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A principal has to take a binary decision. She relies on information privately held by a completely biased agent. The principal cannot incentivize with transfers but can learn the agent's information at a cost. Additionally, the principal privately observes a signal correlated with the agent's type. Transparent mechanisms are optimal: unlike in standard results with correlation, the principal's payoff is the same as if her signal was public. They take a simple cut-off form: favorable signals ensure the agent's preferred action. Signals below this cut-off lead to the nonpreferred action unless the agent appeals. An appeal always triggers type verification.

We study the effects of a regulation passed in Israel that required supermarket chains to make the prices of all items sold in their brick-and-mortar stores publicly available online. Using a differences-in-differences research design and multiple complementary control groups, we show that prices have declined by 4% to 5% after the regulation. Price dispersion has also dropped as chains have begun setting identical prices across their stores. To uncover the underlying mechanisms, we test predictions from Robert and Stahl (1993). Consistent with their model, in the post-transparency period: (1) media outlets used freely available price information to conduct extensive price-comparison surveys; (2) hard-discount chains took advantage of the favorable media coverage they received by explicitly mentioning these surveys in their ads; (3) the use of media-based ads increased when prices declined; (4) consumers visited the price-comparison websites infrequently. Our findings highlight the importance of the media in facilitating informative advertising, and the pro-competitive role of advertising.

Blockchain technology has wide area of application, this article is very particular on emphasising another important field of application named Agro-products supply chain. Wherein this era, and the future needs to nurture the agriculture sector along with latest technologies, so that nation would make a revolution in the process of food supply from the farm to the plate. The main drawback in the agriculture supply chain is lack of transparency in food production and distribution, costly middleman, limited financial resources & disconnection between supplier and retailer. So this article proposes, suitable theoretical auction flow model to overcome all the issues highlighted in this agro-sector, we would like to give the solution by improving the transparency in the supply chain, by providing farmers direct access to suppliers through an appropriate auction system with an option of immediate payment on delivery & transparent transaction information to them. Further we can involve government as a central authority to overcome the technical aspects, education, policies and regulatory frame works, in turn they can generate job opportunities to the unemployed graduates.

One of the most widely discussed issues in banking regulation and research is transparency. Yet, whether depositors – banks’ most important claimholders – are affected by transparency, is an empirical open question. Analyzing US commercial banks from 1994-2019, we show that uninsured deposit flows are more sensitive to information about bank performance when banks are more transparent. We also link transparency to deposit rates, banks’ investment funding patterns, and profitability. Using the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, we provide evidence of a causal link. Overall, our findings demonstrate that transparency is important in shaping depositors’ behavior and highlight its potential costs.

Background Mandatory disclosure of the price of prescription drugs within direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertisements (DTCA) has been proposed as a potential means of curbing rising drug costs in the United States. While price transparency in DTCA has widespread public support, empirical evidence regarding the effects of such drug prices disclosures remains limited. Objectives This study assessed the degree to which a price disclosure was noticed, the individual characteristics associated with price disclosure recognition, and the impact on perceived drug affordability, effectiveness, and safety. Methods A randomized experiment was conducted among 2,138 members of the Amerispeak online panel. Participants were shown a television commercial for a drug treating either type II diabetes, deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism (DVT/PE), or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that disclosed the list price, disclosed the list price plus the average out-of-pocket cost, or had no price disclosure. Results Roughly forty percent of participants noticed when a price was disclosed while 20–24% noticed information about individual costs varying (the higher of these percentages occurred when the average out-of-pocket cost was provided). Attention did not vary systematically with the cost amount. Recognition of the different elements of the price disclosure were most predicted by sociodemographic variables such as race, education, and income as well as health characteristics. Price disclosure altered perceived affordability of the advertised medication in a manner consistent with the costs provided, but such consistent significant effects were not found for perceived drug effectiveness and safety. Conclusions Repeated exposure to price disclosure in television DTCA or supplementary sources of price information may be necessary to increase attention to drug price information, especially among those who are most vulnerable to the burden of drug costs. Price transparency appears useful for adjusting affordability perceptions, but additional research needs to examine how such perceptions factor into healthcare decision-making and drug pricing.

Credit risk management is an area where regulators expect banks to have transparent and auditable risk models, which would preclude the use of more accurate black-box models. Furthermore, the opaqueness of these models may hide unknown biases that may lead to unfair lending decisions. In this study, we show that banks do not have to sacrifice prediction accuracy at the cost of model transparency to be compliant with regulatory requirements. We illustrate this by showing that the predictions of credit losses given by a black-box model can be easily explained in terms of their inputs. Because black-box models are better at uncovering complex patterns in the data, banks should consider the determinants of credit losses suggested by these models in lending decisions and pricing of credit exposures.

In social trading, less experienced investors (followers) are allowed to copy the trades of experts (traders) in real time after paying a fee. Such a copy-trading mechanism often runs into a transparency-revenue tension. On the one hand, social trading platforms need to release traders’ trades as transparently as possible to allow followers to evaluate traders accurately. On the other hand, complete transparency may undercut the platform’s revenue because followers can free ride. That is, followers can manually copy the trades of a trader to avoid paying the following fees. This study addresses this critical tension by optimizing the level of transparency through delaying the release of trading information pertaining to the trades executed by traders. We capture the economic impact of the delay using the notions of profit-gap and delayed-profit. We propose a mechanism that elucidates the economic effects of the profit-gap and delayed-profit on followers and, consequently, the amount of money following a trader: protection effect and evaluation effect. Empirical investigations find support for these two effects. We then develop a stochastic control formulation that optimizes platform revenue, where the control is the optimal delay customized at the trader level and calculated as a function of the current amount of money following a trader and the number of views on the trader’s profile page. The optimized revenue can be incorporated into an algorithm to provide a systematic way to infuse the platform’s goals into the ranking of the traders. A counterfactual study is conducted to demonstrate the performance of the optimal delay policy (versus a constant-delay policy) using data from a leading social trading platform operating in the foreign exchange market. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

