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Recent years have seen a significant increase in the complexity of multinational enterprise (MNE) ownership structures. Complex corporate structures raise concerns about the effectiveness of national and international investment policies, based on the notion of investors' nationality. This motivates this research effort, aimed at analysing the ownership structures of some 700 000 foreign affiliates (FAs). A new methodology, the bottom-up approach, is introduced. The main objective is to empirically map the 'shareholder space' of FAs, along the vertical dimension, from the direct shareholders to the ultimate owners. We find that FAs are often part of transnational investment chains; more than 40 per cent of foreign affiliates have direct and ultimate shareholders in different jurisdictions ('double or multiple passports'). Based on shareholders' nationality, we then propose and empirically analyse the salient features of four main archetypes of FAs ownership structure: plain foreign, conduit structures, round-tripping and domestic hubs. Each poses specific challenges to policymakers. Keywords: firm-level, investors' nationality, multinational enterprises, ownership structures JEL Classification: F23, G32, H87, 1. Introduction: multinationals' ownership structures Recent years have seen a significant increase in the complexity of multinational enterprise (MNE) ownership structures. On the one hand, as the global economy becomes [...]

Abstract This article traces a shift in how hospital workers at a Tanzanian public hospital thought about their workplace. In 2010, for the first time, staff began collectively imagining what [...]

Across developing countries, the agricultural sector is an essential source of economic growth, employment, poverty reduction and food security. Women play a vital role in agriculture, yet there is little research focusing on the impact of rising investment in the agricultural sector on the role of women in this sector and on gender equality. Many investors tend to be located in remote areas and have an impact on the life of the most vulnerable farmers, especially when few alternative employment opportunities exist. In this article, we present the role of women in agriculture and we explore the impact of large agricultural investment on gender equality in developing countries. Given the data limitations, we rely on both primary and secondary data, and provide examples of gender-sensitive practice carried out by the private sector to minimize the risk of leaving women behind. The article concludes with suggestions for corporate actions and government policies and maps out avenues for future research. Keywords: gender equality, agriculture, developing countries, multinational companies, large-scale agricultural investment, 1. Introduction Across developing countries, the agricultural sector is an essential source of economic growth, employment, poverty reduction and food security. Because women play a vital role in agriculture, neglecting [...]

This paper analyzes the difficulties of the government of Equatorial Guinea to fulfill an essential objective of its national development framework, i.e., the diversification of the economy through the private sector. This paper begins with a brief history of the country and its economy. The paper then moves to describe the efforts made by the government to attract foreign investors and outlines their concerns on the socio-political environment and business uncertainty. Equatorial Guinea, today one of Africa's most important oil producers, used to be one of the world's poorest countries with an economy mainly based on the growth of coffee and cocoa. In the mid-1990s, significant deposits of oil and gas were discovered, leading to a substantial economic change. In the following years, the government, supported by international organizations, decided to launch a national program. Its goals were building modern infrastructure, strengthening human capital, diversifying the economy through the private sector and maintaining efficient governance. /Is of today, attempts to attract foreign investors have not yet succeeded, and the economy continues to base on oil and gas revenues. The paper concludes by arguing that the way the locals perceive the governmental efforts and the market conditions is entirely different from the way potential investors view it, and this gap must be bridged. Keywords: Equatorial Guinea, Intercultural Gaps, Foreign Capital, Natural Resources, Introduction In the morning of February 3, 2014, the president of Equatorial Guinea (EG) took his place at the new conference hall of Sipopo, and inaugurated, in the presence of [...]

In a recent, widely covered press release, Larry Fink, chief executive of the world's largest asset management company, BlackRock, pledged significant resources toward developing sustainable investing, for example by offering [...]

This paper presents a novel computational method to determine the distribution of ultimate investors in bilateral FDI stock. The approach employs results from the probabilistic theory of absorbing Markov chains. The method allows for the estimation of a bilateral matrix that provides inward positions by ultimate counterparts for over 100 recipient countries, covering 95% of total FDI stock and including many developing countries. Reconstructing the global FDI network by ultimate investors enables a more accurate and complete snapshot of international production than do standalone bilateral FDI statistics. This has considerable implications for policymaking. It also provides more nuanced context to some contemporary developments such as the trade tensions between the United States, China and others, as well as Brexit. Keywords: ultimate investors, bilateral FDI, conduit FDI, international production, absorbing Markov chains., 1. Introduction 1.1 International production and the challenge of ultimate investors For many years multinational enterprises (MNEs) established their international production presence predominantly through foreign direct investment (FDI), building an [...]

