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When financial statements are public, the choice between alternative reporting regimes constitutes a signal that addresses external stakeholders. Generally, the choice of more complex regimes acts as a complement of firms' transparency. However, in the absence of audits, opportunistic behaviors could be incentivized. This study aims to test whether SMEs' choice between alternative accounting regimes is associated with earnings quality.

Drawing on the literature about accounting choices and earnings quality, this study investigates whether the same conclusions are confirmed for SMEs. Using a sample of 4,054 Italian companies and 12,114 observations, it compared four earnings quality proxies of a group of companies that opted for the “Full” rules and those of a subsample of the population of companies that applied the Simplified rules.

The results suggest that the signaling power of accounting rules' choice could lead to wrong conclusions for SMEs. Indeed, a positive relationship emerged (H1) between the choice of the “Full” rules and income smoothing behaviors, while the same choice appears to reduce the probability to disclose SPOS. Moreover, the results suggest that opportunistic behaviors are more frequent for firms that have settled in a “non-cooperative” social environment (H2).

This study could foster research on financial reporting quality in private firms.

Comparing the quality of financial statements drawn up according to two alternative accounting regimes could provide useful suggestions for both users and regulators.

The results contribute to the limited literature on the implications of differential reporting. Finally, it enriches the literature about heterogeneity in accounting quality within private firms.

This study explores whether ethnic minorities exhibit varying levels of income inequality compared to the host population.

The research leverages a unique immigration event in Italy, specifically the settlement of multiple Albanian groups in southern Italy during the 16th century. This historical occurrence enables an investigation into the role of cultural traits in income inequality, as these groups are situated in the same geographical region and often share borders.

The results, which remain consistent after undergoing various robustness checks, indicate that Albanian villages, while still preserving their identity and tradition, tend to experience an approximately 2% lower level of income concentration compared to similar Italian municipalities.

Our findings aim to provide supporting evidence for future policy considerations regarding the long-term impact of immigration on income inequality.

Background: Rising food bank usage in the UK suggests a growing prevalence of food insecurity. However, a formalised, representative measure of food insecurity was not collected in the UK until 2019, over a decade after the initial proliferation of food bank demand. In the absence of a direct measure of food insecurity, this article identifies and summarises longitudinal proxy indicators of UK food insecurity to gain insight into the growth of insecure access to food in the 21st century.

Methods: A rapid evidence synthesis of academic and grey literature (2005–present) identified candidate proxy longitudinal markers of food insecurity. These were assessed to gain insight into the prevalence of, or conditions associated with, food insecurity.

Results: Food bank data clearly demonstrates increased food insecurity. However, this data reflects an unrepresentative, fractional proportion of the food insecure population without accounting for mild/moderate insecurity, or those in need not accessing provision. Economic indicators demonstrate that a period of poor overall UK growth since 2005 has disproportionately impacted the poorest households, likely increasing vulnerability and incidence of food insecurity. This vulnerability has been exacerbated by welfare reform for some households. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically intensified vulnerabilities and food insecurity. Diet-related health outcomes suggest a reduction in diet quantity/quality. The causes of diet-related disease are complex and diverse; however, evidence of socio-economic inequalities in their incidence suggests poverty, and by extension, food insecurity, as key determinants.

Conclusion: Proxy measures of food insecurity suggest a significant increase since 2005, particularly for severe food insecurity. Proxy measures are inadequate to robustly assess the prevalence of food insecurity in the UK. Failure to collect standardised, representative data at the point at which food bank usage increased significantly impairs attempts to determine the full prevalence of food insecurity, understand the causes, and identify those most at risk.

This study aims to explore the determinants (bank-specific, industry-specific and macroeconomic) of income diversification across interest income and non-interest income as well as for non-traditional income sources (non-interest income) from 2004–2005 to 2021–2022.

An unbalanced data set comprising 110 Indian commercial banks with 1480 observations is sampled in this study. Because of the bounded nature of the dependent variables (proxies of income diversification), the panel Tobit regression model is used.

The findings reveal that income diversification is positively influenced by bank size, technological advancements, cost–income ratio, return on assets, market competition and inflation in the economy. However, the decision to diversify income sources is adversely impacted by the capital ratio, GDP and financial intermediation ratio. Moreover, factors such as asset quality (loan loss provisions) and liquidity ratio do not directly influence the diversification strategies in the Indian banking industry.

The present study uses an extensive set of variables to provide insights into key factors for bank managers, regulators and policymakers to consider before developing diversification strategies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the various bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants that affect income diversification in the Indian banking sector. The current study also investigates new variables such as technological advancements and a market concentration index for measuring competition, which have not been investigated in existing literature concerning bank income diversification in the Indian context.

In 2018, the International Financial Reporting Standard 9-Financial Instruments became mandatory, effectively changing the underlying accounting principles of financial instruments. This paper systematically reviews the academic literature on the implementation effects of IFRS 9, providing a coherent picture of the state of the empirical literature on IFRS 9.

The study thrives on a systematic review approach by analyzing existing academic studies along the following three broad categories: adoption and implementation, impact on financial reporting, and risk management and provisioning. The study concludes by providing research prospects to fill the identified gaps.

We document data-related issues, forecasting uncertainties and the interaction of IFRS 9 with other regulatory standards as implementation challenges encountered. Also, we observe cross-country heterogeneity in reporting quality. Furthermore, contrary to pre-implementation expectations, we find improvement in risk management. This suggests that despite the complexities of the new regulatory standard on financial instruments, it appears to be more successful in achieving the intended objective of enhancing better market discipline and transparency rather than being a regulatory overreach.