Purpose/Objective(s) Financial toxicity is far more prevalent in oncology than in general patient populations and is associated with inferior quality of life and health outcomes. In 2021, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) required all hospitals to publish “shoppable,” payer-negotiated prices for ≥ 300 services of which 70 (including specialty care such as joint and cataract surgery) were specified, but oncology price inclusion was optional. National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated centers are referral sites for cancer care, but the rate at which they choose to report prices for radiation therapy (RT) or systemic therapy is unknown. We predicted that the proportion of NCI-designated cancer centers reporting RT and infusion prices would lag behind their general rate of compliance with publication of shoppable prices. Materials/Methods 63 clinical NCI-designated cancer centers were identified. On February 1, 2021, (1 month after regulations took effect), online shoppable price lists and lengthy “chargemaster” documents containing prices for every offered service were identified through search terms such as “price transparency” or “price estimate.” These tools were queried for the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes 77385 and 96413 corresponding to the charge per fraction for simple intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and the first hour of infusion of systemic therapy, respectively. Search terms such as “radiation,” “radiotherapy,” “IMRT”, “chemotherapy,” and “infusion” were also used. Primary endpoints were the rate of reporting of shoppable prices for IMRT and infusion. Secondary endpoints were the rate of publication of shoppable prices and the rate of reporting any RT service. Descriptive statistics including proportions and frequency counts were performed. Results The price transparency webpages for all 63 institutions were easily identified. 52 (83%) listed shoppable prices in any format including 49 (78%) user-friendly web-based tools and 3 downloadable documents. 9 (17%) and 8 (15%) centers listed prices for IMRT and infusion, respectively, in their shoppable tools, and 20 (38%) listed at least one RT price. When also including negotiated prices found in chargemaster documents, 20 (32%), 23 (37%), and 31 (49%) of the 63 centers listed negotiated IMRT, infusion, and any RT prices, respectively. Conclusion Although 83% of NCI-cancer centers are compliant with mandates to report shoppable prices, almost 1 in 5 are noncompliant. Furthermore, less than 1 in 5 report negotiated RT and systemic therapy prices in shoppable tools. Oncology price reporting rates rise when considering chargemaster data, but these documents are opaque and patients may not know they exist. Policy changes such as mandatory RT and infusion price reporting should be considered to mitigate financial burden by improving patient access to reliable oncology price information.

I study how much consumers benefit from new products in markets with information frictions. I analyze new products in the U.S. hard drive market, which is characterized by ample product innovation. Using unique click-stream data, I measure the magnitude of two frictions, category consideration and costly search, and show that both play a crucial role in shaping consumer demand. To estimate consumer surplus from new products, I develop a search model that captures both frictions and propose a novel Bayesian estimation method to recover its parameters. I then show that ignoring information frictions leads researchers to underestimate the consumer surplus from new hard drives because it appears that consumers do not value the combinations of attributes these hard drives offer. Partly eliminating frictions, through marketing efforts or market-wide transparency initiatives, can help consumers to more fully internalize the benefits of new product launches. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4729 .

Energy storage has high application value in the power system, especially in the field of auxiliary services, but the transaction mechanism and process are not yet perfect. Considering the advantages of security and transparency of blockchain technology, this article combines blockchain with energy storage auxiliary services and proposes a blockchain-based grid-side shared energy storage market transaction model and mechanism. This article first introduces the concept and application status of blockchain, and compares the advantages of blockchain technology applied to power transactions. Combined with the existing policies and market rules, the research on the participation of energy storage in auxiliary services was carried out, and the market mechanism for the participation of energy storage in peak and frequency modulation auxiliary services was designed. Finally, a blockchain-based energy storage market-oriented transaction model and mechanism is proposed to improve the flexibility of the power system and promote clean energy consumption.

This paper investigates how corporate governance of unlisted firms in an emerging market economy affects financing constraints, measured by the sensitivity of investment to cash flow. In order to evaluate the quality of corporate governance, we develop two corporate governance indices based on a large-scale survey of Russian enterprises – one for shareholder protection and one for transparency. We estimate standard investment regressions where the cash flow variable is interacted with our corporate governance indices and variables capturing the ownership structure. The central result is that better shareholder protection diminishes the cash flow sensitivity of investment, particularly in firms with an outside controlling owner. In contrast, we do not find such an effect for transparency, which can be partially explained by the threat of hostile takeovers. We address the problem of the endogeneity of corporate governance by using fixed-effects regressions and a novel instrumental variable based on particular legal provisions for corporate governance in Russia depending on the number of shareholders.

Markets differ in the availability of past trading records of their participants. In a repeated sale model with adverse selection, we study the impact of the availability of such records on trading outcomes. We consider regimes varying with respect to the length of the available records. We characterize a class of equilibria in which the record length has direct welfare implications via the market’s need to re-screen the seller, as well as indirect implications via the low quality seller’s incentives to mimic the high quality seller. As the record length increases, the market needs to re-screen less frequently, which improves efficiency. In turn, less frequent screening makes mimicking more attractive and limits the market’s ability to learn. These considerations lead to a non-monotonic relationship between record length and overall gains from trade.

