Opposition to the Mexican-American War: The soldiers, the politicians, Michigan, and the future Republican Party

On May 13, 1846, the United States of America declared war on the United Mexican States. In response to this declaration, the individual states mustered volunteer regiments and deployed the Regular Army to fight for the Stars and Stripes. Though the war was popular, it did have its detractors-political opposition, religious opposition, and the like, all of which will be thoroughly examined. Furthermore, what did the soldiers sent to war think of the fight in Mexico? This paper\u27s driving theses is threefold. First, what did the soldiers think of the war and why? Second why did the politicians that oppose the war do so? Thirdly, who in Michigan opposed the wary, why, and did those same people eventually joint the burgeoning Republican Party, a branch of which formed in the same state less than a decade after the end of the Mexican-American War

Measuring information latency

Many companies have recently digitized a substantial number of their business processes. It is often the case that some companies store their data on a digital medium and that this data is can be captured and stored in real-time or in a batch process. Measuring the time it takes a system to traverse and process information is of the utmost importance to internal and external stakeholders of the organization. However, it is often difficult for companies to identify information flow and process bottlenecks. In this paper we develop an approach for evaluating the level of companies¿ digitization. We formalize and provide an illustrative example for a model that can facilitate the measurement of information flow latency within organizations and discuss the benefits associated with the model. The proposed latency measure is unique in that it facilitates the measurement of information flow and process latency. The measure is a very important in that it can assist management in improving the most critical business processes in their company. Moreover, an assurance service can be developed in order to increase the trust in the digitization level of business partners. Using the proposed latency measurement model a future assurance service can provide supply chain partners the confidence that their business partners can meet delivery and production schedules accurately and on a timely basis.Muchas empresas han digitalizado recientemente un sustancial número de sus procesos de negocios. Es a menudo el caso de que algunas compañías almacenan su información sobre un medio digital y que esta información puede ser obtenida y almacenada en tiempo real o en un proceso en lotes. Midiendo el tiempo que tarda un sistema para cruzar y procesar información es de suma importancia a inversores internos y externos de la organización. Sin embargo, es a menudo difícil para las empresas identificar flujos de información y los obstáculos del proceso. En este trabajo, desarrollamos una estrategia para evaluar el nivel de digitalización de las empresas. Formalizamos y aportamos un ejemplo ilustrativo para un modelo, que pueda facilitar la medida de la latencia del flujo de la información dentro de las organizaciones, y debatimos los beneficios asociados con dicho modelo. La medida de la latencia propuesta es única en la medida en la que facilita las medidas del flujo de información, y la latencia del proceso. La medida es una muy importante, en el hecho de que ayuda a la dirección a mejorar los procesos comerciales más críticos en su compañía. Además, un servicio de garantía puede ser desarrollado para aumentar la confianza en el nivel de digitalización de los socios comerciales. Usando el modelo de medida de latencia sugerido, un futuro servicio de garantía puede aportar a los socios de la cadena de suministro la confianza que sus socios de negocios puedan cumplir exactamente, y a tiempo con los planes de entrega, y producción

CFO role and CFO compensation: an empirical analysis of their implications

Given concerns over CFO pay, especially incentives, and considering the tension between a CFO’s fiduciary responsibility and being a key member of the firm’s executive team, we examine the determinants and effects of CFO compensation amount, incentive intensity, and proximity to CEO compensation in a sample of European companies (FTE 500, 2005-2009). First, we focus on the CFO role as a determinant of CFO compensation. Like prior work, we proxy for CFO roles by using hand-collected public data on education and past professional experience, but we supplement these proxies with proprietary data to more directly capture the firm-specific nature of the CFO job in term of its similarity with that of the CEO. We thus argue how CFOs can have varied roles characterized by different levels of financial expertise and CEO-likeness, and document that it is this latter aspect that is associated with CFO compensation. Second, we study the effects of CFO compensation design on outcomes in the CFO’s realm related to financial reporting. We find that CFO financial expertise is positively associated with financial reporting quality, while a CFO’s pay long-term incentive intensity and a CFO’s incentive compensation proximity with the CEO are negatively associated with financial reporting quality. Overall, then, our results suggest that CFOs get rewarded for their CEO-likeness, and particularly for their being similar to the CEO in terms of tasks and decision making authority. But it is their financial expertise that is positively related to financial reporting quality. At the same time, using compensation that is more incentive intensive and more similar to that of the CEO appears to be potentially detrimental to the quality of financial reporting. These results are relevant for boards involved in selecting highly expert CFOs, and their compensation committees charged with defining subsequently effective incentive compensation plans for those CFOs

