Environmental regulation and U.S. states' technical inefficiency

Using data on 48 states from 1982-1994, we estimate the impact of environmental regulation on technical inefficiency of U.S. states' manufacturing sector. The result indicates that environmental stringency has significant and positive impacts on U.S. states' technical inefficiency.

The determinants of cross-border equity flows: a dynamic panel data reassessment

Portes and Rey (2005) use a static gravity model to analyse bilateral gross cross-border equity flows. Applying a dynamic gravity model reveals three additional insights. First, distance continues to exert a significant, negative effect on international asset transactions. Second, although the short-run effects of distance are generally of smaller magnitude than documented in PR, the implicit long-run effects remain quite large. Third, lagged asset flows play an important role, even after conditioning on the usual gravity model covariates.

Staggered Boards, Managerial Entrenchment, and Dividend Policy

Dividends, Classified boards, Staggered boards, Corporate governance, G30, G32, G35,

Subnational Trade Flows and State-Level Energy Intensity

Abstract In one strand of research, analysts examine trends in and the determinants of energy usage and intensity

Subnational Trade Flows and State-Level Energy Intensity

In one strand of research, analysts examine trends in and the determinants of energy usage and intensity. In a second strand, researchers analyze the impact of trade flows on environmental outcomes. Recently, Cole (2006) bridges this gap, analyzing the impact of trade intensity on energy usage utilizing panel data at the country level. Here, we analyze the impact of subnational trade flows across U.S. states on state-level energy usage and intensity, controlling for the endogeneity of trade flows. Our findings indicate that an expansion of subnational trade at worst has no impact on state-level energy usage, and may actually reduce energy usage (contrary to Cole's country-level findings), although the impacts are not uniform across sectors.Bilateral Trade, Energy Intensity, Pollution Haven Hypothesis

Does Delaware Incorporation Affect Executive Compensation? An Empirical Analysis

Motivated by agency theory, this study attempts to ascertain whether chief executive compensation is influenced by legal rules. In particular, we analyze whether Delaware law has an impact on CEO pay. Legal rules have been argued to impact agency conflicts. Agency costs, in turn, affect CEO compensation. Thus, we contend that Delaware law influences CEO pay through their associations with agency problems. The empirical evidence corroborates this hypothesis, showing that Delaware firms pay their CEOs significantly more generously than do non-Delaware firms (about 36% higher in total compensation). Furthermore, Delaware firms exhibit significantly lower pay-performance sensitivity (almost 50% lower), implying that the higher pay more likely reflects rent expropriation rather than shareholder wealth maximization

Estimating the effect of corporate integrity culture on tax avoidance using a text-based approach: A research note.

Tax avoidance holds immense importance due to its substantial implications for government revenues and the fair allocation of resources. Consequently, understanding the factors that shape tax avoidance is critically important. Exploiting a cutting-edge measure of corporate integrity derived from state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and textual analysis, we explore the effect of corporate integrity on tax avoidance. Our text-based measure is based on a textual analysis of earnings conference call transcripts. Our findings show that companies with greater corporate integrity are significantly less involved in tax avoidance. Further analysis corroborates the results, i.e., propensity score matching, entropy balancing, and an instrumental variable analysis. Our findings are especially noteworthy as they demonstrate that corporate culture, although intangible in nature, exerts a substantial influence on corporate behavior