The maturity in information technology and new energy technologies enables participants to generate, buy, and sell energy in energy trading systems. Although applying blockchain technology to energy trading has solved some drawbacks in traditional centralized energy systems, the openness and transparency characteristics make the trading records stored on the blockchain vulnerable to data-mining attacks that may cause indispensable privacy leakage. Due to high efficiency and low overhead, noise-addition is an appropriate solution for privacy preservation. Nonetheless, recent research on noise-addition needs to generate massive accounts, which brings a certain amount of waste and inconvenience for later regulation and management. To avoid the aforementioned issues, this paper proposes a consortium blockchain-enabled scheme to ensure the privacy of data stored on the blockchain and resist linking attacks initiated by data mining algorithms. Our scheme utilizes a dynamic partition algorithm to leverage an account mapping algorithm and a virtual token algorithm. Specifically, the account mapping algorithm utilizes a dynamic account allocation method to hide the trading distribution of active users. Furthermore, the virtual token algorithm applies Laplace noise to hide the actual energy consumption of inactive users and curb excessive accounts generation. Finally, we formally demonstrate the privacy and effectiveness of our proposed scheme in security analysis and experiment evaluations.

Several cryptocurrency (CC) indices track the dynamics of the rising CC sector, and soon ETFs will be issued on them. We conduct a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the currently existing CC indices. As the CC sector is not yet consolidated, index issuers face the challenge of tracking the dynamics of a fast-growing sector that is under continuous transformation. We propose several criteria and various measures to compare the indices under review. Major differences between the indices lie in their weighting schemes, their coverage of CCs and the number of constituents, the level of transparency, and thus, their accuracy in mapping the dynamics of the CC sector. Our analysis reveals that simple market cap-weighted indices outperform their competitors. Interestingly, increasing the number of constituents does not automatically lead to a better fit of the CC sector. All codes are available on "Image missing".

This paper studies simultaneous multilateral search (SMS) in over-the-counter markets: When searching, a customer simultaneously contacts several dealers and trades with the one offering the best quote. Higher search intensity (how often one can search) improves welfare, but higher search capacity (how many dealers one can contact) might be harmful. When the market is in distress, customers might inefficiently favor bilateral bargaining (BB) over SMS. Such a preference for BB speaks to the sluggish adoption of SMS trading, like request-for-quote protocols, in over-the-counter markets. Furthermore, a market-wide shift to SMS may not be socially optimal.

INTRODUCTION: R&D costs as an element of medicines' pricing play a prominent role in the discussions regarding the affordability of medicine. This paper investigates the details of R&D costs and the potential for reductions.AREAS COVERED: The manuscript focuses on the constitution of R&D costs in relation to medicines' pricing and its potential developments. This manuscript builds on a cost-of-opportunity approach to explore the results of potential changes in drug development and its possible economic, political, and societal impacts.EXPERT OPINION: The cost of capital is the largest cost category that could be affected by authorities. Public institutions can affect these costs by increasing public investments in R&D and reducing the amount of development time that is associated with a high capital need. In order to affect the cost of failure, it is key to understand its drivers. A government taking risks as the funder of early innovation yields an opportunity to introduce an alternative model for medicine development. Next, to control pricing, it is important to adequately reward innovation in order to ensure improved quality of care, access, and affordability of systems. Innovation, high-quality care, access, and affordability require entrepreneurial and changing positions of governments, authorities, public institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Objective To describe the widespread use of compounded bioidentical hormone therapies (cBHT). To define the term clinical utility and present why there is insufficient evidence to support the overall clinical utility of cBHT products. To recommend actions that pharmacists and regulators can take to promote safer cBHT use. Summary Nationwide, millions of men and women use cBHT products. Use of these products appears to be increasing year-to-year, according to the limited data reported by the 503 A and 503 B pharmacies that formulate and dispense these products. Although use appears to be widespread, the safety, efficacy, and clinical utility of these products remains unproven. This commentary provides examples of what draws consumers to these products, comparative costs, and formulation challenges. Actions to promote the safe use of cBHT and approaches to begin the study of these products are provided. Conclusion While significant progress was made via the Drug Supply Chain Security Act in 2013 to improve the safety of compounding practice in general, efforts to further improve the safety and transparency of cBHT dispensing and use must continue, at both the local and national level.

This study discovers the relation between corporate governance factors and earnings quality and finds that increases in dividends and foreign ownership deter earnings management. The author shows that dividend increases and foreign ownership enhance earnings quality, but they appear to be substitutes in that role. In other words, as foreign ownership increases, the influence of dividends in increasing earnings quality decreases. Improving transparency through dividend increases and monitoring by foreign institutional investors are substitutes in preventing earnings management.

As the technical support of the industrial Internet of Things, blockchain technology has been widely used in energy trading, data transactions, and Internet of Vehicles. However, most of the existing energy trading models only address the transaction security and transaction privacy issues that arise in the energy trading process, ignoring the fairness of resource allocation and transaction equity in the trading process. In order to tackle those problems, an energy trading scheme called HO-TRAD is proposed in this paper to improve the efficiency of model trading while ensuring the fairness of energy trading. We propose a new trading strategy in the HO-TRAD energy trading scheme that guarantees fairness in the allocation of trading resources by introducing an entity’s active reputation value. Use smart contracts to achieve transparency and ensure fairness in the transaction process. Based on the identity verification foundation of the consortium chain, the scheme enhances the existing PBFT consensus algorithm and improves the efficiency of model transactions. The experimental simulation indicates that the scheme requires less transaction time and has higher transaction fairness and security.

