The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 414 pages, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.I LOVE THESE GUYS''(Joseph Stiglitz) is an insanely great economist,'' so writes Paul R. Krugman, who should know. These two like to write books for the populace at large on the topic of macroeconomics. Krugman also likes to spout offon Sunday news shows like ''Meet the Press,'' and on all the cable news programs. You can see Krugman arguing with Bill O'Reilly on Meet the Press. From YouTube: ''Don't call me a liar, pal, that's what you do all the time,'' says O'Reilly; ''This is not your show, so you can't cut offmy mic,'' says Krugman. Judging by their expressions, I was glad Tim Russert (6- 3-) was there in the studio at the time to protect Krugman (5- 7-) (O'Reilly stands 6- 4-). Conservative pundits dislike both economists, but pretty much leave Stiglitz alone.Krugman makes it a point to stay out of government affairs. Stiglitz does just the opposite, and he sometimes gets burned. Stiglitz was part of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and was Chief Economist for the World Bank. After much criticism of the way the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducted lending to developing countries, he was pretty much fired from the World Bank. Comparing the two, you would have to say that Stiglitz is more the bleeding heart, while Krugman says that what he dislikes most is the dishonesty he sees in political-economic discourse. Both are champions of the common man.Since Stiglitz can make the very valid claim for being ''an insanely great economist,'' most everything he says in his books should be taken seriously. There are some real gems in this book. I especially like the perspective he lends to some of the more peculiar things that happened before, during, and after the financial crisis. People hear about these things in the news from some announcer who makes them sound like just more news-bites, but they are, after all, unprecedented (and largely absurd). Take ''robo-signing'' for instance (page 198).WHAT GOES FOR NEWSRobo-signing was part of what happened during the foreclosure process after the massive numbers of defaults of subprime mortgages. Big banks intentionally did not follow mandated law. Apart from ignoring debtors' rights, an ensuing mess followed. Robo-signing was nothing less than a blatant attempt at rewriting property law, and resulted in lying to the courts about the state of each property's title, literally hundreds of times. No bank officer was charged with a crime. By contrast, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s led to 829 individual convictions and 650 prison sentences. Nowadays the big banks just pay fines as part of settlements where they admit no guilt, and it's just part of doing business.Take algorithmic or ''flash'' trading in the stock exchanges (page 164). These are buys and sales made in nanoseconds on the basis of extracting information from the patterns of prices and trades. Nothing like real information gathered through market research on an industry, or on a firm in a certain industry, backs up these trades. But traders swear that ''price discovery'' is happening this way, and that all this backs up the efficient markets model. So on May 6, 2010 stock prices plummeted to a point where the Dow Jones temporarily lost 10% of its value. There are reasons to believe that these trades ''make markets not just more volatile but also less 'informative' '' (page 166). Still, the talk on the street is all about efficient markets (echoing Alan Greenspan's failures at the Federal Reserve).Take failed privatizations. When electric power in California was liberalized and Enron manipulated prices and public power to its advantage, this was a story about the company's accounting practices, not about privatizing something that had no business being privatized. …

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/GAP/Secciones/SalaPrensa/Agenda/Eventos/12/Ago/08.schaeck-berger-kick-dayahead.pdf

Executive board composition and bank risk taking

Corporate Governance, Board Diversity, and Firm Value

Market Microstructure and Asset Pricing: On the Compensation for Illiquidity in Stock Returns

Islamic versus conventional banks in the GCC countries: A comparative study using classification techniques

This study analyzes how the board’s characteristics could be associated with globally corporate social responsibility CSR and specific areas of CSR. It is drawn on all listed firms, in 2016, on the SBF120 between 2003 and 2016. Our results provide strong evidence that diversity in boards and diversity of boards globally are positively associated with corporate social performance. However, they influence differently specific dimensions of CSR performance. First, we show that large boards are positively associated with all areas of CSR performance, while specific and overall CSR scores are negatively associated with CEO-chair structures. Second, board gender diversity is positively associated with human rights and corporate governance dimensions. Third, age diversity is positively associated with corporate governance, human resources, human rights, and environmental activities. Also, our results provide evidence that outside directors care about CSR performance. Specifically, the presence of foreign directors is positively associated with environmental performance and community involvement, whereas CSR-Governance dimension is positively associated with the presence of independent directors. Regarding the director’s educational level, post-graduated directors are positively and significantly associated with overall CSR score and all CSR sub-scores, except the corporate governance one. When directors have multiple directorships, they are more concerned about human resources, environmental performance, and business ethics. Finally, our findings are robust only in non-family firms. In fact, family boards are less diverse than non-family ones; specifically, they have a lower number of independent, foreign, and high-educated directors.

