Financial Ties Research Articles

Problemy indemnizacyjne w stosunkach polsko-belgijskich po II wojnie światowej

The article deals with the question of compensation for Belgian properties, rights, and interests affected by Polish nationalisation regulations. It is based on source materials previously unused by researchers and stored in Polish and Belgian archives. The article focuses primarily on explaining the role of the indemnification dispute in the Polish-Belgian relations after World War II, especially in financial ties.

Conflicts of interest: an invisible force shaping health systems and policies

Conflicts of interest: an invisible force shaping health systems and policies

Managerial ties and access to finance in weak institutional contexts: Does CEO duality matter?

ABSTRACT Though managerial ties are substitutes for the weak market-supporting institutions in developing and emerging countries, little is known about the contingent value of these ties in credit markets. In this study, we disintegrate managerial ties into political and financial ties, and examine their effect on access to finance. Using agency theory, we propose that political and financial ties reduce information asymmetry between firms, politicians and banks, culminating in increased access to bank loans for firms. We also propose that CEO duality, through its influence on corporate governance and information consolidation, strengthens (weakens) the effect of financial (political) ties on access to finance. Using survey data from Ghana, we found support for our propositions. Overall, this study shows that the value of managerial ties is contingent on CEO duality. It also suggests that CEO duality is a double-edged sword with corporate governance and information implications for credit access in developing economies.

Hall of Mirrors: Corporate Philanthropy and Strategic Advocacy

AbstractInformation is central to designing effective policy, and policy makers often rely on competing interests to separate useful from biased information. We show how this logic of virtuous competition can break down, using a new and comprehensive data set on U.S. federal regulatory rulemaking for 2003–2016. For-profit corporations and nonprofit entities are active in the rulemaking process and are arguably expected to provide independent viewpoints. Policy makers, however, may not be fully aware of the financial ties between some firms and nonprofits—grants that are legal and tax-exempt but hard to trace. We document three patterns that suggest that these grants may distort policy. First, we show that shortly after a firm donates to a nonprofit, the nonprofit is more likely to comment on rules on which the firm has also commented. Second, when a firm comments on a rule, the comments by nonprofits that recently received grants from the firm’s foundation are systematically closer in content to the firm’s own comments, relative to comments submitted by other nonprofits. Third, the final rule’s discussion by a regulator is more similar to the firm’s comments on that rule when the firm’s recent grantees also commented on it.

Does bank affiliation affect firm capital structure? Evidence from a financial crisis

PurposeThis study aims to assess the determinants of corporate debt with a particular focus on bank-affiliated and non-bank-affiliated firms during the global financial crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyse the data of 395 listed manufacturing firms from Pakistan with 2,370 firm-year observations. The sample is divided into subsamples, namely bank-affiliated, non-bank-affiliated and stand-alone firms. Fixed and panel effect regression models are applied to determine the during, pre-crisis and post-crisis effects on corporate capital structure.FindingsThe robust results of the study reveal that non-bank-affiliated firms have different leverage determinant behaviours with a greater reliance on size, tangibility and profitability. However, bank-affiliated firms seemed to show greater immunity from a crisis compared to other firms. Simultaneously, the stand-alone firms remained at a disadvantage subject to internal financial ties of group-affiliated firms and form a base of market imperfection.Practical implicationsThis study's findings imply that financial managers should contain better ties with financial institutions to enhance financial immunity in worse time of financial crisis or COVID-19 global calamity. On the regulation front, these findings call for critical policy regulations to govern the internal ties with financial institutions to create a level playing field for the corporate sector.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate determinants of corporate debt with a particular focus on bank-affiliated and non-bank-affiliated firms. This work is also novel to explore corporate debt of bank-affiliated and non-bank-affiliated firms during the financial crisis.