Cybertwin is a promising technique in the 6G network to cope with an exponentially increasing demand for the mobile data traffic and growing number of required network service appliances. Multiple resources are required to fulfil various personalized services of mobile users while protecting their privacy. In this article, we propose a progressive adaptive user selection environment (PAUSE)-based combinatorial auction resource trading mechanism to allocate the resource efficiently and securely. Cybertwins can request the various resources as a bid according to its corresponding user and proceed the auction in a fully distributed manner. Not only the user’s privacy can be well protected but also its cost can be saved due to the transparency of this mechanism. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of our mechanism in comparison with the centralized benchmark.

This paper studies whether and how mandatory nonfinancial disclosure affects firms' real decisions. I exploit a disclosure regulation enacted in California, which mandates that firms disclose how they conduct due diligence to address their suppliers' human rights abuses. I find that treated firms increase their supply chain due diligence, and their suppliers' human rights performance improves following the regulation. The effects are stronger when firms face greater pressure from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and socially conscious shareholders, when customers have greater incentives to use the newly disclosed information, and when the regulation leads to a larger increase in information comparability. Collectively, the results suggest that mandatory nonfinancial disclosure can affect firms' real decisions through market mechanisms and that stakeholder responses play a key role. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: G14; G18; G38; J80; K22; K31; K38; L23; M41; M48.

This paper presents a case study of how communication on monetary policy rules in Israel allows for discretionary deviations within a rule-like policy framework without impairment to central bank credibility. We quantitatively analyze a monetary policy rule that has described Bank of Israel policy formally since 2012 and informally since 2007. We demonstrate the value of a policy rule as a tool of communication and show how policymakers leverage this rule in times of economic uncertainty. We identify periods of discretionary deviation from the policy rule and show how communication on financial stability concerns derived from monthly interest rate announcements explains these deviations. Finally, we show how policymakers in Israel were able to anchor market expectations, even in times of great economic uncertainty. We assess how market expectations about the future path of the short-term interest rate respond both to communication related to the rule and exercised flexibility during the financial crisis. We use futures contracts on short term interest rates from the inter-bank market and find that monetary policy predictability improves in the period following the publication of this rule. We argue that policymakers in Israel were able to conduct monetary policy consistent with their main long-term objectives while maintain a high degree of transparency on assessments behind interest rate decisions.

This paper studies bargaining with noncommon priors where the buyer projects and exaggerates the probability that her private information may leak to the seller. Letting the buyer name her price first, raises the seller’s payoff above his payoff from posting a price. In seller-offer bargaining, projection implies a partial reversal of classic Coasian comparative static results. Weakening price commitment can benefit the seller and, as long as the relative speed at which imaginary information versus offers arrive does not converge to zero too quickly, frictionless bargaining converges to a fast haggling process which allows the seller to extract all surplus from trade. Bargaining under common prior transparency is instead slow and becomes equivalent to simply waiting. The comparative static predictions are consistent with experimental evidence. (JEL C78, D82)

The impact of the Great Financial Crisis on operational risk includes the birth of structural due diligence. Since the crisis, institutional investors have demanded more transparency and better governance in the hedge fund space. This demand has resulted in the growth of several different types of structures, including Liquid Alternatives via 40-ACT or UCITS funds, Fund-of-One, managed accounts, and managed account platforms. Operational due diligence has extended beyond examining the non-investment risks to include the best way structurally to access a specific hedge fund investment. The different structures have varying advantages and disadvantages, which translates to different types of operational risks. This article presents a matrix of the advantages and disadvantages of the structural forms and the concept of a structural alpha. The author examines managed account platforms (MAPs) and how to evaluate them. Key Findings ▪ Since the Great Financial Crisis, institutional investors have demanded more transparency and better governance in the hedge fund space. This has resulted in the growth of several different types of structures to access hedge funds. ▪ Some of the world’s most sophisticated institutional investors are utilizing managed account platforms (MAPs). This article discusses how to conduct due diligence and evaluate a MAP. ▪ Different structures have different advantages and disadvantages for accessing a specific hedge fund investment. Institutional investors can obtain a structural alpha by choosing the best structural form.

The house is one of the needs that must be fulfilled by humans, the need for housing in Indonesia is increasing every year in line with the high population growth. Based on a letter issued by the finance minister regarding the home ownership loan program, many residential property business developers offer home services in an effort to meet the need for housing. Then came the conventional mortgages and sharia mortgages. Sharia mortgages are schemes that continue to develop and attract public interest with their sharia transaction systems, either with a Murabaha or Isthisna 'contract. This study aims to find out how the practice of istishna contract is applied by the developer of PT Samawa Property Group. This type of research is descriptive qualitative research with exposure related to solving existing problems. The results of this study indicate that the contract used is the istishna contract which is able to meet the needs of the community for houses without riba transactions, clear price transparency, no fines or confiscation so that it is mutually beneficial and able to improve the welfare of the community.

At this moment, only 1% of people in Kazakhstan invest in the stock market. Apart from the lack of financial education, the increasing number of seemingly legitimate fraudulent financial schemes influence the public’s perception of the stock market. This research investigates the public perceptions of investment fraud, the difference between stock market investment and financial schemes, and the consequences of confusing the two concepts. Through a survey and an interview, the research yields qualitative and quantitative data. Although the majority of the people (75%) are aware that the stock market is not a scam, a higher majority (89%) believe it is risky. Fraudsters often capitalize on the victims’ ignorance. Often get-rich-schemes are unlicensed, unregulated, and lacks transparency while offering a high amount of returns for a small investment. Therefore, raising the public's awareness will encourage them to engage in stock market investing and avoid being scammed.

