We examine the effect of board interlocks on patenting and R&D spending for publicly traded companies in India. We exploit a corporate governance reform to address the endogeneity of board interlocks ...through exogenous changes mandated by the reform requiring a subset of firms to adjust their board structure. We rely on two difference-in-differences frameworks, comparing firms affected by the reform to unaffected firms as well as comparing within the set of firms that did not have to adjust their board structure those that still experienced an exogenous increase of their network size as a result of the reform to those that did not experience a change in their network size. We find that board interlocks have significant positive effects on both R&D and patenting. The evidence suggests that the impact on R&D is induced by information transmission through interlocks. The effect on patenting is driven by firms extending patent protection by patenting inventions abroad that they have already patented in India.
This article uses a 2019 study of FADN-included farm operators in Hungary to explore the interrelated issues of farm succession and the ‘young farmer problem’ (too few young and too many old ...farmers). Both have gained in significance in today's Hungary (and other formerly collectivised countries of Central and Eastern Europe) as a generation of new private farmers reaches retirement age, roughly three decades after ‘system change’. Because research into the post-socialist transition and subsequent developments has identified the years of cooperative transformation themselves and subsequent EU accession as moments of opportunity for embarking on private farming, respondents were differentiated by ‘age-cohort’, whether they began private farming ‘in their prime’ at Year Zero (1992) or immediately following EU admission (2006) or were older or younger than these groups. Data on economic performance and education indicated that the classic ‘young farmer problem’ does not pertain: Hungarian farmers are old on average but also productive and highly educated. The questionnaire responses suggested that succession was a problem for which farmers were rather ill-prepared and ill-advised, and that the classic farmers' reluctance to hand over management and ownership had re-emerged. It concludes by speculating about different paths to modern farming.
•Conditions of embarking on private farming do not impact subsequent performance•Farmers over 65 also productive and highly educated•Farmers ill-prepared for succession•Farmers ambivalent about transferring ownership•Farmers prefer personalised and practical advice on farm transfer
We show that the prospect of a debt renegotiation favorable to shareholders reduces the firm's equity risk. Equity beta and return volatility are lower in countries where the bankruptcy code favors ...debt renegotiations and for firms with more shareholder bargaining power relative to debt holders. These relations weaken as the country's insolvency procedure favors liquidations over renegotiations. In the limit, when debt contracts cannot be renegotiated, equity risk is independent of shareholders' incentives to default strategically. We argue that these findings support the hypothesis that the threat of strategic default can reduce the firm's equity risk.
In an effort to contribute to climate change mitigation, China has committed to achieving its peak carbon by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. However, reaching these goals will require a massive ...reduction in carbon emissions. The humans have to consume food to meet their survival needs. Furthermore, the society's demand for food is consistent with the development level of agricultural structures. At present, reducing environmental costs associated with food to adjust the agricultural structure has not received sufficient scientific attention. Because of this, the present study combines food consumption, climate change, and agricultural structure to design future scenarios based on the widely used SSP storyline. Moreover, in order for China to reach its carbon peak in 2030, this study applies a life-cycle approach to uncover the potential carbon reduction of Chinese residents under different dietary structures. From a demand perspective, this study puts forward recommendations for dietary restructuring and guides the direction of future agricultural restructuring in China. It also shows that a diet structure that replaces red meat with plant foods such as vegetables and fruits will have a more significant carbon reduction potential. The traditional agricultural structure consumes a large amount of food and produces a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Reducing meat and high-fat foods consumption may help reduce GHG emissions produced by food consumption. In addition, reducing the proportion of food used for feeding in the agricultural structure will also help achieve peak carbon targets. The shift in diet structure will advance China's agricultural structure and promote green agriculture development.
•Food consumption and related carbon emissions within the 2030 scenario will continue to increase, with the highest share of rice consumption.•The carbon emissions of food consumption in the environmentally sustainable scenario will decrease.•Readjusting toward a more balanced diet could significantly contribute to the carbon peak goal.•A shift in dietary structure will promote agricultural restructuring.
We show that gender diversity in corporate boards could improve firm value because of the contributions that women make to the board. Prior studies examine valuation effects of gender-diverse boards ...and reach mixed conclusions. To help resolve this conundrum, we consider how gender diversity could affect firm value, that is, what mechanisms could explain how female directors benefit corporate board performance. We hypothesize and provide evidence that women directors contribute to boards by offering specific functional expertise, often missing from corporate boards. The additional expertise increases board heterogeneity which Kim and Starks (2015) show can increase firm value.
