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This paper analyzes the impact of increased federal regulatory enforcement from the SEC's Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation (MCDC) initiative on municipal debt issuers continuing disclosure practices.

We analyze the changes in continuing disclosure practices by estimating a series of difference-in-differences regressions based on variables representing issuers' changes in regulatory risk after the MCDC. The continuing disclosure data are hand-collected for 827 cities over a seven-year period.

The empirical findings indicate that increased regulatory enforcement has a significant impact on continuing disclosure compliance. We find increased enforcement has no impact on issuers that already have a higher probability of being monitored by federal regulators. We also find that an increase in continuing disclosure compliance does not automatically increase continuing disclosure timeliness.

The MCDC lacks monetary penalties for noncompliant bond issuers and no direct regulatory consequences exist for untimely disclosure. Our findings suggest that regulatory enforcement should be followed by adequate sanctions to emphasize the credibility of the enforcement threat and the SEC should consider requiring bond issuers to commit to the timely disclosure of significant information in offering documents.

This paper extends prior studies by analyzing regulatory risk in the market, and the ability of regulation to reduce disclosure compliance deficiencies in the municipal market. By focusing on the MCDC, this study is able to disentangle the impact of regulatory enforcement from the changes in accounting regulation.

This study aims to examine current key debates on learning technologies in the everyday life of lecturers and explores their experiences of learning technologies.

The research adopted a mixed method ethnographic approach to explore the perceptions of academics at a new university in the UK. The narrative and image data was collected via 30 interviews and an online forum and then subjected to grounded theory analysis. This study presents the findings of the study and discusses aspects of quality and meaningful engagement by academic staff with learning technologies in a higher education environment.

Analysis of the data revealed the central concepts of paradigms, paradoxes and professionalism. The diversity of perspectives of staff and students, skills, motivations and capabilities is fundamental to developing, supporting and promoting the innovative use of e‐learning and learning technologies in learning, teaching and assessment.

This study examined the reality of lecturers’ relationships with learning technologies in everyday life and the diversity of those lived experiences in relation to social change and educational ideologies. This study is, therefore, significant and adds to knowledge and understanding of academics’ perspectives which Hanson claims have previously been neglected. This research also contributes to previous studies of e‐learning and Actor Network theory (ANT).

This paper aims to measure the trade price impact of a recent regulatory disclosure intervention in municipal securities secondary markets, which required broker-dealers to disclose securities trading information on a near-real-time and continuing basis.

The author analyzes trade price outcomes in the preintervention and postintervention regimes using a suite of time series estimations that give heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors (Prais–Winsten and Cochrain–Orcutt), accommodate higher-order lag structure in the error term (autoregressive integrated moving average) and account for volatility clustering in the time series (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity).

Results show that regulatory disclosure intervention significantly improved trade price efficiency in municipal securities secondary markets as daily trade price differential and volatility both declined market-wide after the disclosure intervention.

The sample consists of trades in State of California general obligation bonds; therefore, empirical findings may not be generalizable to other states, local governments and different types of bonds.

The findings highlight voluntary information disclosure as a practical and effective mechanism in disclosure regulation of municipal securities secondary markets.

Only a small body of work exists that examines information disclosure regulation in municipal securities secondary markets; therefore, this paper expands knowledge on the topic and should provide renewed impetus for regulatory efforts aimed at improving the efficiency of municipal capital markets.

The esoteric area of financial derivatives has become quite salient in light of the financial crisis of the last few years. In the public sector, state and local governments have increasingly employed derivatives in their bond financings. This paper analyzes state and local governments’ use of a specific type of municipal derivative instrument (a floating-to-fixed interest rate swap) in a specific type of transaction (bond refinancing). The paper provides a case study of an executed bond refinancing transaction that employed a floating-to-fixed interest rate swap quantifying the substantial long-term costs financial derivatives can impart on state and local governments. The paper concludes with some specific lessons learned about debt-related derivative usage for public financial managers and offers some suggestions for further empirical and theoretical research in this area of public financial management.

Serious incidents of violent disruption within the national young-persons’ prison estate endanger offenders, staff and visitors and have a significant impact. The purpose of this paper is to explore the function of and factors influencing violent disruptive behaviour.

In total, 21 young people (n=21) with a history of violence in custody were administered semi-structured interviews to explore the reasons for their behaviour. The data were explored using thematic analysis.

Six themes were identified: attitude and propensity for violence, perceptions and intolerance of others, consequences of violent behaviour, the physical environment, previous indicators, and protective factors.

The study is reliant on self-report and thus may reflect biases. The presence of a recording device may have had an impact on responses. Logistical practicalities meant participants were approached via an intermediary which may have impacted on a willingness to participate.

