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This paper aims to investigate the effects of audit quality on the cost of capital in Ghana.

Non-financial firms listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) as well as non-listed firms from the database of Ghana Club 100 were included in the sample. Series are yearly, covering a sample of 40 firms during the six-year period, 2008-2013. The study employed the positivist research paradigm to establish the relationship between audit quality and the cost of capital.

There is evidence to suggest that the cost of debt and the overall cost of capital of firms in Ghana can be explained by the quality of the external auditors. The results also show that the large size of the board is associated with low cost of debt.

The fact that the choice of quality measure is based on firm size only and other measurements of audit quality could not be measured. Future research may examine how other approaches to measuring audit quality affect cost of capital.

The results significant for those charged with assurance and regulation, as well as lenders and managers of companies.

The authors investigate how external auditing quality affects the cost of capital of firms operating in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of corporate governance and degree of multinational activities (DMAs) on corporate social responsibility disclosures (CSRD) within the context of a developing country.

Using the annual report of 33 listed firms spanning from 2008 to 2013, the authors employed content analysis based on an adapted index score of CSRD developed by Hackston and Milne (1996) as applied in similar studies (e.g. Deegan et al., 2002; Hassan, 2014). Guided by the authors’ hypotheses, the authors model quantity and quality of CSRD (two separate econometric models) as functions of multinational activity and corporate governance.

The results show that the DMA has a positive association with both quality and quality of CSRD. The results also show that certain corporate governance characteristics such as board size (quality and quantity) as well as the presence of a social responsibility sub-committee of the board (quality) have a positive relationship with CSRD. However, increasing the number of non-executive directors (NEDs) may not necessarily improve the quantity or quality of disclosure.

The study is limited by theory and geography. Theoretically, the study is based on the legitimacy theory and feels compelled to reiterate the importance of considering alternative theoretical perspective in future research. Again the study is limited geographically as the investigation is based on Ghana only and the authors suggest that future research be extended to other countries.

This study is important as it demonstrates the importance of providing quality of CSRD to stakeholders when the board of a firm has a sub-committee responsible for corporate social responsibility.

The results of the study extend the literature on CSRD by demonstrating a new evidence on how the degree of firm’s multinational activities together with corporate government mechanism affects both quantity and quality of CSRD in the context of unchartered developing country. The results support the theoretical view that companies engage in CSRD in attempt to legitimize their operations based on the pressure exerted on them and the mechanism put in place to respond to those pressures.

This paper aims to investigate how transfer pricing (TP) and earnings management affect tax avoidance of firms in Ghana.

The authors use a panel data set from 2008 to 2015 to further shed light on transfer pricing-tax avoidance nexus by examining the complex interaction of three key variables: transfer pricing, earnings management and tax avoidance.

The results show that almost all the sample firms have engaged in some form of transfer pricing strategies and the manipulation of earnings to avoid tax during 2008-2015. There is evidence to suggest that non-financial multinational corporations manipulate more earnings than the financial firms while financial firms also use more TP than non-financial firms. The overall results suggest that the sensitivity of tax avoidance to transfer pricing decreases as firms increase their earnings management. By extension, these results have important policy implication for policymakers in assessing the effectiveness of tax laws relating to transfer pricing.

The authors investigate how transfer pricing and earnings management affect the avoidance of firms operating in Ghana.

This study aims to investigate the effects of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) adoption and firm size on auditors’ fees determination in the Ghanaian financial industry.

The authors use the annual report of 52 listed and non-listed firms spanning from 2003 to 2014. Guided by the hypotheses, the authors conditioned audit fees on IFRS adoption and firm size and execute robust fixed effects panel regression.

The results show that IFRS adoption has a positive coefficient with audit fees suggesting that the adoption of IFRS, indeed, increases the audit fees paid by banks and insurance firms, as well as the industry as a whole. The results are consistent with the idea that IFRS adoption increases auditor efforts with respect to time and complex nature of some aspect of the standards. Again, as expected, the coefficient of size is positively and significantly related to audit fees. This indicates that the size of the auditee plays a vital role in determining audit fees.

The study is limited by industry (i.e. the financial services industry) and geography (i.e. Ghana). The authors propose further research that will widely consider other sectors and countries to improve the current scanty literature in this area. Besides, theoretically, the study is limited to the lending credibility theory and feels compelled to reiterate the importance of considering alternative theoretical perspective(s) in future research.

This study is significant to practitioners as it demonstrates the importance of the determinants of the auditors’ fees. It helps auditors to apply the relevant charging formula when determining audit fees, while it helps managers to improve upon the quality of reporting to control audit bill and forecasting their audit expenditure.

The results of the study extend the literature on the cost side of IFRS adoption by investigating the financial services industry and non-listed firms in a new context, i.e. a developing country where this research is uncharted. The existing studies based their analysis on either cross-section or pooled analysis and shorter post-adoption period (Cameran and Perotti, 2014). However, using an extended post-adoption period data, the authors base the study on analytical panel model, which directly examine the cost side of IFRS adoption with size as joint key explanatory variables with emphasis on financial institutions and external auditors.

