The objective of this study is to examine whether and to what extent Australian banks use loan loss provisions (LLPs) for capital management, earnings management and signalling.We examine if there were changes in the use of LLPs due to the implementation of banking regulations consistent with...

Using the recent financial crisis as a natural quasi-experiment, we test whether and to what extent conservative accounting affects shareholder value. We find that there is significantly positive and economically meaningful relation between conservatism and firm stock performance during the...

In this paper we provide evidence for the effects of social norms on audit pricing by studying companies belonging to the alcohol, firearms, gambling, military, nuclear power, and tobacco industries, which are often described as "sin" companies. We hypothesize that the disparities between "sin"...

This paper investigates the effect of CFO gender on corporate financial reporting decision-making. Focusing on firms that experience changes of CFO from male to female, the paper compares the firms' degree of accounting conservatism between pre- and post-transition periods. We find that female...

This study examines whether foreign institutional investors (FIIs) help explain variation in corporate tax avoidance and whether mechanisms such as tax morality, investment horizon, and corporate governance underlie the relation between FIIs and tax avoidance. We find robust evidence that FIIs...

This study examines how national culture affects corporate investment. We argue that national culture affects corporate investment efficiency through the level of secrecy that national culture exhibits. Using a sample of firms from eight culturally-diverse European Union countries, we find that...

We investigate whether the levels of social capital in US counties, as captured by strength of civic norms and density of social networks in the counties, are systematically related to tax avoidance activities of corporations with headquarters located in the counties. We find strong negative...

We study the effect of collateral eligibility of corporate loans on the pricing of these loans by banks in Finland. Speciftcally, we investigate whether loans that are pledgeable as collateral for central bank borrowing have lower liquidity premia and thus lower interest rates. For...

We study public funding of banks and non-financial firms in a time of crisis. We find that bank capitalization is more effective in stabilizing the economy than direct funding to firms, but it also creates larger distortions. We show that the optimal, social-welfare-maximizing, structure of a...

Over 2010-2016, municipal debt in Germany crowded out private investment worth 1 percent of GDP. Forced to lend to municipalities by their statutes, local public banks compensated for declining municipal-debt yields by charging higher rates to firms in Germany's locally segmented credit markets....