This paper employs two stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the efficiency effects of removing trade barriers on banking performance for a sample of Asian developing economies over the period 1997-2006. First, the DEA is employed to estimate the efficiency scores of banks. After...

This article analyses the relationship between culture and higher education in China with the help of the popular word 'zhuangbility', defined as a deliberate misleading during communication. Thus, a cost exists for searching for true information, which for many Chinese is too high, thus,...

Sustainability-linked loans (SLLs), in which loan contract terms are contingent on borrower ESG performance, have grown exponentially in recent years. We examine the economic incentives underlying SLL arrangements. We find that loan spreads are not lower for SLLs, and borrower ESG performance...

We examine the impact of regulatory scrutiny on mutual fund disclosures. Based on a sample of 16,161 comment letter conversations between the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Investment Management and mutual funds from 2004 to 2019, we find that: (i) while comment letters...

An important determinant of belief polarization is the different interpretations of the same information. We examine whether discourse uncertainty in corporate disclosures, an important driver of differential interpretations, leads to polarization in financial markets. Using a novel measure of...

We consider a dynamic model featuring two firms that test a regulator’s enforcement propensity through their misconduct and a regulator that disciplines them to build a reputation for strict enforcement. We show that when the regulator has full discretion over the enforcement criterion, peer...

We examine whether the codification has achieved some of its goals. We find that the codification is associated with a reduction in the incidence of restatements arising from inadvertent noncompliance, and timelier 10-K filings. These benefits are concentrated in small firms audited by a non-Big...

Using a data set compiled through textual analysis of SEC filings and manual collection, we show that (i) firms with principal-versus-agent (PA) exposures face heightened compliance risk and audit fees, although there is no evidence that they have lower revenue quality; (ii) investors attach...

We study how the automation of information acquisition activities in the asset management industry impacts the role humans play in such activities. We find that machine-based automation of SEC filing downloads frees up the human workforce and allows humans to research a broader set of portfolio...