In 2018, the European financial regulation MiFID II introduced research unbundling rules that banned the bundling of research payments with execution costs. The aim of research unbundling is to increase transparency for investors and to avoid agency conflicts. Opponents argue that research unbundling reduces small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) research and, thereby, SMEs’ financing opportunities because this research can no longer be cross-subsidized by research fees paid for larger companies. The outbreak of COVID-19 and its impact on financial markets fueled intense discussions on rebundling for SMEs. Consequently, in February 2021, the European Commission adopted a Capital Markets Recovery Package that allows bundled research for SMEs below a market capitalization of EUR 1 billion. Against this backdrop, the authors conducted a survey among European market participants to investigate changes in research services due to research unbundling and the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, they examine market participants’ views on the expected effects and improvements of the option to rebundle SME research as provided by the recovery package. Key Findings ▪ MiFID II’s research unbundling led to a drop in research coverage, but did not affect firms’ access to equity. ▪ The COVID-19 pandemic did not aggravate the impact of research unbundling on research coverage and firms’ access to equity. ▪ Market participants are skeptical about the value of the Capital Markets Recovery Package and believe that the option of bundled payments for SMEs will not be used.

PurposeIn initial public offerings (IPOs), the media plays a pivotal role by disseminating the information to the investors who generally lack the expertise to understand the information through the prospectus. Thus, media coverage can impact the investment decision of the investors and the IPO performance. Media typically covers the IPO before listing, suggesting that it may play an important role in explaining the opening price rather than the closing price on the day of listing. Therefore, this study aims to disaggregate the traditional IPO underpricing into three categories: voluntary, pre-market and post-market and provides a comparative analysis of the media sentiments impact on the traditional and disaggregated IPO underpricing. The authors’ disaggregated IPO underpricing analysis will facilitate the investors in making an effective investment strategy based on media sentiments.Design/methodology/approachThe study deploys sentiment analysis using bags of n (2) grams approach to gauge the sentiments on 2,891 media articles and uses “robust-regression” technique to analyze them on a sample of 222 Indian IPOs during 2009–2018.FindingsThe study reports that the sentiment score is positively related to the traditional underpricing; the sentiment score is positively associated with the pre-market underpricing and does not have any significant relationship with the post-market underpricing; the number of media articles does not play a significant role in explaining the IPO underpricing. The findings highlight the presence of a semi-strong form of efficiency in the Indian IPO market.Originality/valueExisting literature focuses that the role of media on IPO performance is based on the developed countries. IPO laws differ based on the countries. For instance, in India, investors can check the demand by the other categories of investors on a real-time basis. Thus, it is interesting to study whether, with such a high level of transparency, media can explain IPO performance in the Indian market. Media generally covers IPO before listing; therefore, the present study disaggregates the IPO underpricing to evaluate the role of media on the primary and secondary market separately. It will help the investors to decide when to enter and exit the market.

This study has analyzed food supply chains from the circular economy viewpoint with a focus on knowledge hiding. In this paper, we examine the practice of hiding knowledge among stakeholders, in which dimension, what this knowledge is and whether there are differences among specific groups of stakeholders. This is applied to distributors, producers, consumers, retailers, suppliers and farmers working within the meat industry in Turkey. It shows how information hiding affects the traceability of food supply chains and circularity in the meat industry. Three different theories have been examined in this paper. Stakeholder theory helps to analyze traceability of food supply chains among stakeholders; the theory of industrial symbiosis aims to achieve an efficient circular food supply chain through 9R (refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose, recycle, recover) strategies by adopting traceability; the information theory is a key enabler to coordinate traceability from farm to fork to support a circular food supply chain. By using the theoretical lens, this paper sets out proposals for policymakers and managers in food supply chains to ensure traceability and transparency to achieve circular economy. Although some prior studies address knowledge hiding, information hiding hasn’t been examined with traceability and transparency dimensions in Circular Food Supply Chain (CFSC) in B2B business. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature, improve theoretical understanding with our proposed framework and validating the impact of information hiding and reveal where knowledge is mostly hidden in terms of circular economy, stakeholders and 9Rs in the meat industry. A proposed framework for managers and policymakers based on a circular economy can bring social, economic and environmental benefits for the red meat industry in Turkey. Additionally, it offers a framework and recommendations for other countries and industries for possible adoption.

We find a strong positive association between the inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) of CEOs and announcement-period abnormal returns (CARs) of acquiring firms bidding for private targets. In addition, gains to acquirers with high inside debt persist for at least 3 years post-acquisition. Further analyses suggest that our results are largely driven by firms with lower levels of manager-shareholder agency conflicts as proxied by higher transparency in firm activities, presence of a less powerful CEO, or presence of stronger monitoring. Our results are robust to an array of sensitivity tests.

In January 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began requiring hospitals to publish price transparency files listing all prices negotiated with payers. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of payer-negotiated prices for commonly performed outpatient otolaryngology surgery at all hospitals scored by the US News & World Report in otolaryngology. We compared prices among hospitals (across-center ratios) and among payers at the same hospital (within-center ratios). Price disclosure rates were low overall for otolaryngologic surgery (maximum, 26.7% for bronchoscopy). Across-center ratios ranged from 3.5 (adjacent tissue transfer/rearrangement

PT Sagara Asia Technology or better known as Sagara Technology is a company engaged in technology consulting and digital products. Sagara Technology manufactures and provides premium software development, training and talent products. The work done at Sagara Technology focuses on developing website technology and mobile applications. Investment is an option for many groups of people to invest in a company because investment promises long-term benefits. Therefore, PT Lunaria Annua Teknologi decided to create a Bond Coin application to reach all groups of people who want to invest and can take advantage of investment returns according to their wishes.The methodology used during the creation of this application is Scrum. Scrum is used as a framework because this methodology is suitable for small teams, clear application specifications and Scrum allows iteration and incremental of a product requirement that will be found during product development. Bond coins make it easier for investors to conduct checks on Government Securities purchased, including transparency, security and efficiency in transactions.

