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Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study investigates how tax planning affects the likelihood of financial default in different stages of the corporate life cycle.

Collecting a large sample of US firms between 1989 and 2016, hypotheses are tested using a hazard model. Several robustness and endogeneity checks corroborate the main findings.

The results show that tax-planning firms are less likely to default in the introduction and decline stages, while they are more likely to default in the growth and maturity stages. The findings suggest that introductory and declining firms use cash resources obtained from tax planning efficiently to meet their needs and acquire other useful resources. In growing and mature firms, tax aggressiveness generates unnecessary slack resources, weakens managerial discipline and increases reputational risks.

The results shed light on the benefits and costs associated with tax planning throughout firms' life cycle, holding great significance for managers, investors, lenders and other stakeholders.

This study contributes to the literature that examines resource management at different life cycle stages by showing that cash resources from tax planning are managed in distinctive ways in each life cycle stage, having a varied impact on the likelihood of default. The authors shed light on underexplored cash resources. Furthermore, this study shows the potential linkages between the agency theory and RBV.

American choral music of the present day reflects the variety of styles found in vocal and instrumental music throughout the Western world during the twentieth century. However, the majority of choral music is more conservative in form and tonality than is instrumental music, due probably to the heritage of American choral music. Approximately the first two hundred years of choral singing in America were based on religious texts and simple tunes. Choral music in America did not “flower” until the nineteenth century, when composers began to write in a variety of styles, using secular as well as sacred texts.

This study aims to measure the magnitude of information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders in Indian equity market. The study also investigates the effect of major information sources that affect information asymmetry namely, the informativeness of financial statements, news reports about the company and analyst follow-up.

Six-month profitability of insider trade was used as the proxy to measure information asymmetry. Fama-MacBeth two-stage regression was used to analyse the effect of information sources upon information asymmetry.

The results of the analysis demonstrate that in comparison with findings of similar studies the level of information asymmetry is comparatively high in India. On an average, profitable insider traders in India earn 19.28 per cent return than outside investors. Purchase transactions are more profitable than sales transactions, while the size of company and information asymmetry is associated inversely. Further, news and analyst follow-up are inversely associated with information asymmetry whereas informativeness of financial statements has little effect on information asymmetry.

The study have important insights for corporates in insider information management and legal compliance of insiders’ market activities. Results pointing to the requirements of a deeper Regulatory monitoring and stringent legal framework.

The result validates the concerns of investor protection against informed trade.

The measurement of information asymmetry using profitability of insider trade is novel in Indian context even though the methodology is often used in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine whether corporate insiders extract information from activity of outsiders, specifically the short sellers.

Using portfolio approach and Fama-MacBeth regressions, this study examines the relation between short interest and subsequent insider trading activities.

The following results are reported. First, there is a strong inverse relation between short selling and subsequent insider trading, which is partially due to common private information and same target firm characteristics. Second, insiders extract information from shorts. This information extraction effect is more pronounced for firms whose insiders have stronger incentives to extract shorts information (insider purchases, higher short sale constraints, and better information environments). Third, during the September 2008 shorting ban, the information extraction affect disappeared among the large banned firms, whose shorting activities were distorted.

The findings contradict the of-cited accusations corporate executives hold against short sellers. Instead, corporate insiders appear to trade in the same direction as suggested by shorting activities.

Among the vocal critics of short sellers are corporate insiders, who allege that short sellers beat down their stock prices. Many corporations even engage in stock repurchases to show confidence that the stock will perform well going forward despite the short sellers’ actions. This paper’s analysis on their personal portfolios suggests the other way around.

By focusing on how corporate insider trading is related to shorts information, this paper sheds new light on whether corporate decisions convey the true information the corporate insiders possess.

