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This study aims to examine the determinants of the allowance for loan losses (ALL) and loan loss provisions (LLP) for banks in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region using both a two-stage approach and simultaneous equation system to address the potential problem of estimation bias introduced by estimating the ALL and LLP separately. The paper also tests three competing hypotheses: the earnings management hypothesis, the capital management hypothesis, and the signaling hypothesis.

The authors adopt a simultaneous equation and three-stage approaches to test whether MENA banks jointly determine LLP and ALL and the determinants of the two accounts. The sample consists of all available electronic data for 75 banks (451 bank-year observations) in nine MENA countries over the period 2000-2008.

Evidence suggests that the two accounts are jointly determined. The results support the earnings management hypothesis – meaning that MENA banks have engaged in year-to-year income smoothing. The authors also find that LLP and ALL provide signals about future earnings.

The authors acknowledge that the LLP account is only one of many accounts on the income statement that could be used for signaling or to manage earnings, and that the ALL is one of several accounts that could be used for signaling, earnings or capital management. Future studies could examine other accruals for their role in managing earnings, signaling and capital.

The results indicate that bank managers use LLP and ALL accounts to manage earnings management, policy makers may want to limit the ability of banks to manipulate earnings.

Prior research on the loan loss accounting practices has been based on single equation models of the determinants of LLP and ALL. An issue that has not been adequately addressed in this literature is that ALL and LLP may be interrelated and jointly determined by banks. If the two accounts are not independent of each other, failure to include one when estimating the other may lead to an omitted variable problem, while including both in the same equation induces a potential simultaneity bias. The study is the first empirical work examining whether ALL and LLP are jointly determined by banks. By jointly estimating LLP and ALL, the study permits an assessment of the magnitude of the potential error from adopting ordinary least squares estimation of a single equation model.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between financial disclosure and the financial performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs).

The paper utilizes ordinary least squares method to analyze the impact of disclosure on financial performance, an ordered probit model to investigate the possible effect of financial performance on disclosure and utilizes a three-stage least squares method to delineate the endogenous relationship between disclosure and financial performance of MFIs.

The paper finds that better disclosure has a statistically significant positive impact on operational performance of MFIs; second, it also shows that improved financial performance results in better financial disclosure. Keeping the endogenous nature of the relationship between disclosure and performance, the paper uses a three-stage least squares method to show that disclosure and financial performance positively affect each other simultaneously.

The paper attempts to delineate a positive association between better disclosure on financial performance of MFIs, which can be used for developing a better disclosure policy by management, formulating more effective guidelines for disclosure by the stakeholders and mandating more appropriate laws and uniform disclosure practice by regulators.

This is the first study that uses a large number of MFIs from 75 countries; second, it uses a uniform scale of designating a disclosure rating (assigned by MIX Market) to show the relationship between disclosure and performance. Finally, it uses three-stage least squares method to address the possible endogeneity between disclosure and performance.

This study aims to investigate both market concentration and bank competition of banking across six emerging Asian countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam) over pre and post the 2008 global financial crisis. The conduct parameter approach following the framework suggested by Uchida and Tsutsui (2005) is used to estimate bank competition in these countries. The study employs both seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) and three-stage least squares (3SLS) to estimate simultaneously the system of equations in our model. Generally we find a negative association between market concentration and bank competition across most of the countries in the study suggesting that banks in concentrated markets collude to generate higher profits. Monopolistic competition was the best description of competitive structure of banking across the majority of countries investigated by this study. The study fills the gap in the banking literature by investigating bank competition, concentration, and their relationship across emerging Asian economies over the 2008 global financial crisis. Moreover, several policy implications for banking industry are suggested.

This paper aims to investigate two related questions on business research and development (R & D) simultaneously. First, does R & D create or resolve uncertainty? Second, does uncertainty encourage or discourage business R & D?

This paper uses the three-stage least squares regression method and a system of simultaneous equations to examine the two research questions simultaneously. Instrumental variables overcome the econometric endogeneity problem.

