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Wer profitiert von den Olympischen Spielen?Oliver HoltemöllerSüddeutsche Zeitung, 24. Juli 2024
This paper investigates the relationship between heterogeneity in sectoral price stickiness and the response of the economy to aggregate real shocks. We show that sectoral heterogeneity reduces inflation persistence for a constant average duration of price spells, and that inflation persistence can fall despite duration increases associated with increases in heterogeneity. We also find that sectoral heterogeneity reduces the persistence and volatility of interest rate and output gap for a constant price spells duration, while the qualitative impact on inflation volatility tends to be positive. A relevant policy implication is that neglecting price stickiness heterogeneity can impair the economic dynamics assessment.
Mutual fund families increasingly hold bonds and stocks from the same firm. We present evidence that dual ownership allows firms to increase valuable investments and refinance by issuing bonds with lower yields and fewer restrictive covenants, especially when firms face financial distress. Dual holders also prevent overinvestment by firms with entrenched managers. Overall, our results suggest that mutual fund families internalize the agency conflicts of their portfolio companies, highlighting the positive governance externalities of intra-family cooperation.
This paper investigates how state ownership affects financial reporting practices in China. Using several measures of state (government) ownership, we show that a one-standard-deviation increase in state ownership decreases financial statement comparability by 36.61%, and the impact is more pronounced when the central authority has majority control of the company. Moreover, lower earnings quality and lower levels of accounting conservatism among state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may explain the lower accounting comparability between SOEs and non-SOEs (NSOEs). Additionally, similar (different) managerial objectives converge (diverge) financial statement comparability between SOEs and NSOEs. Last, the geographical locations of firms also contribute to financial statement comparability. We employ a difference-in-differences design, changes regression and entropy balancing to mitigate potential endogeneity bias.
This paper investigates a firm's stock return asynchronicity through the auditor's perspective to distinguish whether this asynchronicity can proxy for the company's firm-specific information or the quality of its information environment. We find a significant and positive association between asynchronicity and audit fees after controlling for auditor quality and other factors that affect audit fees, suggesting that stock return asynchronicity is more likely to capture a company's firm-specific information than its information environment. We also find that asynchronous firms are more likely to receive adverse opinions on their internal controls over financial reporting, but are associated with lower costs of capital and auditor litigation, providing further evidence in support of the firm-specific information argument. Asynchronicity's positive association with audit fees is driven by firms with higher accounting reporting complexity, suggesting stock return asynchronicity captures a firm's complexity, resulting in more significant efforts by the auditor.
Standard labor market models assume that workers hold accurate beliefs about the external wage distribution, and hence their outside options with other employers. We test this assumption by comparing German workers’ beliefs about outside options with objective benchmarks. First, we find that workers wrongly anchor their beliefs about outside options on their current wage: workers that would experience a 10% wage change if switching to their outside option only expect a 1% change. Second, workers in low-paying firms underestimate wages elsewhere. Third, in response to information about the wages of similar workers, respondents correct their beliefs about their outside options and change their job search and wage negotiation intentions. Finally, we analyze the consequences of anchoring in a simple equilibrium model. In the model, anchored beliefs keep overly pessimistic workers stuck in low-wage jobs, which gives rise to monopsony power and labor market segmentation.
In ihrem aktuellen Finanzstabilitätsbericht erklärt die EZB, dass sich die Stabilität im Finanzsystem verbessert habe. Auch die Stellungnahme des Europäischen Ausschusses für Systemrisiken (ESRB) hat die Widerstandsfähigkeit des Bankensystems anerkannt. Die Turbulenzen um die Silicon Valley Bank und die Credit Suisse hatten im vergangenen Sommer noch Bedenken geschürt. Aktuell bleiben erhöhte Risiken – u. a. durch die geopolitische Unsicherheit oder die Entwicklungen auf den Immobilienmärkten. Auf institutioneller Ebene fehlen zudem wichtige Schritte zu einer Bankenunion und einer Stärkung eines europäischen Kapitalmarkts. Wie steht es um die Stabilität und Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des europäischen Bankensektors? Reichen die bisherigen Instrumente zum Abfedern möglicher Risiken aus? Haben die Entwicklungen auf dem Markt der US-Gewerbeimmobilien und die Insolvenz der Signa-Gruppe Auswirkungen auf deutsche und europäische Banken? Wirken sich Klimarisiken auf die Stabilität aus? Und wie stark trägt die Governance der Banken zu ihrer Solidität bei?