‐listed firms in the leading financial centers of the BRIC countries, particularly in Russia and Brazil. Firms outside of the leading centers rarely cross‐list, and when they do, they enter second‐tier host markets. While BRIC countries have a large potential for further foreign listings, the process remains politically sensitive. Our results highlight the shortcomings of the literature on cross‐listing in economics and the significance of the cross‐listing phenomenon to future research in financial geographies.
Environmental Taxation and Development: A Scoping Study
Authors: Spratt Stephen 
Published: October 2015

SummaryDeveloping countries face increasing environmental pressures across a range of dimensions. At the same time, the capacity of these governments to effectively pursue policy goals is often constrained by a lack of resources, with tax revenues in many countries being half of what is common in developed economies. For some, these are distinct issues that should be considered separately. For others, they can and should be dealt with together. This paper reviews the potential of one type of mechanism to address both goals simultaneously: environmental taxation.After distinguishing between different forms, the paper uses a Pigouvian framework to organise and analyse theoretical and empirical evidence on the impacts of environmental taxes in developing countries. Despite limited evidence it is possible to draw some conclusions. First, taxes that are carefully designed and reflect local conditions can be effective in achieving environmental goals, and may be the best instruments under some conditions. Second, while it is possible to raise significant revenues, there may be less potential than is often supposed: environmental goals are more likely to be achieved where tax revenues are used, in part, to further the same ends; it may also be necessary – and desirable – to use some revenue to offset regressive effects; also, support for environmental taxes is likely to be undermined if they are seen to be revenue raising tools. More broadly, limits to the effectiveness of environmental taxes become more severe as the number of policy goals increases: achieving ‘double‐dividends’ may be hard, and ‘triple‐dividends’ harder still. A more realistic aim, therefore, may be a ‘one and a half’ dividend approach, with the environmental goal being the primary focus. Third, regardless of the quality of design, environmental taxes may fail without strong, high‐level political support, particularly where they conflict with other policy goals that do have this support.In the light of this analysis, the penultimate section of the paper develops a decision‐making framework, designed to help policy‐makers weigh the merits of environmental taxes to achieve specified goals. The paper concludes with a comprehensive research agenda.
A Tale of Two Stories: Sustainability and the Quarterly Earnings Call
Authors: Eccles Robert G. , Serafeim George 
Published: October 2015

One of the challenges companies claim to face in making sustainability a core part of their strategy and operations is that the market does not care about sustainability, either in general or because the time frames in which it matters are too long. The response of investors who say they care about sustainability—and their numbers are large and growing—is that companies do a poor job in providing them with the information they need to take sustainability into account in their investment decisions. Whatever the merits of each view, the fact remains that an effective conversation about sustainability requires the participation of both sides of the market.There are two main mechanisms for companies to communicate to the market as a way of starting this conversation: mandated reporting and quarterly conference calls. In this paper, the authors argue that neither companies nor investors can be seen as taking sustainability seriously unless it is integrated into the quarterly earnings call. Until that happens, the core business and sustainability are two separate worlds, each of which has its own narrator telling a different story to a different audience.The authors illustrate their argument using the case of SAP, the German software company. SAP was the first company to host an “ESG Investor Briefing,” a conference call for analysts and investors held on July 30, 2013 in which the company discussed both its sustainability performance and its contribution to the firm's financial performance. The narrative of this call was very similar to the narrative of the company's first “integrated report,” which was issued in 2012 and presented the company's sustainability initiatives in the context of its operating and financial performance. Nevertheless, the content and main focus of the “ESG Briefing” were very different from that of most quarterly earnings conferences, and so were the audiences. Whereas the quarterly call was attended mainly by sell side analysts—and the words “sustainability” or “sustainable” failed to receive a single mention—the ESG briefing was delivered to an investor audience made up almost entirely of the “buy side.”
Corporate Disclosure of Material Information: The Evolution—and the Need to Evolve Again
Authors: Rogers Jean , Herz Robert 
Published: October 2015

This article by the former chairman of the FASB and the founder and executive director of the new Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) presents the rationale for and mission of the SASB. As the authors point out, both the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was created in 1934, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board, set up in 1973, emerged during times of low investor confidence to restore trust in the capital markets. And the institutional changes brought about by the creation of both the SEC and the FASB succeeded in eliciting new information for investors and in raising the standards by which such information was reported.But as the authors go on to argue, we now live in a different world, one in which the management of environmental, social, and governance issues is increasingly viewed as critical to the long‐run value creation of companies. And because today's corporate reporting fails to account in a systematic way for material non‐financial issues, it's time once again for the capital markets to evolve. The SASB aims to meet this need by creating sustainability accounting standards for use by public companies in disclosing a minimum set of material sustainability impacts for companies in over 80 different industries. As part of a natural evolution in disclosure, the SASB aims to achieve the same goal the SEC and FASB started with: to protect investors and the public.
Reforming Banks Without Destroying Their Productivity and Value
Authors: Calomiris Charles W. 
Published: October 2015