OBJECTIVES: To understand responses of primary care clinics to inclusion in a tiered total cost of care insurance benefit design. STUDY DESIGN: We used a qualitative design beginning with longitudinal analysis of administrative data on consumer clinic choice, clinic tier placement, and clinic actions, followed by in-depth interviews with key informants from clinics, administering health plans, and program administrators. METHODS: We collected data via semistructured interviews with purposively sampled key informants selected from clinics that prospectively reduced prices to move to, or remain in, a tier with lower cost sharing. Data from interview transcripts were coded using qualitative coding software and analyzed for thematic responses. RESULTS: Our findings suggest that clinics respond to the incentives in the tiered cost-sharing benefit design. Two motivations cited by clinics are (1) concern over developing a reputation as a high-cost clinic and (2) concern about the possible loss of patients due to higher cost sharing. Some clinics have agreed to price reductions or risk-sharing arrangements to move to, or remain in, a tier with lower cost sharing. Clinic informants reported that price reductions alone are not scalable. They sought greater transparency in tier assignment and increased data sharing to help them reduce costly or unnecessary utilization. CONCLUSIONS: Managers of primary care clinics respond to a tiered benefit design that holds them accountable for total cost of care. They respond by offering price discounts and expressing interest in reducing costly referrals and unnecessary use of services.

We investigate whether information transparency at the industry level is associated with the sustainability of within-industry differences in profitability. Since competition leads to the elimination of intra-industry profitability differences, this investigation provides evidence on whether competitors act on information about rivals. Using an industry-level transparency measure that integrates corporate reporting by firm managers, private information search and communication by analysts, and information dissemination by the media, we find that transparency is associated with faster reductions in within-industry profitability differences. Using aggregate financial statement data for public and private firms provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, we further find that differences in profitability between public and private firms are less persistent when public firms’ profitability exceeds private firms’ profitability, consistent with theoretical and anecdotal arguments that public firms are at a competitive disadvantage because they are required to be more transparent than private counterparts. Our results are robust to the use of local newspaper closures and mergers as exogenous shocks to transparency. Collectively, these findings indicate that information transparency facilitates competition, leading to the erosion of profitability differences within an industry. We further demonstrate that information transparency is positively associated with the degree to which competitors enter or exit an industry in anticipation of changes in the industry’s profitability outlook.

Regulators and standard setters strive to enhance the transparency of corporate disclosures. To address concerns regarding the improper use of non-GAAP financial measures, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented Regulation G and related amendments in 2003. US firms that report non-GAAP earnings must now reconcile them with the most directly comparable GAAP earnings, which are presented with equal or greater prominence than non-GAAP earnings. This paper examines the effect of Regulation G on analysts’ information environment for non-GAAP reporting firms. Before Regulation G, non-GAAP earnings reporting is associated with less accurate, more positively biased, and more dispersed analysts’ earnings forecasts. By contrast, the quality of analysts’ earnings forecasts for non-GAAP reporting firms is enhanced by higher accuracy, less bias, and lower dispersion after Regulation G. The case for Regulation G making non-GAAP disclosures more transparent may be relevant for regulators and standard setters when considering future disclosure regulations.

Selling fair-trade products can be problematic because of their higher price when compared with conventional alternatives. We propose that one way to solve this problem is to make consumers aware of the benefits of fair-trade. To this end, we perform three experimental studies to show that partitioned pricing (PP), which explicitly displays fair-trade as a separate price component, increases consumers’ purchase intention toward the fair-trade product. This effect can be explained by increased perceptions of price fairness, which itself is mediated through transparency (but only if an additional verbal justification of the fair-trade price component is present). In the absence of such a verbal justification, recalled prices instead of transparency explain the positive effect of PP on consumers’ purchase intentions. Interestingly, boundary conditions of this effect barely exist. Our incentive-aligned study illustrates that PP is associated with a 20% increase in purchases of fair-trade products. The results demonstrate an opportunity to increase the market share of fair-trade products, which increases social welfare and sustainability.

This paper investigates the effect of corporate social responsibility on the information content of stock prices. Using a sample of 877 U.S.-listed firms, we provide evidence that a firm’s CSR performance has a negative effect on stock price synchronicity, suggesting that socially responsible firms commit themselves to high transparency standards, leading to more informative stock prices. Moreover, the negative relationship between sustainable corporate policies and stock price synchronicity is more pronounced in better-governed, highly competitive, and closely monitored firms. Our findings are robust to potential endogeneity problems, additional control variables, and alternative sample composition. This study contributes to the literature by providing original insights on the CSR performance link with firm-specific information impounded in stock prices. Further, we uniquely contribute to the CSR dimensions literature by separately analyzing which CSR dimension contributes to improving the firm’s information environment.

This paper examines the systemic and complex influences of the 2020 Coronavirus epidemic on the supply chains (SCs) of international clothing companies through a global business risk management perspective. The Coronavirus pandemic has triggered supply and demand disturbance risks that strongly affect supply chain (SC) management, signifying a necessity to develop the agility to alleviate such risks. This study revealed that the lean-SC management model is inadequate due to the dearth of transparency in the SCs caused by the growing demand uncertainty detected even before the Coronavirus pandemic. Although agile-SC management copes with this issue by improving the purchaser-supplier relations and communication to enhance information exchange, this model also requires a related rise in business stock and inventory costs. Hence, the paper provides several strategies that companies can implement to manage the risks and identify main fields for future studies, including the parties in the clothing SCs both downstream and upstream. © 2021 Operations and Supply Chain Management Forum. All rights reserved.