Розвиток стивідорних підприємств як один із засобів покращення стану економіки регіону

The article considers the world trends of the maritime transport complex, analyzes the current state and directions of development of stevedoring companies in Ukraine, aimed at strengthening the competitive advantages of service providers, identifies the specifics and current issues of assessing their activities. The issue of building port-industrial clusters with modern transport logistics is relevant today, as the development of trade and financial ties in the country and abroad forces countries to actively increase capacity and be constantly open to communications and trade offers. The paper identifies the main features of port financing, explores the prospects for the development of seaports and proposes a roadmap for the effective development of port infrastructure. A stevedoring company management structure is also proposed.

Financial and trade relationships between the Eurozone and China in the age of resilience

How did the financial and trade ties between China and the Eurozone develop in the aftermath of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis? We analyze these trends until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we examine the financial and trade dynamics between the two currency areas and analyze the related risks and opportunities. The data point to several patterns. We find that financial volatility in China has been substantially greater than in the Eurozone. Even so, the largest and strongest Eurozone economies—France and Germany—have largely kept their investments in Chinese assets after a four- to sixfold expansion that started in the mid-2000s. In contrast, the financially weakest countries have accounted for the largest increases in trade volumes between China and the Eurozone. We also find that trade volumes are correlated with holdings of Chinese financial assets but assets rose at a substantially smaller rate than trade. These results show that China and the Eurozone continue to be asymmetrically integrated, whereby Eurozone countries still invest more timidly in Chinese financial assets compared to the aggressive trade and infrastructure partnerships initiated by China. We discuss the implications for future financial and trade integration between the two currency areas, which is bound to deepen in light of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.

Association Between Conflicts of Interest and Authors\u2019 Positions on Harms of Varenicline: a Cross-Sectional Analysis

BackgroundFew studies have investigated the relationship between industry funding/conflicts of interest and authors’ positions in opinion pieces on drug safety. Harmful effects of varenicline, a treatment for smoking cessation, have been highly contested.ObjectiveTo examine the association between pharmaceutical industry funding/authors’ financial conflicts of interest and position on varenicline in opinion articles, especially in relation to the minimization of harms; to assess whether opinion pieces on drug safety issues written by authors with conflicts of interest are more frequently cited in the news or social media.DesignCross-sectional analysis.ParticipantsEnglish language opinion pieces and narrative reviews about varenicline published between May 2006 and February 2019.Main MeasuresOdds ratios and 95% confidence intervals; the Mann-Whitney two-sample statistic was used to test for differences in Altmetric scores, a measure of media attention.Key ResultsOf the 221 included articles, 30.3% (67) disclosed the funding source and 62.9% (139) disclosed authors’ conflicts of interest. Authors of opinion pieces on varenicline who reported financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry (as a conflict of interest or funding source) were more likely to minimise the cardiovascular and psychiatric risk of varenicline compared to those without conflicts of interest or industry funding (OR: 4.00; 95% CI: 1.32 to 12.16 for cardiovascular risk; OR: 8.51; 95% CI: 3.79 to 19.11 for psychiatric risk). These associations persisted in sensitivity analyses. No statistically significant difference in Altmetric score was found between articles with (mean 15.83, median 3) and without (mean 11.90, median 1) conflicts of interest, indicating similar media attention (p-value=0.11).ConclusionsWe found that authors with financial ties to drug companies were more likely to publish opinion pieces that minimised harms of varenicline. These results raise questions about journals’ editorial policies to accept reviews of treatments from authors with financial relationships with manufacturers.

The Governance Role of Auditors: Evidence from Derivative Lawsuits

This paper examines whether external auditors play a unique governance role distinct from other mechanisms of corporate governance. We exploit the staggered adoptions of the Universal Demand (UD) laws by U.S states, which have been shown to result in the decline of various corporate governance mechanisms. We examine whether auditors step up their monitoring when outside shareholders place a greater demand on external monitoring, yet other governance mechanisms decline. We find that external auditors are more likely to issue going-concern opinions to financially distressed firms after their incorporation states have adopted the UD laws. Further, the increased propensity to issue going-concern opinions is driven by auditors’ reputation and litigation concerns. The effect is stronger when alternative governance mechanisms are weak, and it is not attenuated by auditors’ financial ties to clients. We also find evidence of greater auditor monitoring after the passage of UD laws using two alternative outcomes, i.e., the reporting of internal control weakness and the length of audit reporting lag. Overall, our findings suggest the unique monitoring role of external auditors as they step up their oversight of the audited firms in the lapse of other monitors.

