Compliance with prevailing accounting standards is induced if the expected disadvantage due to sanctions imposed if non-compliance is detected outweighs the advantage of non-compliant accounting choices.(...)

Over the period 2002 to 2003, Switzerland and the European Union (EU) were engaged in negotiations regarding banking secrecy. The EU's stated goal was for Switzerland to abolish banking secrecy. Switzerland refused and offered to impose a withholding tax on interest income instead. The two...

Lack of transparency in securitization transactions significantly contributed to thesevere financial crisis of 2007–2009. To increase transparency we—based on arecent idea by Markowitz (2009)—propose an incentive compatible mechanismfor future securitization transactions: financial claims...

What are liquidity crises? And what can be done to address them? This short paper brings together some personal reflections on this issue, largely based on previous work. In the process, it questions a number of commonly held beliefs that have become part of the conventional wisdom. The paper is...

This paper reviews the market reaction to bank rescue packages announced in six countries between October 2008 and January 2009. The study distinguishes the impact on creditors as seen in the change of CDS spreads from the impact on shareholders as seen in the movement of bank stock prices....

This paper investigates politically connected rms in Germany. With the in-troduction of a new transparency law in 2007, information on additional incomesources for all members of the German parliament became publicly available.We nd that members of the conservative party (CDU/CSU) and the...

Does legal insider trading contribute to market efficiency? Using the refinementproposed by the recent microstructure literature, we analyze the information contentof legal insider trading. Our sample encompasses 2,110 different companies subject to59,244 aggregated daily insider trades over the...

We use a unique dataset of bond downgrades from a niche rating company that has been found to be reacting faster to publicly available information than its competitors. Using regime-switching models we propose risk measures to quantify stock return disturbances (distress costs) associated with...

For mitigating the problems of transfer pricing formula apportionment (FA) is discussedintensively. However, FA could even be more harmful than transfer pricing because incomeshifting would require changing economic decisions instead of just taking advantage ofaccounting options. We analyze the...

This paper examines coordination and profit allocation in a profit-center organization using a single transfer price. The model includes compensations, taxes, and minority interests of two divisions deciding on capacity and sales.The analysis covers arm's length transfer prices which are either...