We study the impact of transparency on stock price informativeness by using an exogenous change in China: the comply-or-explain dividend regulation. Employing a difference-in-difference (DID) desig...

Due to the transparency, simplicity, and blockchain system, cryptocurrencies gained popularity in the modern world. This led to more use of cryptocurrencies for speculation and investment rather than a medium of exchange. It is crucial to analyse the nature of the crypto market before investing in such currencies. With this intention, the paper tried to know the extent of following (Followness) of altcoins to the bitcoin in the different dominance phases like High Dominance, Low Dominance, and Moderate Dominance. For this purpose, daily closing prices of the Bitcoin and five major altcoins (Ethereum, Litecoin, Namecoin, Doge, and Ripple) are collected for the last five years and analyse the relationship between bitcoin and altcoins. Pearson's correlation coefficient test is used to know the direction of the relationship, and Vector Error Correction Model is used to see the extent of the relation. In general, the empirical result of the study showed cointegration between bitcoin and Altcoin. It also depicted that Altcoin showed a high level of followness in the moderate dominance phase and low followness in the low dominance phase. The study developed a price estimation equation to predict the price of altcoins depending upon the price of bitcoin and its dominance in the crypto market. This paper concludes that the dominance of Bitcoin also has a significant role in the price movement of altcoins.

As our fossil fuel reserves are rapidly depleting, there has been an increased focus to explore the utility of renewable energy (e.g., solar energy and wind energy) in replacing fossil fuel. One resulting trend is the energy market gradually shifting toward a distributed market, where renewable energy can be traded, partly evidenced by the number of blockchain-based solutions designed for the (distributed) energy sector. The interest in blockchain is also due to blockchain's underpinning characteristics such as anonymity, decentralized, and transparency. Therefore, in this article, we perform a comprehensive review of how blockchain technology has been, and can be, deployed in energy applications, ranging from energy management to peer-to-peer trading to electric vehicle-related applications to carbon emissions trading, and others. We also study the existing architectures and solutions, and existing and emerging security and privacy challenges, as well as exploring other potential applications of blockchain in the energy sector.

Pricing of pharmaceuticals is an all-time challenge for healthcare systems. Often public payers agree with companies on confidential managed-entry agreements (MEAs) that, e.g. foresee discounts under specific circumstances. The EURIPID Executive Committee surveyed 22 European countries, who all reported the use of confidential agreements between pharmaceutical companies and public payers, confirming that the actual prices paid are typically lower than the published list price. In 68% of the countries, the confidentiality of MEAs is required by non-disclosure clauses between companies and public payers. In some countries (27%) this is even backed up by a specific law. Our study identified legal constraints for the sharing of information on actual prices and confidential agreements among European countries and consequently restrictions in transparency. In conclusion, the EURIPID survey findings suggest that the current possibility to improve the medicines’ price transparency across countries is limited and the issue probably requires international institutional engagement, at least to coordinate initiatives toward a greater collaboration among member states.

Christian Kunow, Bernhard Langer Department of Health, Nursing, Management, University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg, Neubrandenburg, GermanyCorrespondence: Bernhard LangerDepartment of Health, Nursing, Management, University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg, Brodaer Straße 2, Neubrandenburg, 17033, GermanyTel +49 395 5693-3107Fax +49 395 5693-73107Email langer@hs-nb.deBackground: In Germany, over-the-counter (OTC) medicines for self-medication may only be dispensed by community pharmacies (CPs). From the customer’s point of view, “adequate” counseling includes not only the recommendation of medicines that meet guidelines, but ao the dispensing of low-priced medicines. This is all the more important in Germany against the background of free pricing and a lack of obligation to display prices. The aim was to analyze the dispensing and possible price variability of OTC medicines for headache.Methods: The cross-sectional design of the study based on the simulated patient methodology (SPM) included all 42 CPs of the German big city Potsdam and used eight trained simulated patients (SPs). Between October and December 2020, four different SPs visited each CP four times with two almost identical scenarios with the demand for a medicine for headache.Results: All 168 planned visits were successfully completed and ibuprofen (60.1%) was dispensed most frequently. Across all dispensed medicines, prices varied from € 0.93 to € 9.97 (∆ 972%; median € 3.46 [interquartile range (IQR) € 2.25]). For repeated dispensing of the same CPs, the price variability was a maximum of € 8.77. In addition, packs with ≤ 10 tablets were dispensed in 47.6%, with 11 to 20 tablets in 50.6%, and with > 20 tablets in 1.8% of visits.Conclusion: Increasing price transparency and strengthening price competition could make it easier for customers to access OTC medicines according to their personal needs.Keywords: pricing, dispensing, OTC medicines, headache, community pharmacies, simulated patient

Through the Bitcoin application, the innovative technology was miraculously launched in the markets, influencing numerous industries. Bitcoin is nothing but a form of digital currency (cryptocurrency) that can be used for trading in place of fiat money, where the underlying infrastructure is called Blockchain. The Blockchain is an open ledger that provides decentralization, transparency, immutability, and confidentiality. Blockchain can be used in massive, beneficial applications such as healthcare, logistics, supply chain management, the Internet of Things (IoT), etc. Most of the industrial applications rely on the permissioned Blockchain. However, the permissioned Blockchain fails in some aspects, such as scalability and throughput. This paper suggests a system to solve the scalability issue of permissioned Blockchain by incorporating data science techniques. The scalability analysis of the proposed solution is done in the hyperledger fabric framework with a variable number of transactions and results in scalability improvement.