Personal Payments from Pharmaceutical Companies to Authors of Oncology Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Oncologists who author clinical practice guidelines frequently have financial relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. It is unknown whether participation on clinical practice guideline committees is associated with differences in the amounts of industry money received. We conducted a nested case-control study from August 2013 to December 2018. We manually abstracted membership records of National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines committees for the 20 most common cancers and linked to Open Payments. The study sample included medical oncologists selected to join an NCCN Guidelines committee ("joiners") during the study period. Joiners were matched 1:2 to medical oncologists who had no participation on NCCN committees (controls) by gender, NCCN institution, and medical school graduation year. We performed difference-in-differences (DiD) estimation to assess whether selection to an NCCN committee was associated with the dollar value of payments received from industry, using generalized estimating equations to address correlation between matched pairs and between repeated observations of the same pair. During the study period, 54 physicians joined an NCCN Guidelines committee. These physicians received more payments than matched controls in the year prior to joining ($11,259 vs. $3,427; p=.02); this difference did not increase in the year after joining (DiD=$731; p=.45). Medical oncologists selected to NCCN Guidelines committees had greater financial ties to industry than their peers. The potential influence of industry in oncology clinical practice guidelines may be reduced through the selection of committee members with fewer ties to industry. Oncologists who author clinical practice guidelines frequently have financial conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry. This creates concern about the potential for industry influence on guidelines. However, it is unknown whether oncologists who author guidelines have greater industry relationships than their peers. This study compared medical oncologists who were newly selected to join a National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines panel with medical oncologists at the same institutions and at similar career stages. At the time they joined, oncologists joining NCCN Guidelines panels had received more than three times the dollar value of industry payments than their peers. The potential for industry influence may be reduced by the selection of less-conflicted panel members.

The leading financial centers of the Russian Empire at the end of the nineteenth century according to interregional bank transfers statistics: network and geoinformation aspects

The article examines the financial system of the Russian Empire in the form of money flows between the largest centers, implying that these flows were opposite to the flows of goods and services. The resource allocation pattern is thus revealed in aspects of the markets’ geography and hierarchy, which clarifies the capacity of the financial system to support economic growth. The source for this study is the statistics of the commercial transfers of the State Bank of the Russian Empire for 1898 (excluding treasury transfers), processed through network and geoinformation analysis. The study results show that the highest level of the payment network in the financial system topology of the Russian Empire was located around St. Petersburg and Moscow, which indicates a strong centralization of national money flows. To a great degree, Moscow was a nationwide wholesale center for the sale of goods and services, while St. Petersburg developed into the principal center for resource allocation throughout the country, implying various forms of investment in the economy. In such a centralized system, there was no great need for second-level interregional ties. For regional payment networks (the third level, around Odessa, Warsaw, Kiev, Riga, Baku, Nizhniy Novgorod, Kharkov, and Rostov-on-Don), closer and more intensive financial ties are revealed in the west, in the Odessa-Kiev-Warsaw “triangle”, which indicates a greater saturation of the western and southwestern regions with financial resources.

Legal mechanism to ensure national security in the field of use of natural resources