In their authoritative literature review, Breen and Jonsson (2005) claim that ‘one of the most significant trends in the study of inequalities in educational attainment in the past decade has been the resurgence of rational-choice models focusing on educational decision making’. The starting point of the present contribution is that these models have largely ignored the explanatory relevance of social interactions. To remedy this shortcoming, this paper introduces a micro-founded formal model of the macro-level structure of educational inequality, which frames educational choices as the result of both subjective ability/benefit evaluations and peer-group pressures. As acknowledged by Durlauf (2002, 2006) and Akerlof (1997), however, while the social psychology and ethnographic literature provides abundant empirical evidence of the explanatory relevance of social interactions, statistical evidence on their causal effect is still flawed by identification and selection bias problems. To assess the relative explanatory contribution of the micro-level and network-based mechanisms hypothesised, the paper opts for agent-based computational simulations. In particular, the technique is used to deduce the macro-level consequences of each mechanism (sequentially introduced) and to test these consequences against French aggregate individual-level survey data. The paper's main result is that ability and subjective perceptions of education benefits, no matter how intensely differentiated across agent groups, are not sufficient on their own to generate the actual stratification of educational choices across educational backgrounds existing in France at the beginning of the twenty-first century. By computational counterfactual manipulations, the paper proves that network-based interdependencies among educational choices are instead necessary, and that they contribute, over and above the differentiation of ability and of benefit perceptions, to the genesis of educational stratification by amplifying the segregation of the educational choices that agents make on the basis of purely private ability/benefit calculations.

This paper aims to examine whether risk disclosure practices affect stock return volatility and company value in the European insurance industry.

Using a self-constructed “risk disclosure index for insurers” (RDII) to measure the extent of information disclosed on risks and using panel data regression on a sample of European insurers for 2005-2010, it tests the relationship between RDII and stock return volatility; whether this relationship is affected by financial crisis; and whether RDII affects insurance companies’ embedded value.

The main results indicate that higher RDII contributes to higher volatility, suggesting that “less is more” rather than “more is good”. However, higher RDII leads to lower volatility when the insurer has a positive net income, thus “more is good when all is good” and “less is good when all is bad”. Furthermore, the relationship between RDII and stock return volatility is not affected by financial crisis, raising concerns regarding the effectiveness of insurers’ risk disclosure to reassure the market. Moreover, higher RDII is found to impact positively on embedded value, thus contributing toward higher firm value.

The findings could drive insurers’ choices on communication and transparency, alongside regulators’ decisions about market discipline. They also suggest that risk disclosure could be used to strengthen market discipline and should be added to the other variables traditionally used in stock return volatility and firm value estimation models in the insurance industry.

This paper offers new insights in the debate on the bright and dark sides of risk disclosure in the insurance industry and provides interesting implications for insurers and their stakeholders.

Vegetable oils are usually considered commodities. The purpose of this paper is to use disaggregated import data from Switzerland to show two phenomena. The first is that a growing high-price segment exists in these markets; the second is that least developed countries (LDC) are usually excluded from the benefits of this niche.

A detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis for coconut oil is carried out, using fixed effects regressions for the quantitative part and objective hermeneutics for the qualitative part.

The analysis indicates that prices depend on the quantity imported and on the country of origin and that entrepreneurs outside the LDC attempt to create new niche markets, whereas actors in the bulk markets tend to ignore these niches and to continue relying on LDC.

Bulk markets may continue to exist, but the importance of niches is certainly increasing and should be extended to LDC.

It could be shown which market dynamics exist and which of them leave LDC behind.

An “IT mindset” significantly influences public sector information technology (IT) adoption in least developed countries (LDCs). The purpose of this paper is to explore the IT mindset concept and its relationship with IT knowledge and intention to explore IT in the workplace.

The research used a mixed-methods approach in two phases. Qualitative work was conducted to formulate the conceptual framework and hypotheses, followed by a survey of 228 public sector officials in Bangladesh to test the hypotheses.

The study showed that an IT mindset can be conceptualised as comprising personal innovativeness with IT and IT beliefs. The IT mindset was significantly related to intention to explore IT use in the workplace and its components were influenced by an individual’s IT skills and IT awareness.

Future research could further explore the IT mindset concept and its antecedents and consequences in LDCs, where it is often related to successful IT adoption, and also in public and private organisations elsewhere.

The study furthers understanding of barriers to IT adoption in LDCs’ public sectors. Building IT knowledge through IT skills and awareness is required to orient mindsets to IT adoption.

Improved efficiency, productivity and transparency in the public sector through IT use have flow-on societal and economic benefits. The paper provides insights into greater facilitation of e-government and IT in the public sector.

The study is theoretically significant because the IT mindset concept has lacked in-depth study and requires clarification of its nature and role.