Erklärung zur Barrierefreiheit
Erklärung zur Barrierefreiheit Das Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) ist bemüht, seinen Internetauftritt www.iwh-halle.de im Einklang mit den nationalen…
See page
Understanding CSR Champions: A Machine Learning Approach
Alona Bilokha, Mingying Cheng, Mengchuan Fu, Iftekhar Hasan
Annals of Operations Research,
forthcoming
Abstract
In this paper, we study champions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance among the U.S. publicly traded firms and their common characteristics by utilizing machine learning algorithms to identify predictors of firms’ CSR activity. We contribute to the CSR and leadership determinants literature by introducing the first comprehensive framework for analyzing the factors associated with corporate engagement with socially responsible behaviors by grouping all relevant predictors into four broad categories: corporate governance, managerial incentives, leadership, and firm characteristics. We find that strong corporate governance characteristics, as manifested in board member heterogeneity and managerial incentives, are the top predictors of CSR performance. Our results suggest policy implications for providing incentives and fostering characteristics conducive to firms “doing good.”
Read article
Disentangling Stock Return Synchronicity From the Auditor's Perspective
Iftekhar Hasan, Joseph A. Micale, Qiang Wu
Journal of Business Finance and Accounting,
No. 5,
2024
Abstract
This paper investigates a firm's stock return asynchronicity through the auditor's perspective to distinguish whether this asynchronicity can proxy for the company's firm-specific information or the quality of its information environment. We find a significant and positive association between asynchronicity and audit fees after controlling for auditor quality and other factors that affect audit fees, suggesting that stock return asynchronicity is more likely to capture a company's firm-specific information than its information environment. We also find that asynchronous firms are more likely to receive adverse opinions on their internal controls over financial reporting, but are associated with lower costs of capital and auditor litigation, providing further evidence in support of the firm-specific information argument. Asynchronicity's positive association with audit fees is driven by firms with higher accounting reporting complexity, suggesting stock return asynchronicity captures a firm's complexity, resulting in more significant efforts by the auditor.
Read article
Creditor-control Rights and the Nonsynchronicity of Global CDS Markets
Iftekhar Hasan, Miriam Marra, Eliza Wu, Gaiyan Zhang
Review of Corporate Finance Studies,
No. 1,
2025
Abstract
We analyze how creditor rights affect the nonsynchronicity of global corporate credit default swap spreads (CDS-NS). CDS-NS is negatively related to the country-level creditor-control rights, especially to the “restrictions on reorganization” component, where creditor-shareholder conflicts are high. The effect is concentrated in firms with high investment intensity, asset growth, information opacity, and risk. Pro-creditor bankruptcy reforms led to a decline in CDS-NS, indicating lower firm-specific idiosyncratic information being priced in credit markets. A strategic-disclosure incentive among debtors avoiding creditor intervention seems more dominant than the disciplining effect, suggesting how strengthening creditor rights affects power rebalancing between creditors and shareholders.
Read article
To Securitize or To Price Credit Risk?
Danny McGowan, Huyen Nguyen
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis,
No. 1,
2023
Abstract
Do lenders securitize or price loans in response to credit risk? Exploiting exogenous variation in regional credit risk due to foreclosure law differences along US state borders, we find that lenders securitize mortgages that are eligible for sale to the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) rather than price regional credit risk. For non-GSE-eligible mortgages with no GSE buyback provision, lenders increase interest rates as they are unable to shift credit risk to loan purchasers. The results inform the debate surrounding the GSEs' buyback provisions, the constant interest rate policy, and show that underpricing regional credit risk increases the GSEs' debt holdings.
Read article
Courses
Courses Courses are organised in coordination with partner institutions within the Central-German Doctoral Program Economics (CGDE) network. IWH organises First-Year Courses in…
See page