Several practical implications are identified: cognitive skills programmes which encourage consequential thinking, perspective-taking, communication skills and exploring alternative problem-solving strategies are of value. Shouting through doors and windows is a major source of provocation and should be addressed. The induction process provides opportunities for equality-awareness work. Gang membership issues are a major cause of violence, and attitudes around this should be addressed. Building trust between staff and young people helps reduce problems. Systems to provide access to facilities and to provide support to cope with stress and isolation may be of value.

This study uses a qualitative approach to exploring young people’s views on prison violence. The findings reflect previous research but strengthen the perspective that violence in prison serves several purposes for those involved and that violence-reduction strategies must be multi-modal to be effective.

The purpose of this summary is to provide excerpts of selected Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Regulatory Notices and Disciplinary Actions issued from April to June 2009 and a sample of disciplinary actions during that period.

The paper provides excerpts from Regulatory Notice 09‐22, Personal Securities Transactions; 09‐25, Suitability and “Know Your Customer”; 09‐27, Member Public Offerings; 09‐30, Credit Default Swaps; 09‐34, Investment Company Securities; 09‐35, Municipal Securities.

Notice 09‐22: Sound supervisory practices require that a member firm monitor personal securities transactions outside of the firm by or for its associated persons. Notice 09‐25: Suitability obligations and know‐your customer obligations are critical to protecting investors. Notice 09‐27: The offering of securities by a member firm or a control entity of the firm in a private placement raises conflicts of interest and has been an area of regulatory concern in recent years. Notice 09‐30: Regulatory authorities are adopting measures to address system risk arising from credit default swaps (CDS), including risks to the financial system arising from the lack of a central clearing counterparty to clear and settle CDS; the SEC has approved a rule establishing an interim pilot program on margin requirements for CDS transactions. Notice 09‐34: As part of the process to develop a new consolidated rulebook, FINRA is requesting comment on a proposed rule regarding the distribution and sale of investment company securities. Notice 09‐35: FINRA recommends that firms engaged in municipal securities business review and, if necessary, modify their policies and procedures in light of changes to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's (MSRB) Electronic Municipal Market Access system (EMMA) that take effect July 1, 2009, and changes to MSRB rules that went into effect June 1, 2009. FINRA also encourages firms to review the overall adequacy and effectiveness of their current policies and procedures for municipal securities activities generally, particularly those relating to the disclosure of material information, the suitability of recommendations to retail customers, and the general supervision of their municipal securities activities.

These are direct excerpts designed to provide a useful digest for the reader and an indication of regulatory trends. The FINRA staff is aware of this summary but has neither reviewed nor edited it. For further detail as well as other useful information, the reader should visit www.finra.org

This paper examines the 2008 collapse of the US tax‐exempt auction rate securities (ARS) market, from the perspective of not‐for‐profit auction rate debt issuers.

The authors use a multiple case study methodology to examine the financial and operating impact of ARS auction failures on three US nonprofit hospitals and health systems. The analysis is based solely on information drawn from publicly‐available documents.

The three case study subjects issued more than $ 411 million in ARS. These securities were issued with bond insurance and fixed payer interest rate derivatives. The 2008 global financial crisis resulted in millions of dollars in drastically increased interest costs, costly debt refunding, and derivative‐related collateral postings. It was also found that the ability of an individual ARS issuer to respond effectively to these capital market‐related shocks is related to three key factors – profitability, liquidity and perceived credit quality.

The reliance on a case study methodology may limit the authors' ability to generalize the findings to the hundreds of other US non‐profit ARS issuers.

Nonprofit financial executives must learn to adequately assess their organization's risk exposures if innovative long‐term capital financing instruments are to be used in the future. These potential costs, as well as any ineffectively hedged interest cost exposure, must be considered and weighed against any potential interest cost saving associated with any future debt financing arrangements.

The paper measures the financial and operating impact of the highly publicized 2008 ARS market collapse on non‐profit ARS issuers.

This qualitative study explores how trailing spouses form their relationships before and after a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic and what patterns can be observed. It explores their significant relationships with friends and extended family, focusing on dynamics and change.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with seven trailing spouses in Malaysia: before the pandemic, in the beginning and at the end of the first year of the pandemic. The authors used longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis (LIPA).

Being aware of the limits of resources emerged as a key factor in how trailing spouses develop and maintain relationships with friends and extended family. The fact that the pandemic changed the dynamics of their social networks illuminates how crucial these relationships or their absence are in their adjustment and readjustment process. Children play a significant role in these relationships.

Comparative research into the friendships and relationships of different groups of trailing spouses in various locations could capture more specificity of the relationship dynamics.

The explored patterns can promote a better understanding of the relationship dynamics of trailing spouses' networks, which can, in turn, support and facilitate both adjustment and repatriation processes. They can help explain how and what kind of social networks best support trailing spouse transition during a time of crisis or adjustment. These findings could be incorporated into intercultural training programs.

No current study that the authors know of has explored trailing spouses' relationship dynamics in a longitudinal study before and during a crisis.