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SUMMARY This article summarizes “How Do Auditors Respond to FCPA Risk?” (Lawson, Martin, Muriel, and Wilkins 2019), which investigates the pricing of audits for clients that violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). FCPA compliance has become a top priority for regulators who rely heavily on accountants as they combat illegal activity. We find that auditors charge higher fees for violators both before and during formal FCPA investigations. We also find that fees are more sensitive to accounts that are more susceptible to FCPA risk. Our findings are stronger (weaker) for clients with high (low) foreign sales. While this may seem intuitive from an audit materiality perspective, regulators are not required to prove materiality as they pursue FCPA violations (Ebright 2016). Our study should be of interest to practitioners and auditors, as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is considering whether updates should be made to PCAOB AS 2405

Regulators claim to reward firm cooperation in the enforcement process. However, critics question which actions constitute firm cooperation and contend that cooperation leads to “harsh” and “unfair” outcomes. Examining 1,162 enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice, we find that regulator-cited cooperation credit is best explained by remedial actions and self-reported law violations. Cooperation credit is negatively associated with firm monetary penalties assessed by regulators. Our estimates suggest that firms with cooperation credit realize an average penalty reduction of $23.8 million (49 percent). We also estimate that average reputation-related losses are $756 million (70 percent) lower for firms with cooperation credit. We find no association between cooperation credit and related private action outcomes. Our results provide important insight into what constitutes meaningful cooperation with regulators, and suggest that the benefits can be substantial for firms deemed to be cooperative. JEL Classifications: G38; K22; K42; M41.

Whistleblowers are ostensibly a valuable resource to regulators investigating securities violations, but whether there is a link between whistleblower involvement and the outcomes of enforcement actions is unclear. Using a dataset of employee whistleblowing allegations obtained from the U.S. government and the universe of enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation, we find that whistleblower involvement is associated with higher monetary penalties for targeted firms and employees and with longer prison sentences for culpable executives. We also find that regulators more quickly begin enforcement proceedings when whistleblowers are involved. Our findings suggest whistleblowers are a valuable source of information for regulators who investigate and prosecute financial misrepresentation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

An extensive literature examines the causes and effects of financial misconduct based on samples drawn from four popular databases that identify restatements, securities class action lawsuits, and Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs). We show that the results from empirical tests can depend on which database is accessed. To examine the causes of such discrepancies, we compare the information in each database to a detailed sample of 1,243 case histories in which regulators brought enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation. These comparisons allow us to identify, measure, and estimate the economic importance of four features of each database that affect inferences from empirical tests. We show the extent to which each database is subject to these concerns and offer suggestions for researchers using these databases. JEL Classifications: G38; K22; K42; M41.

We use a comprehensive database of regulatory enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation and apply Receiver Operating Characteristics theory to construct a misrepresentation prediction model. The model performs well both in and out of sample, with an average area under the curve (AUC) of 0.78 in out-of-sample tests. The model’s base case implies that 22.3% of Compustat-listed firms are engaged in financial misrepresentation that is potentially sanctionable by regulators in an average year. The average violation period is 3.1 years, implying that 7.2% of firms initiate new programs of financial misrepresentation each year. Of these, 3.5% eventually are caught and sanctioned. These findings yield numerical estimates of the size of the price distortions imposed by misrepresentation on the shares of both misrepresenting and non-misrepresenting firms, and the size of firms’ ex ante expected costs – incorporating both the probability of getting caught and the penalties if caught – of engaging in financial misrepresentation.

Upon the revelation of corporate misconduct by firms in their portfolios, institutional investors experience a significant discount in the market value of their portfolios, excluding misconduct firms, creating a short-term spillover that averages $92.7 billion losses per year. We examine an expansive set of channels under which this spillover to nontarget firms can occur, and find that it reflects the loss of the embedded value of monitoring by a common institutional owner, enforcement wave activity, and industry peer and business relationships. Institutional investors also experience a significant abnormal outflow of funds in the year following the misconduct event.