This paper aims to test whether a debt threshold of public debt has any effect on economic growth in Africa.

The authors applied the panel autoregressive distributed models on 38 African countries with annual data from 1970 to 2015. It was established that the threshold and the trajectory of debt has an impact on economic growth.

Specifically, the authors found that public debt hampers economic growth when the depth is in the region of 20 to 80 per cent of GDP. Based on debt trajectory, this study established that increasing public debt beyond 50 to 80 per cent of GDP adversely affects economic growth in Africa. The study also finds that the persistent rise in debt also has adverse effect on economic growth in the African countries in the sample. It must be known to policymakers that the threshold of debt in developing countries, and for that matter African countries, are less than that of developed countries.

This study suggests threshold effects between 20 and 50 per cent; this should be a guide for policymakers in the accumulation of debt stock. Interestingly, the findings suggest some debt trajectory effect, which policymakers might consider by increasing efforts to reduce debt levels when they fall between 50 to 80 per cent of GDP. This implies that reducing such debt levels can help African countries increase their economic growth.

The study is unique because it seeks to add new evidence on the relationship between public debt and growth in the African region, by considering the impact of the persistent growth of public debt on economic growth.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine whether or not the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) reasonably describes the return generating process on the Ghanaian Stock Exchange using monthly return data of 19 individual companies listed on the Exchange during the period January 2000 to December 2009.

Methodology/approach – We follow a methodology similar to Jensen (1968) time series approach. Parameters are estimated using OLS. This study is designed to measure beta risk across different times by following the time series approach. The betas of the individual securities are estimated using time series data of the excess return version of the CAPM.

Findings – Our test results show that although market beta contributes to the variation in equity returns in Ghana, its contribution is not as significant as predicted by the CAPM, and in some cases very weak. Our results also reject the strictest form of the Sharpe–Lintner CAPM, but we found positive linear relationship between equity risk premium and market beta. Instead, our evidence uphold the Jensen (1968) and Jensen, Black, and Scholes (1972) versions of the CAPM.

Research limitations/implications – This study is limited to the single-factor CAPM. Future studies will extend the test to include both size and BE/ME fundamentals and factors relating to P/E ratio, momentum and liquidity.

Practical implications – Our results will make corporate managers to be cautious when using CAPM as a basis to determine cost of equity for investment appraisal purposes, and fund managers when evaluating asset and portfolio performance.

Originality/value – The CAPM is applied to individual securities instead of portfolios, since the model was developed using information on a single security.

This study aims to examines both accrual and real-based earnings management (EM) behavior of listed corporations in tax-free countries during different economic situations. It also addresses the link between firm- and country-level determinants of accrual and real-based EM and explores economic conditions' influence on these determinants.

The study examines 1,608 firm-years, covers sixteen years (2004–2019), clustered into three periods according to the global financial crisis (GFC): four years prior (2004–2007), two years during (2008–2009), and ten years post the GFC (2010–2019). We employ the modified Jones model (performance-matched) developed by Kothari et al. (2005) to measure the accrual-based EM (positive and negative discretionary accrual EM) and the three levels model for Dechow et al. (1998) to measure the real-based EM (cash flow from operating, discretionary expenses and abnormal production cost).

The study finds a significant increase in EM practices in the listed corporations in tax-free countries during the economic downturn. These corporations are found to understate their earnings during the economic stress period. Simultaneously, the firm-level determinants of EM practices were at the same level of significance during different economic conditions in accrual-based EM. In contrast, the country-level EM determinants vary based on the economic conditions.

Financial reports' users gain a deep understanding of the quality of financial reports in the context of tax-free country. And, the study outcomes inspire policymakers to develop relevant legislation to mitigate financial reports' risk and adequately protect the financial reports' users.

While much attention has been given to work-related factors influencing turnover intention through affective commitment, little focus has been directed to non-work factors affecting the service industry. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of links, fit and sacrifice, representing off-the-job embeddedness in the community, on turnover intention in the hospitality industry of Ghana: Sub-Sahara Africa using the theory of conservation of resources (COR) and social exchange. The model has been extended to include affective commitment as the mediating mechanism.

A multi-wave technique was used to collect data through a questionnaire from 341 full-time frontline hospitality employees in Ghana. The responses were analysed using AMOS software structural equation modelling.

The findings show that links, fit and sacrifice significantly influence employees’ turnover intentions. Moreover, it has been observed that affective commitment decreased the negative relationship and partly mediated the main relationship between the dimensions of off-the-job embeddedness and turnover intention.

The study’s results and academic, practical implications and limitations are discussed for future research.

This study emphasises the theory of COR to demystify community factors employees deem as valued resources, which lighten up their commitment to their organisation and decrease their intent to leave.