The results are consistent with the hypothesis that R & D creates rather than resolves uncertainty. Why then do risk-averse business managers undertake R & D? This paper argues that in creating uncertainty, R & D also creates “shadow options” for supplementary business investment not envisaged by business managers in the original objective for R & D. Rather, managers unexpectedly uncover shadow options in R & D’s inherent knowledge discovery process, which encourages business R & D in the first instance. Consistent with this real options interpretation, this paper reports evidence that volatility encourages R & D.

This paper differs from the current literature in the sense that it investigates the two related R & D questions simultaneously rather than individually. The authors argue that the two related questions are inextricably interrelated, and investigating the two questions simultaneously would provide results that can possibly solve conflicting empirical results in the current literature. The results are also particularly useful for business managers who make decisions on whether to undertake R & D projects or not.

This study uses a simultaneous equations approach to examine the price‐earnings relationship of non‐U.S. firms that directly list their securities in U.S. capital markets or trade as American Depository Receipts (ADRs). The Hausman test shows that price changes and earnings changes are endogenously determined, thus the simultaneous equations approach is used to estimate the earnings response coefficient (ERC) and the returns response coefficient (RRC). Under the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, the parameter estimates are biased downward because the OLS fails to correct for endogeneity. In general, our results show that the joint estimation procedure mitigates some of the single‐equation bias. The estimated ERC and the RRC are higher under the three stage least regression (3SLS) than under the OLS regression. In addition, the product of the ERC and the RRC coefficients approaches its theoretical value of one when using the 3SLS estimation. The evidence also shows that institutional factors affect the way the market value information for these firms. We find that the ERC and RRC are insignificant for the common law non‐ADR firms and significantly positive for common law ADR firms.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the effect of tax avoidance on corporate social responsibility performance. It also investigates whether audit quality affects tax avoidance practices by socially responsible performance.

Based on a sample of French non-financial companies over the period 2005 to 2016, this paper uses panel data regressions. The authors apply generalized least square panel regression to overcome autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity problems. For further robustness, this paper runs instrumental variable regressions using the three-stage instrument variable method (three-stage least square).

The results show that firms with high CSR scores are more likely to engage in aggressive tax avoidance. The findings also show that firms audited by high-quality auditors are more likely to get involved in CSR for hedging against the potential consequences of aggressive tax avoidance practices.

The findings are consistent with risk management theory, which suggests that firm’s hedge against any reputational risks that might arise from avoiding taxes by engaging more in CSR.

Results have implications for policymakers in that CSR firms audited by high-quality auditors may engage in CSR to overcome any negative reactions that could be caused as a result of tax avoidance. Thus, they need to be cautious about managers’ opportunistic behavior and enhance monitoring to enforce social compliance and to be tax compliant.

This paper extends the existing literature by examining the effect of audit quality on the relationship between CSR performance and corporate tax avoidance. Audit quality is deemed to be an important governance feature that is likely to constraint managerial opportunistic behaviors. Audit quality, along with CSR performance, are associated with a higher level of tax avoidance.

The paper aims to empirically investigate how demand variability impacts product category inventory levels and stockout rates of retail firms. Additionally, the moderating effect of product variety on these performance metrics is explored.

Using data from 78 individual retail stores of a single firm located in China, the authors develop a three stage least squares regression model to examine the simultaneous impact of product variety and demand variability on product inventory levels and stockout rates.

The results indicate that product variety and demand variability both negatively influence product category inventory levels and stockout rates. However, contrary to results for manufacturing or distributor environments, product variety dampens the negative relationship between demand variability and inventory.

For products or categories with a high amount of demand variability, retailers can leverage more product variety to help improve their inventory performance. This is likely due to product substitution behaviors.

The authors show that previously examined relationships between product variety, demand variability, and firm performance are different in the retail environment than in the manufacturing or distributor context.

The puzzle of hot and cold issue markets has attracted substantial interest in the academic community. The behavior of IPO volume and initial returns over time is well documented. Few studies, however, investigate the dynamic interrelationship between these two variables. This paper aims to fill this gap. In addition, the technological innovations hypothesis of hot issue markets is tested. Welch and Hoffmann‐Burchardi suggest that the clustering of new issues is caused by IPO volume spikes in industries that have recently experienced technological innovations or favorable productivity shocks.