This paper examines whether managers attempt to mitigate the negative outcomes of financial misconduct by altering the tone of required disclosures. Using a series of difference-in-differences analyses, we show that following fraudulent activity, managers use more negative and litigious words in disclosures, as compared to a matched sample of control firms. We find managers that have a larger set of negative outcomes, such as those with foreknowledge of the fraud committed, are more aggressive in altering disclosure when compared to peer firms. Our results also suggest that negative outcomes due to financial misconduct, such as monetary fines and reputation loss, are mitigated by altering the tone in financial disclosures. Altogether, we conclude that managers alter disclosures to reduce the set of negative outcomes they face following securities law violations.

This article places Tomas Eloy Martinez's work, in particular his two ‘biographical’ novels La novela de Peron and Santa Evita, within post-1960 Latin American literature. It explains why Martinez's full critical recognition is still pending. To this end the article shows how, situated strategically between the 1960s ‘Boom’ novels and the ‘Post-Boom’ novels of the 1970s and beyond, Martinez's novels assimilate lessons of the Boom to carry that work in new directions. Thereafter the article discusses the role of journalism in literature, before assessing Martinez's work as both journalist and fiction writer, pointing out how these areas meld to produce new hybrid forms in his two major works.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Despiteextensiveresearch,financialeconomistsstillviewcapitalstructureasapuz-zle in which all the pieces do not fit perfectly into place. Surveys by Graham andHarvey (2001); Bancel and Mittoo (2004); and Brounen, Dirk, de Jong, and Koedijk(2004, 2006) report gaps between theory and practice involving capital structuredecisions. Although understanding in this area is incomplete and questions stillremain on how firms should determine their financing mix, much theoretical andempirical evidence is available to provide guidance in unraveling the capital struc-ture puzzle. The following chapters offer a wealth of useful information about thefactors that influence capital structure and corporate financing decisions in the realworld. Let’s now begin our journey into one of the most controversial and highlyresearched topics in corporate finance. REFERENCES Baker, H. Kent, and Gary E. Powell. 2005. Understanding Financial Management—A PracticalGuide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Baker, Malcolm, and Jeffrey Wurgler. 2002. “Market Timing and Capital Structure.”

Whistleblowers are ostensibly a valuable resource to regulators investigating securities violations, but whether there is a link between whistleblower involvement and the outcomes of enforcement actions is unclear. Using a dataset of employee whistleblowing allegations obtained from the U.S. government and the universe of enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation, we find that whistleblower involvement is associated with significantly higher monetary penalties for targeted firms and employees, and with significantly longer prison sentences for culpable executives. We also find enforcement actions involving whistleblowers are associated with significantly longer regulatory proceedings. Our findings contribute empirical evidence on the role of whistleblowers in the enforcement process and inform managers and policymakers, and the regulators who utilize these programs in their enforcement efforts.

Six years had passed between the publication of The Autumn of the Patriarch and Chronicle of a Death Foretold . The new book, brief as it was, sold in its millions around the world and convinced the critics that Garcia Marquez was back with a vengeance and capable, literarily speaking, of almost anything. In December 1982 the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Colombian was probably the most popular decision made by the Swedish Academy in the second half of the twentieth century. In his acceptance speech in Stockholm, he pleaded for greater sympathy for the Latin American continent from which he came and which, by now, he felt entitled to represent. He spoke of a region still unknown and neglected, a region which was indeed magical but not in an irrational way, a region consistently subjected to the travesty of being judged by the standards of Europe in terms of culture and politics when Europe, which had many unhappy ghosts walking its corridors and skeletons rattling its closets, had taken a thousand years to achieve what it expected Latin America to have achieved in two hundred. ‘Allow us to live out our own Middle Ages,’ he declared, ‘so that our peoples, despite all their misfortunes, may have a second chance upon the earth’.

