No abstract

This study investigates the effects of CEO hometown ties on corporate tax avoidance. The results show that CEO hometown ties to local government officials have a significantly positive impact on tax avoidance for private firms in China. We also find that the hometown ties effect is more pronounced in cities with weak public governance and in cities whose municipal Party committee secretaries are promoted from the same city, whereas the effect is weak in cities whose municipal Party committee secretaries are transferred from other places. In summary, our results suggest that hometown ties as an important political resource can facilitate connected private firms to obtain more economic resources from government.

We examine whether the choice of cash flow disclosure under International Accounting Standard 7 has an influence on the cost of capital incurred by Australian listed companies. Results indicate that indirect method companies incur a significantly higher ex-ante cost of equity than direct method companies using a combined equity model approach. We also demonstrate that using an optimal weighted combination of equity models reduces model variance and bias compared to using a single equity model. Our findings support mandating the direct method and have the potential to induce companies to report the direct method to increase company value.

We report the results of a longitudinal intervention with students across 5 universities in China designed to reduce online consumer debt. We allocate participants to either a financial literacy treatment group, a self-control treatment group, or a zero-touch control group. Our self-control training intervention features detailed tracking of spending and borrowing, budgeting, and introspection about consumption choices. This intervention reduces online borrowing and delinquency charges, mainly driven by a reduction in entertainment-related spending and borrowing. In contrast, financial literacy interventions improve test scores but only marginally affect borrowing. Our results suggest that cultivating self-regulation and budgeting skills can improve borrowing behavior on e-commerce platforms.

No abstract