As the Age of Disruption heats up, corporate boards can expect to face ever-increasing pressure to become more strategic. Directors already feel the heat from several sides, ranging from activist [...]

Abstract. A growing number of technology companies, including Google, Zillow, and Snap, have issued stock that does not allow investors to vote on corporate decisions. But there is fundamental disagreement [...]

Prior literature documents that the accrual anomaly is concentrated in firms with high idiosyncratic risk, low price and low volume, characteristics commonly associated with small firms (Lev and Nissim 2006 and Mashruwala, Ragjapol and Shevlin 2006). On the other hand, during the 2008 financial crisis, the capital market experienced extreme market conditions, including liquidity drying up, heightened volatility and substantial reduction in transaction activities by sophisticated investors (Rosch and Kaserer 2013 and Boyson, Helwege and Dindra 2014). Such market conditions would induce higher transaction costs and limits to arbitrage. In this paper, we specifically examine whether the accrual anomaly is a robust phenomenon that exists for firms of all sizes and whether the accrual anomaly demonstrates different behavior under market distress during the financial crisis and under normal market conditions during the non-crisis period, while controlling for firm characteristics that correlate with future returns. Our hedge portfolio tests and multivariate regression analyses using both annual buy-and-hold risk-adjusted returns and announcement abnormal returns show that large firms generate roughly the same level of abnormal returns as small firms, both under normal market conditions and during the financial crisis. We also find that the accrual anomaly was stronger during the financial crisis in comparison to non-crisis period, possibly because the higher arbitrage costs during the financial crisis exacerbate the accrual anomaly. Such evidence suggests that transaction costs and limits to arbitrage play a significant role in explaining the prolonged existence of the accrual anomaly. Moreover, our findings dispel the myth that the accrual anomaly is driven by a group of small firms. Rather, the accrual anomaly yields similarly significant abnormal returns for both small firms and large firms, after controlling for disparity in idiosyncratic risk and other characteristics, which suggests that limits to arbitrage may not fully explain the accrual anomaly. Investors' fixation on reported earnings could also to some extent contribute to the mispricing of accruals. Keywords: accrual anomaly; mispricing; firm size; limits-to-arbitrage; financial crisis JEL classification: G01, C14, M49 Acknowledgement: We thank the journal editor and reviewers of QJFA for their helpful comments and suggestions., I. Introduction Since the accrual anomaly was documented in Sloan (1996), a large body of literature attempts to explore the causes of the anomaly. There has been an extended debate [...]

"In collective bodies, votes are necessary to ACTION: absences may produce INACTION."--Alexander Hamilton (1) INTRODUCTION 498 I. BACKGROUND 503 A. Three Traditional Stockholder Protection Devices 504 1. Traditional Voting Rights [...]

Part 1 of 2 Table of Contents Introduction I. The Generations of Environmental Law A. The Traditional Generations B. Moving Beyond the Traditional Narrative C. A Heterogeneous Regulatory Toolkit D. [...], A firm is not a black box with a pipe sticking out of it. Firm managers make decisions with environmental consequences long before pollution comes out of a pipe or a smokestack. Corporate law governs how firms are created and the duties their managers owe to firm stakeholders. Securities regulations govern the information that firms must share with investors. Antitrust law governs how firms behave in the marketplace with respect to competitors and customers. And bankruptcy law governs how firms wind down or are reorganized when they face financial trouble. Each of these fields of positive law governing the firm has significant implications for firm behavior with respect to the environment. Yet they are not ordinarily considered part of the environmental law toolkit. To address fully the most pressing environmental problems of our time, including issues of cumulative harm like climate change, environmental law should embrace these nontraditional levers that are central to its enterprise. This Article sounds a clarion call: The law of the corporation is environmental law.

The accounting literature deploys audit quality as a central concept of auditing, yet the appreciation of the construct has not yielded the desired audit. While this construct has been captured by the need to service investors' decision-making and its role in the efficiency of the capital markets, inputs from much of the performers of audit to the audit quality debate has been minimal. Using survey responses from auditors of their perceptions about audit quality in the auditing industry, this paper rolls back the evolution of audit quality literature to report what those actually doing audits perceive. A conceptual model that specifies auditor characteristics with ex ante process constraints as a moderator identifies the extent to which auditor's independence, integrity, and objectivity impact the quality of financial statement auditing. The research also finds that process constraints negatively impact the positive effect of auditor's characteristics on audit quality. Findings from this research show that audit practitioners' perceptions about factors that determine audit quality should be amply considered in order to achieve a stronger notion of what an audit should be., Audit quality has become a central concept in the accounting literature over the last few decades. To an outsider, this inquiry would seem natural and obvious. Auditing services constitute a [...]