How does a child born in a small tropical town grow up to become a great writer? As a small boy Gabriel Garcia Marquez drew accomplished pictures well before he could read and write, and his early experience in a Montessori school may have helped him acquire the remarkable sensuality and plasticity so evident in his literary art. The first work he remembered reading was the One Thousand and One Nights , in which Scheherazade manages to survive by enchanting the murderous caliph with the hypnotic beauty of her storytelling – an appropriate antecedent, perhaps, for any Latin American child wishing to be a writer in that most politically risky of continents. Later, adding to the exotic impact of that magical serial, he read such typical boyish adventure stories as The Count of Monte Cristo , Treasure Island and the tales of Salgari, novels written by masters of narrative, the sort of books which some writers forswear as they become more sophisticated but which for him remained eternal classics of the storyteller’s art. In high school in Zipaquira , as a romantic adolescent, he turned to poetry. Few countries in Latin America were traditionally more committed to poetry, as against the novel, than Colombia. (Chile and Nicaragua would be two further examples.) In the 1940s, when Garcia Marquez was a student, Colombian poetry boasted a movement called Piedra y Cielo (Stone and Sky), ef ectively a national continuation of the avant-garde movements in Spain and Latin America in the 1920s and 1930s, whose most notable representatives were Spain’s Federico Garcia Lorca and Chile’s Pablo Neruda – though all the poets of their generation owed a vast debt to the end-of-the-century Nicaraguan modernist Ruben Dario , whom Garcia Marquez himself would always revere.

Regulators claim that firm cooperation is rewarded in the enforcement process. Critics contend, however, that firm cooperation leads to “harsh” and “unfair” penalties for cooperating firms. Using 1,162 enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation initiated by the SEC and DOJ, we find that cooperation credit is best explained by remedial actions (e.g., termination of culpable employees) and self-reporting the law violation to regulators. Although we find that cooperation credit increases the likelihood of the firm being charged and penalized, firms receiving cooperation credit realize an average monetary penalty reduction of $25.5 million (46.1 percent). For those firms without cooperation credit, the penalties nearly double. These estimates are robust to controlling for potential selection issues. Our results provide important insights into what constitutes meaningful cooperation with regulators and indicate that there are significant monetary benefits for firms that regulators deem to be cooperative.

We use data from enforcement actions initiated under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to examine the hypothesis that managers engage in foreign bribery because it is profitable. We find that bribery is associated with projects that have positive ex ante net present value. Even net of costs and penalties, the average ex post NPV for bribe-related projects is non-negative for firms that are caught, and the reputational loss is negligible. For a subset of firms that face comingled charges for financial fraud, however, the direct cost and reputational loss are larger and the ex post NPV is negative.

An extensive accounting and finance literature examines the causes and effects of financial misreporting or misconduct based on samples drawn from four popular databases that identify restatements, securities class action lawsuits, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs). We show, however, that the results from empirical tests can depend on which database is accessed. To examine the causes of such discrepancies, we compare the information in each database to a detailed sample of 1,243 case histories in which the SEC brought enforcement action for financial misrepresentation. These comparisons allow us to identify, measure, and estimate the economic importance of four characteristics of each database that affect inferences from empirical tests. First, these databases contain information on only the event that is used to proxy for misconduct (e.g., restatements), so they omit other relevant announcements that affect a researcher’s interpretation and use of the events. Second, the initial public revelation of financial misconduct occurs, on average, months before the initial coverage in these databases, leading to discrepancies in event study measures and pre/post comparison tests. Third, most of the events captured by these databases are unrelated to financial fraud, and efforts to cull out non-fraud events yield heterogeneous results. Fourth, the databases omit large numbers of events they were designed to capture. We show the extent to which each database is subject to these concerns and offer suggestions for researchers seeking to use these databases.

We examine the stock market's reaction to 13F lings with the SEC. On the day an institution files its 13F, do the prices of stocks held by the institution change? We begin our analysis by examining price responses for initial public off erings of equity, given that the valuations of these stocks are typically more uncertain. We fi nd that the stock market values the news that a top institutional money manager holds a particular IPO. Specifi cally, on the day that an institution in the top 2.5% (based on prior performance) fi les its 13F, any recent IPO reported to be held by that institution enjoys a market-adjusted return of 1%. We plan to investigate other subsets of stocks as well as other subsets of 13F information. Also, we will assess the appropriateness of the market's reaction to the 13F news by examining the stock's performance over future holding periods. This study will shed light on how the market uses information in the 13F disclosures.

