Tabloid media campaigns and public opinion: quasi-experimental evidence on Euroscepticism in England

Whether powerful media outlets have effects on public opinion has been at the heart of theoretical and empirical discussions about the media's role in political life. Yet, the effects of media campaigns are difficult to study because citizens self-select into media consumption. Using a quasi-experiment-the 30-year boycott of the most important Eurosceptic tabloid newspaper, The Sun, in Merseyside caused by the Hillsborough soccer disaster-we identify the effects of The Sun boycott on attitudes toward leaving the EU. Difference-in-differences designs using public opinion data spanning three decades, supplemented by referendum results, show that the boycott caused EU attitudes to become more positive in treated areas. This effect is driven by cohorts socialized under the boycott and by working-class voters who stopped reading The Sun. Our findings have implications for our understanding of public opinion, media influence, and ways to counter such influence in contemporary democracies

Loan Growth and Riskiness of Banks

We investigate whether loan growth affects the riskiness of banks in 14 major western countries under "regular conditions". Using Bankscope data from more than 10,000 individual banks during 1997-2005, we test three hypotheses on the relation between past loan growth and loan losses, bank profitability, and bank solvency. Our empirical evidence supports the view that loan growth leads to a peak in loan loss provisions three years later, to a decrease in relative interest income, and to lower capital ratios. Further analyses reveal that loan growth also has a negative impact on risk-adjusted interest income. These results suggest that loan growth represents an important driver of bank risk

Advantages, Challenges and Limitations of Audit Experiments with Constituents

Audit experiments examining the responsiveness of public officials have become an increasingly popular tool used by political scientists. While these studies have brought significant insight into how public officials respond to different types of constituents, particularly those from minority and disadvantaged backgrounds, audit studies have also been controversial due to their frequent use of deception. Scholars have justified the use of deception by arguing that the benefits of audit studies ultimately outweigh the costs of deceptive practices. Do all audit experiments require the use of deception? This article reviews audit study designs differing in their amount of deception. It then discusses the organizational and logistical challenges of a UK study design where all letters were solicited from MPs’ actual constituents (so-called confederates) and reflected those constituents’ genuine opinions. We call on researchers to avoid deception, unless necessary, and engage in ethical design innovation of their audit experiments, on ethics review boards to raise the level of justification of needed studies involving fake identities and misrepresentation, and on journal editors and reviewers to require researchers to justify in detail which forms of deception were unavoidable

Loan growth and riskiness of banks

We investigate whether loan growth affects the riskiness of individual banks in 16 major countries. Using Bankscope data from more than 16,000 individual banks during 1997-2007, we test three hypotheses on the relation between abnormal loan growth and asset risk, bank profitability, and bank solvency. We find that loan growth leads to an increase in loan loss provisions during the subsequent three years, to a decrease in relative interest income, and to lower capital ratios. Further analyses show that loan growth also has a negative impact on the risk-adjusted interest income. These results suggest that loan growth represents an important driver of the riskiness of banks

Water-soluble gold nanoparticles : from catalytic selective nitroarene reduction in water to refractive index sensing

Water-soluble gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) stabilized by a nitrogen-rich PEG-tagged substrate have been prepared by reduction of HAuCl₄ with NaBH₄ in water at room temperature. The morphology and size of the nanoparticles can be controlled by simply varying the gold/stabilizer ratio. The nanoparticles have been fully characterized by TEM, HRTEM, ED, EDS, UV-vis, p-XRD and elemental analysis. The material is efficient as a recyclable catalyst for the selective reduction of nitroarenes with NaBH₄ to yield the corresponding anilines in water at room temperature. Furthermore, the potential ability of the Au NPs as a refractive index sensor due to their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect has also been assessed

Risk, growth, and governance of banks

Deutschland ; Bank ; Risiko ; Corporate Governance ; Kreditgeschäft ; Aktionärsstruktu

Risk, growth, and governance of banks

Deutschland ; Bank ; Risiko ; Corporate Governance ; Kreditgeschäft ; Aktionärsstruktu

Does greater transparency discipline the loan loss provisioning of privately held banks?

Whether transparency helps or hurts the stability of the financial system is an unresolved question. Recent trends have seen a decline in disclosure requirements especially for small and privately held banks. To assess the consequences of such regulations, we investigate the relationship between the transparency of loan loss provision disclosures and the provisioning practices of privately held banks. We study a unique change in disclosure regulation under German banking law which introduces mandatory disclosures of loan loss provisions. Using proprietary data provided by the national supervisor, we are able to observe provisioning practices before and after disclosure becomes mandatory. Our findings suggest that bank managers use loan loss provisions to a lesser extent for income smoothing once they are required to disclose their accounting choice. At the same time, provisions become timelier and loan portfolio quality improves. The change comes in the absence of capital market pressure and highlights the role of depositors and public pressure in the monitoring and disciplining of bank managers. Overall, these findings support the view that bank transparency helps establish financial stability