Government‐protected banking systems tend to blow up, imposing huge losses on taxpayers. In a recent much‐publicized book, The Bankers' New Clothes, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig propose to fix this problem by forcing banks to maintain 25% of their assets in the form of equity rather than debt. But this author argues, the book overstates the benefits and understates the costs of the proposed reform, while also failing to identify additional necessary reforms.Because bank equity is not true equity, and equity must be evaluated only in relation to risk, increasing required book equity ratios will not necessarily reduce the risk of bank failure significantly.Raising equity requirements is also socially costly because it reduces banks' willingness to lend. When banks need to raise their equity‐to‐asset ratios, they often choose to do so by cutting back on new loans, rather than paying the high costs of raising new equity. The reduction in loan supply that comes from raising equity ratios can be substantial, and is not just a one‐time cost. Balancing the costs and benefits of higher equity implies a much lower required equity ratio than the 25% posited in The Bankers' New Clothes.Finally, because equity ratios relative to risk should be the focus of prudential regulation, additional regulatory policy reforms that strengthen incentives for more effective risk management are needed in addition to higher capital ratios.
Synthetic Floating‐Rate Debt: An Example of an Asset‐Driven Liability Structure
Authors: Adams James , Smith Donald J. 
Published: October 2015

An asset‐driven liability (ADL) structure is analogous to a liability‐driven investment (LDI) strategy. In both cases, the intent is to reduce the risk arising from a mismatch of assets and liabilities by aligning the interest rate sensitivity of cash flows on both sides of the balance sheet. Increasingly, defined‐benefit pension plans have adopted LDI strategies that reduce their equity assets and increase the average duration of their debt assets to better match the typical long duration of their retirement obligations to its employees. To illustrate the concept of ADL, the authors use the example of a corporate issue of traditional fixed‐rate debt that is transformed into synthetic floating‐rate debt using an interest rate swap (in which the corporation receives the fixed rate on the swap and pays at money market reference rate like three‐month LIBOR). The use of such long‐term, floating‐rate debt reduces interest rate risk when the firm has operating revenues that are positively correlated to the business cycle.However, a problem arises in that there is limited demand for such debt securities from institutional investors, many of which, because of LDI guidelines, prefer long‐term, fixed‐rate securities. Derivatives provide a way of resolving this mismatch between issuer and investor interests. In the article, the authors present a detailed example of the cash flows on the “receive‐fixed” interest rate swap (and its valuation for financial reporting) to show how the synthetic ADL debt structure obtains the desired outcome.
Another Look at Bookbuilding, Auctions, and the Future of the IPO Process
Authors: Chen Zhaohui , Morrison Alan , Wilhelm William J. 
Published: October 2015

In an earlier series of articles published in this journal, one of the three authors of this article predicted the rise of auction IPOs, possibly to the point of displacing the traditional bookbuilding process for pricing and allocating IPOs, only to find himself forced to explain in later articles the continuing preference of issuers for the conventional IPO process. In a 1999 article, for example, this author cited WR Hambrecht as posing a serious challenge to bookbuilding. And in a 2005 article, shortly after Google used an auction for its IPO, he suggested that the time was ripe for change.In this article the authors revisit the debate, taken up most recently in a 2012 exchange between Congressman Darrell Issa and the SEC. They begin by discussing why bookbuilding persists before focusing on several recent developments that could undermine the case for bookbuilding. The authors point out that bookbuilding rests on banks' discretion in allocating IPO shares and, critically, on both issuers and investors trusting that it will be deployed appropriately. After discussing developments that have undermined trust in the financial markets, the authors suggest that, when combined with recent regulatory changes intended to streamline public offerings by small firms, such changes have created opportunities for auctions to gain traction in the U.S. IPO market.
A South African Success Story: Excellence in the Corporate Use of Capital and Its Social Benefits
Authors: Kantor Brian , Holland David 
Published: October 2015