International audience; Licensed Shared Access (LSA) is a new concept proposed by the radio spectrum policy group in order to optimize spectrum usage: a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) can access temporarily to other incumbent's spectrum after obtaining a license. The licensing process is made via an auction mechanism. The mechanisms proposed in the literature for the LSA context are oneshot auction mechanisms which allocate all the available spectrum as a unique block. In this paper, we first show how to increase the performance of those auctions (in terms of revenue, efficiency and fairness of the allocation) while preserving truthful bidding, by splitting spectrum and converting single block auctions into multi-block auctions. Simulation results illustrate how appropriately choosing the number of blocks allows to increase the aforementioned metrics. Second, we show how to convert one-shot mechanisms to equivalent ascending mechanisms (in terms of allocations and payments) so that we add transparency and privacy to the auction.

This paper focus on discussing the issue of insider trading pratices in the Indonesian capital market. Bearing Act 8 of 1995 concerning the Capital Market does not provide a clear definition of insider trading. Insider trading is a practice carried out by people in the corporation who in carrying out trading activities make use of information exclusively through insiders. Insider trading is one of the crimes in the capital market which has a very detrimental impact on many parties. The existence of inside information that is not yet available to the public is misused to trade shares on that information. The practice of insider trading is a capital market crime which in terms of proof is very difficult to prove. The practice of insider trading is a violation of the principle of transparency, even though the objective of implementing the principle of openness is to ensure transparency in capital market activities.

E-Marketplace is a place in cyberspace where prospective buyers meet each other to conduct transactions electronically through the internet medium. Like the market in the conventional sense, namely a meeting place for sellers and buyers, in the E-Marketplace, various companies in the world also interact without being limited by the territory of space (geography) and time. Therefore, an analysis of the performance of the website is needed to ensure the performance of the Bireuen emarketplace (meukat.com) website can run effectively in the future. The role of this emarketplace is very important, therefore in building emarketplace we must pay attention to several factors, namely: performance, information, economic, control, efficiency, and service, which is better known as the PIECES method. To analyze the performance of our self-developed emarketplace, was done by PIECES method. While the testing method in the performance analysis of the website uses the GTMetrix and Google Transparency applications. The results of the PIECES questionnaire on the dimensions of Information, Economy, Efficiency, and Service. The average score for the all dimensions is moderate, it is ranging from 42.8% to 51.45% and is in line with the expectations. The GTMetric test results of the Emarketplace website, shows that the average performance grade is 66% or grade D. This means that the quality of the Emarketplace website based on the index generated by Google is still low. It should be improved to provide good quality of service for users in future. The Emarketplace are also being analyzed by the Google transparency report, the result is “no unsafe content” was found, means this website is safe to visit. There are no applications that harm the users.

Using a shock to the Chinese capital market and unique and detailed audit-adjustment data, this paper investigates the effect of a capital-market liberalization program on auditors’ adjustments to their clients’ financial reports. Employing difference-in-differences tests with propensity-score matching and firm fixed effects, we find that the capital-market liberalization induced by the implementation of the Shanghai - Hong Kong Stock Connect affects auditors’ professional judgment and leads to audit-adjustment changes stimulated by greater reputational and litigation risks for auditors. Specifically, while the liberalization significantly decreases the frequency and magnitude of upward audit adjustments, the probability of downward adjustments remains the same in most cases. Further evidence shows that the effect is more pronounced for companies with high trading volume from Hong Kong investors, audited by the largest audit firms, and with low financial transparency.

This study examines a sample of global hedge funds and focuses on analyzing characteristics consistently predictive of being GIPS compliant. Hedge fund data are merged with the CFA Institute’s list of GIPS-compliant firms. The authors find that smaller funds, with less experienced managers and those not denominated in US currency, are more likely to be compliant. They also find that firms with a strong internal control mechanism, defined as having one of the big four accounting firms as an auditor, are more likely to claim compliance. Turning to some core elements of the investor–fund relationship, they find performance fees are lower in firms claiming compliance, but past performance is insignificantly different. Collectively, the results suggest that GIPS compliance is useful to smaller and riskier firms that want to display confidence and transparency in their performance, thus supporting the notion that compliance is an additional certification agent. There is also some evidence to suggest a benefit to the investor in lower fees. Key Findings ▪ The minority number of hedge funds that chose to be compliant prior to the revised GIPS standards of 2020 are typically relatively smaller, have less-experienced managers, and are based in non-US currency. ▪ Compliant firms have smaller performance fees, resulting in a lower overall fee structure, compared to their noncompliant counterparts. ▪ Results are consistent with the notion that funds that chose compliance are those that could benefit from the additional certification it could provide.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the dialogue, access, risk assessment and transparency model of value co-creation processes (dialogue, access, risk and transparency) on new service market performance (NSMP) with the mediating role of value-informed pricing in the context of business-to-business (B2B). Design/methodology/approach The data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 230 managers of the telecommunications industry in Malaysia and analyzed through structural equation modeling using SmartPLS v.3.3.3 software. Findings This study found that dialogue and transparency are predictors of NSMP. The findings indicate that value-informed pricing plays a mediating role in the relationship between dialogue and transparency with NSMP. Practical implications Disclosing pricing related information, providing up to date information to the customers, making clear to the customers about new offerings would certainly influence value-informed pricing. Thus, managers can enhance customer engagement in the interaction processes to better understand customer expectations of new services and how the new services should be priced. Originality/value The link between value co-creation and value-informed pricing has been only conceptualized in literature. This study has opened a new stream of research, examining the relationship of interactional-based value co-creation process with value-informed pricing and NSMP in the context of B2B relationship from providers’ perspective.