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Institutions and Corporate Reputation: Evidence from Public Debt Markets
Xian Gu, Iftekhar Hasan, Haitian Lu
Journal of Business Ethics,
No. 1,
2023
Abstract
Using data from China’s public debt markets, we study the value of corporate reputation and how it interacts with legal and cultural forces to assure accountability. Exploring lawsuits that change corporate reputation, we find that firms involved in lawsuits experience a decrease in bond values and a tightening of borrowing terms. Using the heterogeneities in legal and social capital environments across Chinese provinces, we find the effects are more pronounced for private firms, firms headquartered in provinces with low legal protections, and firms headquartered in provinces with high social capital. The results show that lawsuits that allege misconduct are associated with reputational penalties and that such penalties serve as substitutes for legal protections and as complements to cultural forces to provide ex post accountability and motivate ex ante trust.
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Oxytocin, Empathy, Altruism and Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donations
Irena Jukić, Dejan Kovač, Danijela Vuletić Čugalj
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 4,
2023
Abstract
We conducted a field experiment in the natural setting of blood donations to test how oxytocin relates to empathy and altruism. We randomly assigned blood donors in the Croatian Institute for Transfusion Medicine to three groups with the aim to induce different levels of empathy by showing a neutral video to the donors from the control group and an emotional to the donors from the first and second treatment groups. In addition to watching the emotional video, donors from the second treatment group are given a gift which relates to the emotional story from the video. We find no effect of our treatment on induced levels of oxytocin. Null effects of our treatments could be explained by the above average baseline levels of oxytocin and inability of our treatments to provoke emotional stimuli in blood donors. Nonetheless, for our empathy measures we find the effect of gift exchange on empathic concerns, but not on perspective taking. After our experimental treatments, we followed the return of our blood donors for a whole year. We find that only variable which consistently predicts return for blood donation in stated period is the number of previous donations. From policy perspective it is an important finding. Especially for hospitals and other blood providers when faced with time and resource constraints.
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Trust and Contracting with Foreign Banks: Evidence from China
Desheng Yin, Iftekhar Hasan, Liuling Liu, Haizhi Wang
Journal of Asian Economics,
December
2022
Abstract
We empirically investigate whether firms doing business in regions characterized as having high social trust receive preferential treatment on loan contractual terms by foreign banks. Tracing cross-border syndicated lending activities in China, we document that firms located in provinces with higher social trust scores obtain significantly low costs of bank loans and experience less stringent collateral requirement. To address the potential endogeneity issues, we adopt an instrumental variable approach and a two-sided matching model, and report consistent results. We also estimate a system of three equations through three-stage-least square estimator to accommodate the joint determination of price and non-price terms in loan contracts. In addition, we find that the effect of social trust on cost of bank loans is more prominent for firms located in provinces with relatively less developed formal institutions.
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Where to Go? High-skilled Individuals’ Regional Preferences
Sabrina Jeworrek, Matthias Brachert
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 27,
2022
Abstract
We conduct a discrete choice experiment to investigate how the location of a firm in a rural or urban region affects job attractiveness and contributes to the spatial sorting of university students and graduates. We characterize the attractiveness of a location based on several dimensions (social life, public infrastructure, connectivity) and combine this information with an urban or rural attribution. We also vary job design as well as contractual characteristics of the job. We find that job offers from companies in rural areas are generally considered less attractive. This is true regardless of the attractiveness of the region. The negative perception is particularly pronounced among persons with urban origin and singles. These persons rate job offers from rural regions significantly worse. In contrast, high-skilled individuals who originate from rural areas as well as individuals with partners and kids have no specific preference for jobs in urban or rural areas.
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Management Capability and Innovation
Bill Francis, Iftekhar Hasan, Gokhan Yilmaz
Stephen P. Ferris, Kose John, Anil K. Makhija (eds): Empirical Research in Banking and Corporate Finance. Advances in Financial Economics 21, Emerald,
2022
Abstract
This chapter investigates whether core competence of managers and their expansive (vs. specialized) managerial style affects firms' innovative ability, capacity, and efficiency. Using exogenous CEO departures as a natural experiment, it establishes a causal link between managerial capability and innovation. Importantly, it reveals that firms with talented managers receive significantly more nonself citations; make significantly lower self-citations and lesser citations to the others, indicating novel and explorative innovation achievements. Also, managers with higher general (specialized) ability are cited more (less) by patents from a wider range of fields. Lastly, career concern is identified as a mechanism linking higher ability and innovation.
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