South African companies have made great progress in improving corporate profitability since the nation became a full democracy in 1994. Using the “Cash Flow Return on Investment” (CFROI) method, the authors demonstrate that South African listed companies have been generating world‐beating levels of inflation‐adjusted return on capital over the past decade.But not all parts of the South African economy have benefited from this corporate success. Despite the impressive corporate returns, economic growth remains lackluster, constrained by confused labor and government policies. The authors recommend that South African policy makers aim to minimize uncertainty for the private sector by refraining from interventions with agendas that have little to do with expanding output or employment growth. Using terminology borrowed from Thomas Piketty's recent book, the two authors argue that what South Africa needs is not some way to limit investors' return on capital (r) but rather sound economic approaches to liberate growth (g). The authors would like to see the country's companies continue to generate high “r” while reinvesting their profits to produce more wealth‐creating “g.”
Do Bond Covenants Affect Borrowing Costs?
Authors: Fridson Martin , Xu Xiaoyi , Liu Ruili , Yin Yinqiao 
Published: October 2015

High yield bond investors spend a great deal of time studying covenants. They even hire specialized consultants to help them interpret the dense language of indentures. But for all that, does a company's decision to offer strong rather than weak covenants—or to offer covenants at all—have a measurable impact on its borrowing costs?There is surprisingly little evidence that variation in credit risk premiums reflects the presence or absence of covenants. Taking advantage of a newly available kind of data—Moody's Investors Service's Covenant Quality (CQ) ratings, which were initiated in 2011—the authors studied each newly issued U.S. high yield bond beginning in 2011 using Moody's CQ ratings, where a rating of “1” represents the strongest covenant rating and “5” the weakest. The authors hypothesize that if investors are willing to pay for covenant protection, bonds with weak CQ scores should have spreads that are higher, on average, than the medians of the bonds in their rating group. What they found, however, was that even bonds rated CQ5, indicating negligible protection, had spreads that were only 9.54 basis points higher than the median of companies with the same credit rating. The authors also found, contrary to their initial supposition, that higher yields were associated with stronger covenants, suggesting that investors demand more protection on issues they view as having greater credit risk than other equivalently rated issues.
Managers: Their Effects on Accruals and Firm Policies
Authors: Dejong Douglas , Ling Zhejia 
Published: October 2015

AbstractThis paper investigates whether top executives have significant individual‐specific effects on accruals that cannot be explained by firm characteristics. Exploiting individual executive and firm data from a period of 37 years, we find that individual executives play a significant role in determining firms’ accruals. We examine whether executives’ effects on accruals are related to their personal styles on firm policies, investment, financing and operating decisions. Our results show that individual executives’ effects on accruals are more correlated with their operating decisions than investment and financing decisions. We next investigate whether managers themselves also have a personal style for directly affecting accruals. We compare effects exerted by CEOs to CFOs. We find CEOs are more likely to affect accruals through firm policy decisions and CFOs are more likely to affect accruals through accounting decisions. CFOs tend to report more ‘solid’ earnings than CEOs, i.e., CFOs are more likely to push accruals to zero.
The Differential Value Relevance of S&P's Core Earnings Versus GAAP Earnings: The Role of Stock Option Expense
Authors: Wieland Matthew M. , Dawkins Mark C. , Dugan Michael T. 
Published: October 2015

AbstractIn 2002, Standard & Poor's (S&P) introduced Core Earnings as a proprietary, uniform earnings metric, with the goal of improving financial reporting. The distinguishing feature of Core Earnings is its consistent treatment of seven adjustments to GAAP earnings for which there is no consensus adjustment by managers and analysts. We use stock price and return data to assess whether investors perceive Core Earnings to be more value relevant than GAAP earnings. The implementation of FASB 123R changed the calculation of GAAP and Core Earnings. This change allows us to assess the role of stock option expense in the valuation of earnings numbers by partitioning the sample into pre‐ and post‐FASB 123R periods and creating consistent measures of GAAP and Core Earnings. Our price results indicate that Core Earnings is more value relevant than GAAP earnings in the pre‐period after controlling for stock option expense, and in the post‐FASB 123R periods. The price results provide empirical evidence consistent with S&P's expectation that a uniformly calculated earnings measure is a more consistent and useful indicator of current performance and future earnings.
Meeting or Missing Earnings Benchmarks: The Role of CEO Integrity
Authors: Jia Yuping 
Published: October 2015

