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The purpose of this paper is to establish the consensus about the tremendous economic success of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and explore theories of popular disapproval of TARP.

The analytical approach in this paper is a multivariate survey logit based on two Pew Research Center surveys that include questions on knowledge of and views on TARP. One survey is used to estimate a knowledge index of TARP that is applied to another survey to estimate the impact of knowledge on opinions of TARP.

The author finds that knowledge of TARP is dependent in particular on education, party affiliation, and sex. Controlling for partisan effects, views on TARP's effectiveness are distorted by limited knowledge of TARP in magnitudes that are politically significant.

Despite the severity and dramatic spillovers associated with banking crises, decisive interventions may prove difficult to defend in retrospect in light of ignorance and an inability to conceptualize the nature of the counterfactual.

This paper contributes to our understanding of the political economy of an important and controversial economic policy, in particular the roles of ideology and knowledge in accounting for public opposition to TARP. TARP is largely misunderstood. The author estimates a model of TARP knowledge based on this misconception, and shows that education, party affiliation/leaning, and sex are important predictors of TARP knowledge. By applying this model of TARP knowledge to a separate survey dataset, the author demonstrates that knowledge of TARP (along with political ideology) is an important predictor of support for TARP. By integrating two different surveys, he is able to better identify the role played by knowledge of TARP, rather than simply demographic characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to test the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the banking industry using Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) as an experimental backdrop.

The authors match banks that received TARP with CSR data on publicly available firms. Using this data set, the authors are able to perform both univariate and multivariate analyses to determine the impact of CSR on bank management behavior.

The authors find evidence that supports stakeholder theory as applied to a sample of large financial institutions. The authors show that banks increased their CSR involvement and intensity following TARP, evidence that CSR is not merely transitory in nature but structural and an important aspect of firm value. The authors also find that capital ratios increase to a greater degree in banks whose CSR ratings were stronger prior to TARP. Finally, while all banks in the sample repaid Treasury, it took strong CSR banks a longer time to repay than banks with weaker CSR. The authors show how CEO compensation played a role in this relationship.

The findings are limited to large banks.

Practically speaking, this study helps to discern the motivations and actions of large financial institutions. This is especially important from a regulator perspective, whose function is to maintain overall national financial stability.

This is the first study to link TARP and CSR literatures. Overall, there are a limited number of studies on CSR in the banking industry, and this paper adds to this burgeoning area. It is important and valuable to managers and policymakers to understand implications of CSR in the financial sector.

The purpose of this paper is first, to engage in a critical examination of the broad legislative framework of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, 2008, in the United States; second, to provide an in‐depth understanding the legal basis, scope and nature of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) under the Act; third, to provide a legal analysis of the oversight provisions in the new Act; fourth, to examine the powers, responsibilities, functions and roles of the various new oversight offices set up under the new Act; fifth, to assess the economic and financial impact of implementation of the programme till early 2009; and to engage in a critical discussion of the limitations and shortcomings of TARP. The central focus of the paper is largely on TARP and the issues arising from using TARP as a legislative framework to facilitate the removal of toxic assets held by the various banks and financial institutions.

The larger approach used in this paper is a financial law approach. It is to facilitate an in‐depth analysis of the broader framework of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, 2008, i.e. the legislative mechanism that establishes the TARP. The central issue of the paper is to examine the provisions in TARP in the broader context of its ability to take toxic assets off the balance sheets of banks and financial institutions. The approach, therefore, aims to aid a critical examination of the related legal, financial and economic issues arising out of the implementation of TARP. It relies extensively on official publications, testimonials and reports by various oversight bodies in the public domain, academic writings and newspaper reports to assess the impact of the programme and explore the related legal, regulatory and financial implications.

The findings in the paper relate to the impact and extent of the TARP till the present. It explores the basis, nature and scope of the implementation of the programme and outlines the various shortcomings and limitations. The paper concludes that there are various issues that need to be redressed for TARP or a similar programme to be more effective and transparent.