Board Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility: Empirical Evidence from France

We study the impact of board gender diversity on firm risk-taking in a developing market. Our study is drawn from a sample of 30 Tunisian-listed firms between 1997 and 2010. First, we found that women have a risk perception that leads to risk avoidance behaviour: the presence of women directors, even when there is one woman director, is positively associated with cash ratio. Second, we showed no significant relationship between board gender diversity and the propensity to take strategic or financial risk-taking. Third, the presence of state officer/bureaucrats and/or politically connected women have a positive effect on cash holding and investment opportunities. Finally, we found that foreign investors do not invest in firms with gender-diverse boards. We conclude with a discussion of contributions to scholarship and practice, and present avenues for future research. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Resume

Nous etudions l'impact de la diversite de genre au sein du conseil d'administration sur la prise de risque des firmes dans les marches en voie de developpement. Notre etude se base sur un echantillon de 30 firmes tunisiennes cotees entre 1997 et 2010. D'abord, nous avons constate que les femmes ont une perception de risque qui se traduit par un contournement des risques : la presence de femmes membres du conseil d'administration, une ou plus, est positivement associee au ratio de liquidite. Deuxiemement, nous n'avons montre aucune relation significative entre la diversite de genre et la propension de prendre des risques strategiques ou financiers. Troisiemement, la presence des femmes employees de l'Etat/bureaucrates et/ou des femmes politiquement connectees a un effet positif sur la liquidite des actifs et les opportunites d'investissement. Finalement, nous avons constate que des investisseurs etrangers n'investissent pas dans des firmes avec des conseils caracterises par la diversite de genre. Nous concluons avec une discussion de contributions a la litterature et la pratique et presentons des avenues pour la recherche future. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Does gender diversity on corporate boards increase risk-taking?

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to examine the gender diversity on boards and its effect on stock market liquidity in French boardrooms.




Design/methodology/approach




Using a sample of French firms between 2002 and 2012 listed on the Paris Stock Exchange (SBF120), the study uses ordinary least squares and three-stage least squares (3SLS) regressions to address endogeneity concerns on the board gender diversity.




Findings




The results show that stock market liquidity is positively and significantly associated with the presence of women directors. The authors find that investors’ decisions vary according to their positions in the board: women independent members decrease illiquidity costs, while the presence of female inside directors increases daily trading volume. In addition, the presence of female inside directors increases the firm’s ability to implement better strategies that cope with economic, social and environmental constraints which leads investors to positively react. Surprisingly, the presence of female independent directors reduces company involvement in sustainable development projects.




Practical implications




The empirical findings contribute to the current debate on the benefits of gender diversity on corporate boards and the effectiveness of gender-quota laws. It shows that appointing insider female’ directors incite investors to trade more stocks while appointing independents ones reduces their trading costs.




Social implications




This paper shows that the benefits of female directors appointing depend on their independence of management team.




Originality/value




This study addresses the endogeneity between stock market liquidity, corporate governance and gender diversity. It is the first study to distinguish between the effects of women inside and independent directors on investors’ trading decisions.

Does gender diversity on boards influence stock market liquidity? Empirical evidence from the French market

It is well documented in economic, psychological and social literatures and the few recent studies in finance that women are more risk averse than men. The current study investigates the influence of board gender-diversity in firm risk taking in a developing market.Using a sample of Tunisian firms during 1997-2010, findings show that more women sitting on the board more is the cash held by the firm. However, we detect no significant relationship between gender-diversity and risk-taking variables when it comes to analyze financing and investing policies’ firms, except cash-holding. When we take into account women directors’ affiliation, we show that the presence of politically connected women and State officers’ women on board increases the cash holding and investment opportunities.

https://documents.bsb-education.com/pdf/cig2014/ACTESDUCOLLOQUE/YOUSFI_LOUKIL.pdf

Does Gender Diversity on Board Lead to Risk-Taking? Empirical Evidence from Tunisia

Discussion of Islamic private equity (PE) financing modes rarely provides detailed analytical insights into their properties: there is no rigorous analysis of their features. The current paper analyzes how and when Profit Loss Sharing (PLS) financing methods can solve asymmetric information problems. I focus on Mudarabah and Musharakah financing schemes and consider agency models under moral hazard. The model shows some interesting results. First, I show that Mudarabah financing provide powerful incentive schemes to the entrepreneur. As the Islamic PE fund is not actively involved in the project and the project success depends on the entrepreneur's effort, it leads to the first best solution. Second, my results provide evidence that Musharakah financing cannot solve moral hazard problem. One explanation could be the fact that the project is jointly funded by the two parties and that both of them provide non-contractible efforts which diminish their incentives.

/pdf/does-pls-solve-moral-hazard-problems-4aqodrlkku.pdf

Ouidad Yousfi

Papers

Board Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility: Empirical Evidence from France

Does gender diversity on corporate boards increase risk-taking?

Does gender diversity on boards influence stock market liquidity? Empirical evidence from the French market

Does Gender Diversity on Board Lead to Risk-Taking? Empirical Evidence from Tunisia

Does PLS Solve Moral Hazard Problems