A corporation is a nexus of incomplete contracts that gives a demand for control right allocations. Whether firms should centralize or decentralize control rights depends on local information and coordination. This study uses the audit industry in China as a laboratory to shed light on to what extent control right allocation within an organization affects… Read More »
Technological innovation is crucial to a firm’s sustainable competitiveness and a country’s long-term economic growth. Prior academic work identifies two properties of firm disclosures, although they may have opposing effects on innovation. In one direction, the completeness of disclosures is beneficial for innovation by making external capital providers more receptive to providing financing, reducing the… Read More »
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been in the spotlight for several years now following a trading frenzy and spectacular returns. An NFT is a digital record of ownership, created and stored on a blockchain, and thus tamper-proof and auditable. Blockchains are decentralized ledgers of transactions that are designed to run perpetually, hence providing the basis for… Read More »
Insiders are continually implementing new illegal trading strategies to avoid detection by regulators. Conventional illegal insider trading takes place in stocks. However, these strategies are evolving and also include trading using family member accounts or other securities such as options. In 2021, in the first case of its kind, the SEC charged an employee of… Read More »
The dominance of large chains in the retail landscape is hard to ignore. Casual observation of every city in North America, large or small, often has an eerily similar configuration of clothing, convenience, food, and general-purpose vendors. As The Economist aptly pointed out, there is often “an overwhelming sense of déjà vu” when navigating a… Read More »
Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the popularity of socially responsible investment (SRI) funds. These funds claim to incorporate environmental and social (E&S) risks into the selection of their portfolio firms and the majority of these funds also claim that they engage with their portfolio firms to improve the real-world… Read More »
This essay summarizes new research findings regarding cryptocurrency-exposed companies (companies that hold cryptocurrencies) and why they should be excluded from Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment funds. ESG is an amorphous term with no universally agreed-upon definition. The environmental factor includes considerations like a company’s pollution, water usage, and effects on biodiversity. Social factors include… Read More »
Few major deals happen without the engagement and advice of investment bankers. Whether a company is undertaking an initial public offering (IPO) or engaging in a large merger or acquisition deal, investment bankers play a critical role in advising corporate executives. Bankers routinely cultivate and build close advisory relationships with executives in the hopes that… Read More »
With growing attention on corporate social responsibility (CSR) or the more recent expression of environmental, social, and governance (ESG), many countries and regions have imposed strict mandatory rules on CSR disclosures to better serve investors and other stakeholders. At the same time, government incentive programs such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) were also effective… Read More »
Being green is not easy, but is it costly? Our recent paper attempts to answer this question for the U.S. federal government. The federal government is the largest consumer in the world, spending more than $650 billion buying products and services from firms in the private sector each year. Government contracts are considered green if… Read More »