As the literature on IFRS 9 is burgeoning, we provide state-of-the-art guidance and direction for researchers with a keen interest in the economic significance and implications of IFRS 9 adoption. The study identifies gaps in the literature that require further research, specifically, IFRS 9 adoption and firm’s hedging activities, IFRS 9 implications on non-financial firms. Lastly, existing studies are mostly focused on Europe and underscore the need for more research in under-researched jurisdictions, particularly in Asia and Africa. Also, to standard setters, policymakers and practitioners, we provide some insight to aid the formulation and application of standards.

The objective of this study is to investigate how the implementation of an Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) influences an ETS-regulated firm’s level of earnings smoothness.

Using a staggered difference-in-differences model based on China’s ETS pilots commencing in 2013, this study investigates how the implementation of ETS pilots affects regulated firms’ earnings smoothing relative to non-regulated firms. The sample period spans from 2008 to 2019. This model incorporates time-invariant firm-specific heterogeneity, time-specific heterogeneity, and a series of firm characteristics to establish causality. Robustness tests justify findings.

The results show that after implementing an ETS pilot, regulated firms increase their earnings smoothness relative to non-regulated firms. Regulated firms strategically smooth their earnings to obtain additional financial resources and meet compliance costs arising from an ETS. Further analysis reveals that regulated firms’ earnings smoothing activity is a function of environmental regulations, managerial integrity, and capital market incentives.

This study deviates from past research focusing on the environmental consequences of ETS by indicating that an ETS affects regulated firms’ financial reporting decisions. Specifically, regulated firms resort to earnings smoothing as a short-term exit strategy from financing concerns arising from environmental regulations. This finding expands prior literature primarily focusing on the effect of tax and financial reporting regulations on earnings smoothness. This study also indicates that firms utilize earning smoothing to lower their short-term cost of capital, which enables them to access additional financing at a lower cost and reconfigure their operations to meet stakeholder environmental demands.

Unbanked status in the United States varies across the population, but the phenomenon of being unbanked tends to be more pronounced for Black households. This paper extends the current body of literature by conceptualizing banked status as an element of financial inclusion and by expanding the number and type of variables used to describe banked status.

This study’s theoretical orientation was informed by the work of Blanco et al. (2019). Survey data used in this study were gathered between May 2021 and February 2022 by Elevate's Center for the New Middle Class. Data were analyzed as a secondary dataset for this study. Three methods were used to evaluate the data. First, sample descriptives were calculated. Second, a correlation analysis was conducted to evaluate the associations between variables and to ensure that multicollinearity would not be an issue at the third stage of analysis. Third, a logistic regression was estimated to identify the variables that were significantly associated with being banked (i.e. holding a checking or savings account) (coded 1) or being unbanked (coded 0).

In this study, 17% of Black households were currently excluded from the financial marketplace. Factors of particular importance in describing unbanked status include being younger than age 55, identifying as male, being married, reporting higher income, relying on the use of credit more often, experiencing employment/financial stress more frequently, less trust in mainstream banking institutions, and inaccessibility to banks and credit unions. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

This study adds to the financial inclusion literature by illustrating how unbanked status in the United States varies across the population, but that in general, a few common markers differentiate the banked and unbanked status of Black households. Factors of particular importance in describing unbanked status include being younger than age 55, identifying as male, being married, reporting higher income, relying on the use of credit more often, experiencing employment/financial stress more frequently, less trust in mainstream banking institutions, and inaccessibility to banks and credit unions. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

The nexus between sustainable agri-food production and food security outcomes of farm households in sub-Saharan Africa is attracting policy attention. This study analyzes the effects of crop diversity on the incidence of food scarcity, dietary diversity, and the sale and consumption of own crops.

The study uses panel data collected in 2015 and 2018 on a randomly selected sample of 2553 households from 49 villages in northern Ghana. The study employed a fixed effects modeling approach in the empirical analysis.

The study finds that crop diversity is positively associated with better dietary diversity, reduced hunger, lower food expenditure, and higher consumption of own produce. The results show positive effects of crop diversity on the total harvested output and sale of agricultural production. Whilst sales improved sustainable food and nutrition security by providing purchasing power to buy nutritional inputs in the market, consumption of own produce rather improved food availability by reducing food scarcity and malnutrition.

Crop diversity is one of the pathways for promoting sustainable agri-food production systems to ensure the food and nutritional security of vulnerable populations and promote biodiversity to achieve environmental goals in sub-Saharan Africa. Crop diversity reduces food expenditure and raises rural incomes through improved outputs and sales, which empowers farm households to diversify their dietary options to be able to overcome incidences of hunger and malnutrition in periods of food scarcity.

The present study improves the understanding of sustainable agri-food production through crop diversity and its implications on food and nutrition security outcomes. The panel data and fixed effects modelling approach address the endogeneity problem between crop diversity and household tastes and preferences.

This paper examines the determinants of children’s schooling under imperfect credit market conditions in Cameroon, with a particular focus on the role of monetary and non-monetary shocks.

The study uses microeconomic data from the fourth Cameroonian Household Survey (ECAM IV) conducted in 2014 by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) and an instrumental variable Probit model to demonstrate its point.

The results show that uncertainty about household income as measured by transitory income and declining household income decreases the probability of children attending school in Cameroon. The same is true for increasing household size. Nevertheless, access to the credit market is a factor in household resilience to shocks.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the identification of the determinants of children’s schooling in Cameroon in a situation of credit market imperfection. The aim is to examine the influence of different household vulnerability factors and not only income shocks, which have long been considered the dominant factor.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2024-0028