This paper employs a sample of 8,160 initial public offerings filed in the USA between January 1972 and December 2001. A simultaneous equation approach is used to examine the endogenous relationship between IPO volume and initial returns. In addition, the paper analyzes the industry correlation matrix of new issue activity and estimates a fixed‐effects model based on industry‐level data to examine the impact of technological innovations on new issue activity.

It is found that higher IPO volume causes higher initial returns, but not vice versa. In addition, evidence is found against the technological innovations hypothesis. The findings suggest that economy‐wide rather than industry‐specific factors are responsible for the observed variations in IPO volume.

As with any empirical study, the results may be sample‐specific.

The paper extends the prior literature on the relationship between IPO volume and initial returns by applying two‐stage and three‐stage least squares models that go beyond prior methodological approaches used in the extant literature. In addition, the paper provides some of the first empirical evidence on the effect of technological innovations and productivity shocks on IPO activity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between level of environmental disclosure and establishment of a legitimacy image of operation among Japanese firms after implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

This study uses a sample consisting of 208 firms listed in the Japan Nikkei Stock Index 500 and adopts three-stage least-squares (3SLS) to explore the relationship between environmental news exposure, environmental disclosure in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and environmental legitimacy.

Results indicate that firms from environmentally-sensitive industries can significantly improve their perceived legitimacy by releasing CSR reports; firms with better prior environmental legitimacy will be more active in environmental disclosure and establish better environmental legitimacy in the next period; firms with better carbon reduction performance tend to have higher levels of environmental disclosure. In terms of carbon reduction performance, Japanese firms in the sample may reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 49.636 tons by allocating one million yens (approximately 9,670.3 euros or 12,328 US dollars) to environmental expenditure.

The top three items of environmental disclosure in most Japanese firms ' CSR reports are environmental management, development of alternative energies, and ecological information. These results reveal environmental behavior of sample firms in Japan to mitigate global warming. The managers should understand that the impact of substantive actions for environmental management on legitimacy is greater.

Environmental management has become an important component of business management beliefs for most firms, and Japanese firms that belong to environmentally-sensitive industries are even more active in using CSR reports as an effective tool to establish their legitimacy image.

This study examines the relationship between banks' competition performance and risk-taking behavior concerning the impacts of bank size and the recent global financial crisis. The analysis empirically uses dynamic panel data from 1137 banks of the BRICS countries (i.e. Brazil Russia India China and South Africa) for the period 2000–2015.

Dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) has been used primarily to examine the effect of bank competition on performance and risk-taking. Later the paper validates the core results by using three-stage least squares (3SLS) and incorporating alternative measure of competition in baseline equations.

This study confirms the significant impact of competition that complies with the structure-conduct-performance hypothesis quiet life hypothesis and “competition fragility” view. However, the key robust results are as follows: (1) in competitive markets large banks are more efficient than small banks; (2) there is a nonlinear relationship between competition performance and risk; (3) across bank size competition heterogeneously affects profitability efficiency risk and stability; (4) notably small banks are as efficient as large banks during crisis but shared with risk; and (5) small banks also stable during crisis in highly concentrated markets but less stable in competitive environments.

This study promotes higher market power for the bank's profitability and financial stability. More intently policymakers should nurture both cost and revenue efficiency for large banks as these are less efficient than small banks in concentrated markets though these banks produce risk. Hence those banks should be cautious to minimize non-performing loans and maximize stability regarding financial and efficiency. Based on the nonlinear pattern of competition the regulators should adopt different policies for short and long run. It also recommends encouraging commercial and cooperative banks in the BRICS region as these are more efficient risk-averse and better stabilized than other types of banks.

A good number of studies are available in the current literature which examines the impact of bank competition on either bank performance or risk-taking in a single country or cross country analysis. However, very few studies examine the relationship between bank performance and risk-taking behavior concerning the impacts of competition (non-linear and quadratic) size financial crisis and ownership structure together. Moreover, there is a dearth of literature on this topic that built on BRICS economies.