The legal basis for the national security of Ukraine is the Constitution of Ukraine, according to which laws, doctrines, concepts, strategies, and programs are developed, which determine the targets and guidelines for the national security policy of the Ukrainian state in order to timely identify, prevent, and neutralize real and potential threats to the national interests of Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the countries with a deficit of its own natural hydrocarbon resources. Lack of necessary reserves, dependence on energy imports pose a threat to the country's energy security. The transformation of the oil and gas sector of Ukraine and the creation of an effective organizational model should provide sufficient control over the areas of activity to ensure effective resource consumption in the oil and gas sector of the economy, grouped into appropriate blocks. Blocks should include directions of action to achieve the effect and further development of the industry, as well as to ensure effective control. Conclusions on the development of the oil and gas sector in Ukraine are made, ways to improve using the SWOT analysis technique are suggested. That is, the author has analyzed the oil and gas sector from the point of view of existing and potential opportunities, threats, advantages, and disadvantages. At the same time, the requirements of the Third Energy Package for the separation of the transport function from the gas production and supply business are provided, and it is also taken into account that the operator is removed from the structure of a vertically integrated company and is not associated with it by legal, financial, and managerial ties. The success of modernization should become an important driver of reform of the entire state oil and gas sector of the Ukrainian economy and have a long-term impact on the entire society, the lives of citizens, and business.

CEO-CFO SOCIAL TIES, KOMPETENSI AUDITOR INTERNAL, DAN MANAJEMEN LABA

Social ties can be a synergy to increase or decrease a distortion. Jiwasraya phenomenon in Indonesia is one example of the social ties between Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer being abused to conspire and beautify financial reports by earnings management. Internal auditor have a role to ensure that all company operations do not deviate from existing standards and regulations. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Chief Exeutive Officer-Chief Financial Officer social ties on earnings management and to interact that effect with internal auditors competency, which is the difference between this study and previous research. The research samples are non-financial state-owned companies listed on the IDX for the 2015-2019 period with a total of 79 companies. The research method uses Moderated Regression Analysis. The results show that Chief Exeutive Officer-Chief Financial Officer social ties has a negative effect on earnings management and internal auditor’s competency doesnt not moderate that effect. The conclusion of this study is the social ties that exist between the board directors, especially CEO and CFO can increase synergy and cooperation in the way to minimize opportunistic behavior. Future research can consider another proxy for social ties especially personal ties and also internal audit function.

Incidence and Risk Factors for New Onset Diabetes Mellitus Following Surgical Resection of Pancreatic Cystic Lesions

Background: Compared with patients who undergo pancreatic surgery for chronic pancreatitis and malignancy, patients with pancreatic cystic lesions (PCLs) generally have normal adjacent pancreatic parenchyma. There is a paucity of literature evaluating new-onset diabetes mellitus (NODM) following PCL resection. We sought to characterize the incidence and risk factors associated with NODM following partial pancreatectomy for PCLs. Methods: We utilized the IBM MarketScan Database (2012-2018) to identify all non-diabetic adult patients who underwent elective partial pancreatectomy for PCLs. Rigorous stepwise exclusion criteria were applied to identify patients without other pancreatic disease. We performed time-to-event analyses using Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression to define the incidence and risk factors associated with postoperative NODM. Findings: Among 311 patients with PCLs who underwent partial pancreatectomy, the overall risk of NODM was 9.1% (95% CI 6.3-12.9%), 15.1% (95% CI 11.3-20.2%), and 20.2% (95% CI 15.3-26.4%) at six, 12 and 24 months, respectively. Multivariable analysis revealed that older age (55-64 years, adjusted Hazard Ratio (aHR) 1.97, 95% CI 1.04-3.72 vs. 18-54 years), obesity (aHR 2.63, 95% CI 1.35-5.12), hypertension (aHR 1.79, 95% CI 1.01-3.17), and cardiovascular disease (aHR 2.54, 95% CI 1.02-6.28) were independent predictors of postoperative NODM. Rates of NODM were similar following distal pancreatectomy versus pancreaticoduodenectomy. Interpretation: Within two years, approximately one in five patients will develop NODM following partial pancreatectomy for PCLs. Those with advanced age, metabolic syndrome features, and/or cardiovascular disease may benefit from preoperative counselling for risk-reduction and intensive postoperative monitoring, education, and treatment strategies for DM. Funding: National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, award number UL1TR002733. Declaration of Interests: None of the authors have any conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose related to the current study. Ethics Approval Statement: This database is a publicly available population-based dataset. As such, the study was exempt from approval by the Ohio State University Institutional Review Board.