Did Corporate Governance Compliance Have an Impact on Auditor Selection and Quality? Evidence From FTSE 350

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This paper examines the possible effects of corporate governance (GC) on audit quality (AQ) among the FTSE 350 companies. Using a sample of 180 companies from 2012 to 2017 (i.e., 1080 firm-year observations) a binary logistic model has been employed to investigate the CG-AQ nexus. This analysis was supported by conducting a probit logistic model as a sensitivity analysis. Our findings are associative of a heterogeneous impact of CG on AQ post the implementation of the 2012 CG reforms in the UK. For example, although institutional ownership and management ownership are positively associated with auditor selection and AQ, board independence, non-executive directors and audit committee are not attributed to AQ in the UK. This implies that corporate compliance with good CG practices has a limited impact on the decision to select a Big4 auditor in the UK. Despite the limitations of our study, we hope it can motivate further investigations in this area

Bringing Darkness to Light: The Influence of Auditor Quality and Audit Committee Expertise on the Timeliness of Financial Statement Restatement Disclosures

This study investigates whether auditor quality and audit committee expertise are associated with improved financial reporting timeliness as measured by the duration of a financial statement restatement’s ‘‘dark period.’’ The restatement dark period represents the length of time between a company’s discovery that it will need to restate financial data and the subsequent disclosure of the restatement’s effect on earnings. For a sample of dark restatements disclosed between 2004 and 2009, we find that companies that engage Big 4 auditors have shorter dark periods than companies that do not engage Big 4 auditors. We also find that companies with more financial experts on the audit committee have shorter dark periods, but only when such financial expertise relates specifically to accounting. Finally, companies with audit committee chairs that have accounting financial expertise provide the most timely disclosures, as the dark periods for these firms are reduced by approximately 38 percent. Our results suggest that both auditor and audit committee expertise are associated with the timely disclosure of restatement details

The Role of Information and Financial Reporting in Corporate Governance and Debt Contracting

We review recent literature on the role of financial reporting transparency in reducing governance-related agency conflicts among managers, directors, and shareholders, as well as in reducing agency conflicts between shareholders and creditors, and offer researchers some suggested avenues for future research. Key themes include the endogenous nature of debt contracts and governance mechanisms with respect to information asymmetry between contracting parties, the heterogeneous nature of the informational demands of contracting parties, and the heterogeneous nature of the resulting governance and debt contracts. We also emphasize the role of a commitment to financial reporting transparency in facilitating informal multiperiod contracts among managers, directors, shareholders, and creditors

Internal Control Quality and Credit Default Swap Spreads

2015-2016 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishedPublisher permissio

Board-CEO friendship ties and firm value: Evidence from US firms

This study examines the impact of board-CEO friendship ties on firm value and explores potential channels through which changes in firm value may be conveyed, based on a sample of 1696 publicly listed firms in U.S. over the period of 2000–2014. The study reveals that board-CEO friendship ties have a negative and economically meaningful impact on firm value, as measured by Tobin's Q and Total Q. Regarding potential channels of firm value, we show that the negative influence of board-CEO friendship ties on firm value is reduced in firms with greater board advising requirements but intensified in firms with higher board monitoring needs. We also find social ties tend to destroy firm value whereas professional ties do not. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns, and after controlling for board-CEO professional ties