We analyze Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio over the 1976 to 2006 period and explore potential explanations for its superior performance. Contrary to popular belief, we find Berkshire Hathaway invests primarily in large-cap growth rather than “value” stocks. Over the period the portfolio beat the benchmarks in 27 out of 31 years, on average exceeding the S&P 500 Index by 11.14%, the value-weighted index of all stocks by 10.92%, and a Fama and French characteristic-based portfolio by 8.56% per year. Although beating the market in all but four years can statistically happen due to chance, incorporating the magnitude by which the portfolio beats the market makes a luck explanation extremely unlikely even after taking into account ex-post selection bias. We find that Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio is concentrated in relatively few stocks with the top five holdings averaging 73% of the portfolio value. While increased volatility is normally associated with higher concentration we show the volatility of the portfolio is driven by large positive returns and not downside risk. The market appears to under-react to the news of a Berkshire Hathaway stock investment since a hypothetical portfolio that mimics the investments at the beginning of the following month after they are publicly disclosed also earns significantly positive abnormal returns of 10.75% over the S&P 500 Index. Our evidence suggests the Berkshire Hathaway triumvirates of Warren Buffett, Charles Munger, and Lou Simpson posses’ investment skill unlikely to be explained by Efficient Market Theory.

This paper provides the first integrated analysis of the complex mix of private and regulatory penalties for financial misrepresentation. We examine the sizes, types, and determinants of legal penalties imposed for all 697 enforcement actions initiated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for financial misrepresentation from 1978 through 2004. These penalties include private class action awards, monetary penalties imposed by the SEC and Department of Justice, and such non-monetary sanctions as censures, trading suspensions, and jail time. Contrary to many criticisms of private lawsuits and regulatory actions, we find that legal penalties are highly systematic, and in particular, are positively related to the size and severity of the harm from the misconduct. The data also indicate deep pockets effects, as both private and regulatory monetary penalties are related to defendants' abilities to pay. A recent increase in regulatory penalties has coincided with a decrease in private monetary penalties, consistent with regulatory penalties crowding out the use of private penalties.

In this paper, we examine how stock option usage affects total corporate payout. Using fixed-effects panel data estimators on various samples of ExecuComp firms from 1993 to 2005, we find the higher the executive stock options, the lower the total payout, ceteris paribus. We also find some evidence that firms increase payouts through repurchases in order to offset earnings per share dilution that occurs due to usage of executive and non-executive stock options. However, incentives from not having dividend protection for options appear to dominate those from antidilution, resulting in lower total payout for firms with higher options usage.

We examine the penalties imposed on the 585 firms targeted by SEC enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation from 1978–2002, which we track through November 15, 2005. The penalties imposed on firms through the legal system average only $23.5 million per firm. The penalties imposed by the market, in contrast, are huge. Our point estimate of the reputational penalty—which we define as the expected loss in the present value of future cash flows due to lower sales and higher contracting and financing costs—is over 7.5 times the sum of all penalties imposed through the legal and regulatory system. For each dollar that a firm misleadingly inflates its market value, on average, it loses this dollar when its misconduct is revealed, plus an additional $3.08. Of this additional loss, $0.36 is due to expected legal penalties and $2.71 is due to lost reputation. In firms that survive the enforcement process, lost reputation is even greater at $3.83. In the cross section, the reputation loss is positively related to measures of the firm's reliance on implicit contracts. This evidence belies a widespread belief that financial misrepresentation is disciplined lightly. To the contrary, reputation losses impose substantial penalties for cooking the books.

These thoughtfully assembled writings by many of Latin America's finest authors bear first-person witness to the personal, social, and political situation of the writer and of literature in Latin America. At different times ironic, impassioned, humorous, reflective, autobiographical, polemical, and always vivid and engaging, this collection of writings is indispensable to a full appreciation of the achievement of twentieth-century Latin American literature.