AbstractThis paper examines the role of CEO integrity in determining whether a company's earnings benchmarks will be met, beaten or missed. Prior literature provides evidence that managers have incentives for meeting or beating earnings benchmarks and are rewarded by the market for doing so (Lopez and Rees, 2002; and Skinner and Sloan, 2002). Managers also have incentives to miss their earnings targets for the benefit of a lower strike price on subsequent option grants (McAnally et al., 2008). A CEO's involvement in backdating is taken here as a measure of his or her integrity. This paper shows that CEO integrity significantly influences whether benchmarks are met or beaten. In other words, backdating CEOs are more likely to meet or narrowly beat all three earnings benchmarks examined in the paper: positive earnings, last year's earnings and analysts’ forecasts. At the same time, they are also less likely to narrowly miss a zero‐earnings benchmark. The results presented in this paper further validate the use of benchmark meeting/beating as a measure of earnings manipulation.
Mitochondrial DNA variation of indigenous goats in Narok and Isiolo counties of Kenya
Authors: Kibegwa F.M. , Githui K.E. , Jung'a J.O. , Badamana M.S. , Nyamu M.N. 
Published: October 2015

SummaryPhylogenetic relationships among and genetic variability within 60 goats from two different indigenous breeds in Narok and Isiolo counties in Kenya and 22 published goat samples were analysed using mitochondrial control region sequences. The results showed that there were 54 polymorphic sites in a 481‐bp sequence and 29 haplotypes were determined. The mean haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity were 0.981 ± 0.006 and 0.019 ± 0.001, respectively. The phylogenetic analysis in combination with goat haplogroup reference sequences from GenBank showed that all goat sequences were clustered into two haplogroups (A and G), of which haplogroup A was the commonest in the two populations. A very high percentage (99.90%) of the genetic variation was distributed within the regions, and a smaller percentage (0.10%) distributed among regions as revealed by the analysis of molecular variance (amova). This amova results showed that the divergence between regions was not statistically significant. We concluded that the high levels of intrapopulation diversity in Isiolo and Narok goats and the weak phylogeographic structuring suggested that there existed strong gene flow among goat populations probably caused by extensive transportation of goats in history.
Risks, Costs and Labour Markets: Explaining Cross‐National Patterns of Far Right Party Success in European Parliament Elections
Authors: Halikiopoulou Daphne , Vlandas Tim 
Published: October 2015

AbstractDoes the economy affect patterns of far‐right party support across countries? This article reconceptualizes micro‐level analyses that focus on the effect of unemployment through a framework of costs, risks and the mediating role of labour market institutions. It then derives several hypotheses and tests them on the results of the previous three EP elections in all EU Member States. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicate that unemployment, real GDP growth, debt and deficits have no statistically significant effect on far‐right party support at the national level. By contrast, labour market institutions influence costs and risks: where unemployment benefits and dismissal regulations are high, unemployment has no effect, but where either one of them is low, unemployment leads to higher far‐right party support. This explains why unemployment has not led to far‐right party support in some European countries that experienced the severity of the 2008 eurozone crisis.
Meta‐Analysis of Salivary Flow Rates in Young and Older Adults
Authors: Affoo Rebecca H. , Foley Norine , Garrick Rushlee , Siqueira Walter L. , Martin Ruth E. 
Published: October 2015

ObjectivesTo determine whether salivary flow decreases as a function of aging.DesignMeta‐analysis.SettingLiterature review.ParticipantsIndividuals aged 18 and older reported to be free of major systemic disease.MeasurementsRelevant studies were identified through a literature search of several databases, from their inception to June 2013. Studies were included if saliva had been collected on at least one occasion in subjects aged 18 and older and if the data were presented in a manner that enabled comparisons of younger and older participants. Differences in salivary flow rates between age groups were calculated for each salivary source and condition and reported as standardized mean differences (SMDs), standard errors (SEs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The results were pooled using a random effects model. A separate analysis examining medication use was also conducted.ResultsForty‐seven studies were included. Whole (SMD = 0.551, SE = 0.056, 95% CI = 0.423–0.678, P < .001) and submandibular and sublingual (SMSL) (SMD = 0.582, SE = 0.123, 95% CI = 0.341–0.823, P < .001) salivary flow rates were reduced significantly in older participants and in unstimulated and stimulated conditions. In contrast, parotid and minor gland salivary flow rates were not significantly reduced with increasing age. Additionally, unstimulated and stimulated SMSL, and unstimulated whole salivary flow rates were significantly lower in older adults, regardless of medication usage.ConclusionThe aging process is associated with reduced salivary flow in a salivary‐gland–specific manner; this reduction in salivary flow cannot be explained on the basis of medications. These findings have important clinical implications for maintaining optimal oral health in older adults.