Various oversight reports and recommendations by official bodies are still expected as regards various spending, accountability and transparency issues related to TARP in the coming months. A new stimulus package of $787 billion was just approved by the US Congress and signed into law (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 2009) at the time this article was submitted for publication consideration. The article incorporates some issues relating to the new stimulus package as well as the Geithner plan, Public Private Investment Programme (PPIP), in the concluding section. However, substantial details are yet to emerge as to how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 2009, establishing the stimulus package under the Obama government and the PPIP are both going to impact the future implementation of TARP and induce economic recovery at a broader level.

This paper is of immense significance to academics, jurists, consultants, legislators, policy‐makers, bankers, lawyers, auditors, consultants, researchers and anyone interested in financial and banking issues.

This paper aims to examine the impact of public scrutiny on chief executive officer (CEO) compensation at Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 firms.

This paper uses the unique opportunity provided by the 2008 financial crisis and, in particular, government support and legislated compensation restrictions in the US Department of the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). It aggregates monetary and non-monetary executive compensation information from 2006 to 2012, with firm- and manager-level data. It presents univariate summary compensation results and uses multivariate regression analysis to isolate the impact of public scrutiny and legislated compensation restrictions on executive pay.

Overall, the results are consistent, with increased public scrutiny having a lasting impact on perks and temporary impact on wage and legislated compensation restrictions having a temporary impact on wage. Changes in specific perk items provide evidence on which perks firms perceive as excessive and which provide common value.

The paper contributes to the discussion of perks as excess by introducing a novel data set of perk compensation at S&P500 firms and by studying how firms choose to alter levels of specific perk items in response to increased public scrutiny and legislated compensation restrictions. The paper contributes to the literature on executive pay as there has been little inquiry into the impact of public scrutiny on compensation. Public scrutiny could be an important source of external governance if firms change behavior in response to explicit and implicit scrutiny costs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine restrictions placed by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on executive compensation during the financial crisis. Since it remains unclear if TARP restored public confidence in financial institutions, the authors also analyze what effect such regulations had on investors’ confidence in the information provided by earning with respect to executive compensation during this critical period.

To test the assertions, the authors employ an Earnings Response Coefficient model, which captures the association between firms’ earnings surprise (ES) and perceived earnings informativeness. The authors implement both a long- and short-window test to obtain a better understanding of the effects of TARP on financial institutions’ earnings informativeness. The authors use the long-window approach to gather evidence about whether and how financial institutions’ ES are absorbed into security prices conditional on both their participation in TARP and their compliance with TARP’s compensation restrictions. The authors attempt to establish a stronger causal link by also using a short-window approach.

The authors find that firms paying their CEOs above the TARP threshold show higher earnings informativeness. Financial institutions that paid their CEOs above the TARP threshold achieved better performance during their participation in TARP. The authors also find that a decrease in total compensation while participating in TARP is associated with improved earnings informativeness. Lastly, separating total compensation into its cash and stock-based components, the authors find that firms improve earnings informativeness when they increase (decrease) cash (performance) compensation during TARP. However, overall earnings informativeness decreases during and after TARP relative to the pre-TARP period.

The research suggests that executive compensation incentives affect earnings informativeness and that tradeoffs are made between direct and indirect costs in retaining executives. The results have implications for policy makers, investors and researchers because the results allow policy makers and regulators to improve on how they design and implement accounting, market and finance regulations and reforms. Investors may potentially use the results when evaluating firm experiencing financial and, in some case, political distress. It also helps firms and offering optimal compensation contracts to create proper incentives for executives and ensure that managerial actions result in successful firm performance.

The study shows how firms react to changing regulations that affect executive compensation and earning informativeness. The results of the study allow regulators to potentially design more effective regulations by targeting certain aspects of firms’ operation such excessive risk-taking behavior and rent extraction opportunities.