Mutualism, as one of the main types of symbiosis, refers to the reciprocal relationship among rural settlements on the basis of material and information interactions and capitalizing on the ...environments where they are located in. The relationship among rural settlements has long been neglected in the process of rural settlement restructuring. To explore the possibility of integrating mutualism into rural settlement restructuring, an environmental index (EI) was defined to comprehensively evaluate the exterior conditions of rural settlements at a patch level, and two hypotheses were proposed. The first hypothesis postulates that mutualism exists in aggregation area of rural settlement patches with high EI values. The second one suggests that mutualism is present in areas where there are interactions among all the participant settlement patches. Hotspot analysis and component analysis were conducted respectively to obtain mutualistic areas based on the two hypotheses. In the case study of Huangpi, real mutualism was defined based on utilizing people flow data from questionnaire investigation in three towns, and crosstabs analysis and chi-square test were conducted between real mutualism and assumed mutualism developed from the two hypotheses. As results, the second hypothesis was verified. 26 mutualistic areas of Huangpi were identified, and 42 rural settlement patches with a total area of 12.51 ha were decided as relocation settlements. Considering the effects of urban land, serving areas of urban land were derived from accessibility analysis. Intersection of serving areas of urban land and mutualistic areas of rural settlement patches were set to be the prior restructuring direction within a town. Otherwise, two restructuring directions were suggested, including serving areas of urban land oriented and mutualism of rural settlement patches oriented directions. This study contributes to understanding the mutualism among rural settlement patches, and also offers a new perspective to rural settlement restructuring.
•Mutualism exists among rural settlement patches which are located in superior environment with spatial proximity.•Mutualism of rural settlement patches can be identified by component analysis.•Serving ability of urban land affects the restructuring result of rural settlements.•Alternative restructuring plans are developed based on considering mutualism and the effects of urban land.•Intersection of serving areas of urban land and mutualistic areas is identified to be the prior restructuring direction.
In this meta-analysis, we give a comprehensive overview of the effects of meditation on psychological variables that can be extracted from empirical studies, concentrating on the effects of ...meditation on nonclinical groups of adult meditators. Mostly because of methodological problems, almost ¾ of an initially identified 595 studies had to be excluded. Most studies appear to have been conducted without sufficient theoretical background. To put the results into perspective, we briefly summarize the major theoretical approaches from both East and West. The 163 studies that allowed the calculation of effect sizes exhibited medium average effects ( = .28 for all studies and = .27 for the n = 125 studies from reviewed journals), which cannot be explained by mere relaxation or cognitive restructuring effects. In general, results were strongest (medium to large) for changes in emotionality and relationship issues, less strong (about medium) for measures of attention, and weakest (small to medium) for more cognitive measures. However, specific findings varied across different approaches to meditation (transcendental meditation, mindfulness meditation, and other meditation techniques). Surprisingly, meditation experience only partially covaried with long-term impact on the variables examined. In general, the dependent variables used cover only some of the content areas about which predictions can be made from already existing theories about meditation; still, such predictions lack precision at present. We conclude that to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of why and how meditation works, emphasis should be placed on the development of more precise theories and measurement devices.
Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud? DYCK, ALEXANDER; MORSE, ADAIR; ZINGALES, LUIGI
The Journal of finance (New York),
December 2010, Volume:
65, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
To identify the most effective mechanisms for detecting corporate fraud, we study all reported fraud cases in large U.S. companies between 1996 and 2004. We find that fraud detection does not rely on ...standard corporate governance actors (investors, SEC, and auditors), but rather takes a village, including several nontraditional players (employees, media, and industry regulators). Differences in access to information, as well as monetary and reputational incentives, help to explain this pattern. In-depth analyses suggest that reputational incentives in general are weak, except for journalists in large cases. By contrast, monetary incentives help explain employee whistleblowing.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we rely on an exogenous shock to examine the impact of litigation risk on real earnings management (REM). We conduct difference-in-differences tests centered on an ...unanticipated court ruling that reduced litigation risk for firms headquartered in the Ninth Circuit. REM increases significantly following the ruling for Ninth Circuit firms relative to other firms, consistent with litigation risk deterring REM. Additional analyses reveal that REM rises more following the ruling when firms issue more optimistic disclosures. The evidence is consistent with litigation deterring REM by constraining managers' ability to issue optimistic and misleading disclosures that can conceal the myopic and opportunistic motives underlying REM. We further document that an increase in REM in response to a decline in litigation risk is more pronounced when managers have higher incentives to manipulate earnings and governance mechanisms are weaker.
In this study, I examine whether firms and executives with long-term political connections through contributions and lobbying incur lower costs from the enforcement actions by the Securities and ...Exchange Commission (SEC). I find that politically connected firms on average are less likely to be involved in SEC enforcement actions and face lower penalties if they are prosecuted by the SEC. Contributions to politicians in a strong position to put pressure on the SEC are more effective than others at reducing the probability of enforcement and penalties imposed by an enforcement action. Moreover, the amounts paid to lobbyists with prior employment links to the SEC, and the amounts spent on lobbying the SEC directly, are more effective than other lobbying expenditures at reducing enforcement costs faced by firms.
•I examine the association between political connections and enforcement costs.•Politically connected firms are less likely to face an SEC enforcement action.•They face lower penalties when prosecuted.•Targeted political expenditures are more effective at reducing enforcement costs.
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