There are very few studies that deal with how firms react to regulation that affect executive compensation. The authors provide evidence regarding what effect TARP and its compensation restrictions had on financial institutions’ earnings informativeness. The evidence in the study will further regulators’ understanding of whether TARP improved investors’ confidence in financial institutions. The paper also contributes to the understanding in how changes in executive compensation in times of high political scrutiny affect investors’ perceptions of firm performance.

The global financial crisis of 2008 raises many governance questions regarding the roles and responsibilities of executives and board members. Simultaneously, CEO duality in the USA and elsewhere has come under renewed scrutiny because of the perceived loss of checks and balances and resultant abuse of power. The authors suggest that the financial crisis presents a unique opportunity to explore the effects of, and attitudes, to CEO duality. The purpose of this paper therefore is to investigate whether CEO duality is associated with bank failure and whether bank regulators, as can be expected, are opposed to CEO duality.

The authors investigated the correlation between CEO duality and publicly traded banks in the USA that received Federal bailout funds, using available databases, and investigated bank regulators' attitudes to CEO duality using a series of structured interviews.

No correlation was found between bank failure and CEO duality. However, a strong correlation was found between bank ownership and receipt of Federal bailout funds in that publically owned banks were far more likely to have received bailout funds than banks which were privately owned. Surprisingly, it was also found that Regulators accepted CEO duality for several reasons and have no agenda to limit it.

The results suggest that CEO duality is a less significant issue factor in corporate management than suggested by many previous researchers and policy makers. This has clear implications for governance, regulation and legislation.

This study is the first to investigate the relationship between bank performance and CEO duality. The authors' results suggest that whilst there may be many good reasons for limiting CEO duality, the key measure of adverse effects on corporate performance in this sector is not one of them.

Reports on research by the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals and TARP Europe Ltd into the effectiveness of customer service as a marketing tool and whether companies are really as customer focused as they maintain. Classifies UK companies into three classes: those who deliver effective customer service; those who do not have any department or individual responsible for customer service and deal with it in an ad hoc manner; and those who fit between these two. Concludes that in the UK there is some way to go before companies actually achieve the levels of customer service which they maintain they have already reached. Proposes that when this is attained, companies will be in a better competitive position.

Customer satisfaction managers tend to be more concerned with simply measuring customer satisfaction than actually using the resulting information to build a business case for the improvement of service quality. Presents a simple methodology that any organization can use to move from measuring customer satisfaction to managing service quality using a four‐step procedure based on research; market damage assessment; action plan formulation; and policy implementation.

This study identifies and interprets the experiences and relationships of a host community to a marine national park in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, as it transformed from a local recreation site into an international tourist destination. This chapter elaborates on an original and innovative amalgamation of qualitative methods used to collect data consisting of verbal and pictorial techniques, including focus group interviews, visitor employed photography, and an adapted Q-methodology incorporating photo-elicitation. The research design for data collection is provided as a guideline to illustrate how the study progressed through two essential parts. This study contributes to a gap in method on how to extract pictorial measures on a collective basis to systematically to produce group place meanings. Recommendations are suggested based on the challenges faced in this study. This innovative qualitative method was successful in deriving sense of place for a marine park.

This chapter analyses the causes and effects of the financial crisis that commenced in 2008, and it examines the dramatic government rescues and reforms. The outcomes of this, the most severe collapse to befall the United States and the global economy for three-quarters of a century, are still unfolding. Banks, homeowners and industries stood to benefit from government intervention, particularly the huge infusion of taxpayer funds, but their future is uncertain. Instead of extending vital credit, banks simply kept the capital to cover other firm needs (including bonuses for executives). Industry in the prevailing slack economy was not actively seeking investment opportunities and credit expansion. The property and job markets languished behind securities market recovery. It all has been disheartening and scary – rage against those in charge fuelled gloom and cynicism. Immense private debt was a precursor, but public debt is the legacy we must resolve in the future.