A Prediction Model for High Risk of Positive RT-PCR Tests in Discharged Patients with COVID-19 Based on Random Forest Model

Several recent studies have reported that a few patients had positive SARS-CoV-2 RNA tests after hospital discharge. The high-risk factors associated with these patients remain to be identified. A total of 463 patients with COVID-19 discharged from Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China, between February 8 and March 8, 2020 were initially enrolled, and 351 patients with at least two weeks of follow-up were finally included. Seventeen of the 351 discharged patients had positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Based on clinical characteristics and mathematical modeling, patients with shorter hospital stays and less oxygen desaturation were at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 RNA reoccurrence after discharge. Notably, traditional Chinese medicine treatment offered extensive benefits to reduce risk. Particular attention should be paid to those patients with high risk, and traditional Chinese medicine should be advocated.Funding Statement: The study was supported by National Key Research and Development Plan of China (2020YFC0845500).Declaration of Interests: All authors have no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose.Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University (No. 2020074). The informed consent of the patients was waived for this infectious disease by the ethics committee.

Age Set vs. Kin: Culture and Financial Ties in East Africa

We study how social organization shapes patterns of economic interaction and the distributional consequences of public policy, focusing on the distinction between age-based and kin-based social structure in sub-Saharan Africa. In age-based ethnicities, known as ``age set societies,'' individuals are organized into social groups based on age cohort that take priority over kinship ties. Motivated by ethnographic accounts that suggest that these differences are important for financial transfers, we analyze an unconditional cash transfer program in Kenya and document that in age set societies there are large consumption spillovers within the age cohort, but not the extended family, while in kin-based societies we find the opposite pattern. Next, we document that local variation in social structure shapes the impact of national policy. Exploiting the staggered roll-out of Uganda's social pension program, we find that household exposure to the program has large, positive effects on child nutrition and educational investment in kin-based societies, but no impact on children in age set societies, where intergenerational ties are weak.

SPAC Governance: In Need of Judicial Review

This paper analyzes the relationship between the economic structure of a SPAC, its corporate governance, and judicial review of SPAC mergers (or deSPACs). The core challenge for SPAC governance is to address the inherently conflicting interest of a sponsor and public shareholders. SPACs respond to this conflict by holding proceeds of their IPOs in trust and by granting public shareholders a right to redeem their shares for a pro-rata portion of that trust. For the redemption right to be effective, however, a SPAC's board must provide shareholders with accurate and complete information regarding the merger. Doing so may conflict with the interests of the SPAC’s sponsor, which will profit substantially even in a deal that is bad for SPAC investors. The independence of a SPAC's board is thus necessary for a SPAC to be governed in the interest of shareholders. Unfortunately, SPAC directors often have financial ties to a sponsor and are compensated in ways that align their interests with those of the sponsor. Where this is true, and where SPAC shareholders file suits alleging a breach of the duties of loyalty and candor, a court should affirm that the board has a duty to provide shareholders with the information they need to exercise their redemption right, and review the conduct of the sponsor and the board under an entire fairness standard.

Abstract 14058: Sex-based Differences in Reported Payments to Cardiologists by Drug and Device Manufacturers

Introduction: Sex-based disparities in salaries and promotion in cardiovascular medicine are well known, but there is little data on industry compensation by sex. We attempted to explore sex differences in financial ties to industry in the form of drug and device manufacturer payments to cardiologists. Methods: 2018 Open Payments data was obtained from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). A cross walk was used to link CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System National Provider Identifier Data with open payments data. Physician specialty (adult cardiology), sex, state of practice, number and amount of payments, drug and device information were obtained and aggregated for analysis using natural language processing. Results: In 2018, total of 879,119 payments were made to 29246 physicians (10.2% female), totaling $145,556,106. Nationwide, female cardiologists had lower rates of payments (15.5 payments per year vs 25.9 payments), lower average compensation per payment ($113 vs $169) when compared to their male counterparts. Analysis of five drugs/devices with the largest aggregated payments revealed that the female representation in certain categories (consulting, compensation for serving as speaker-non continuing education, and travel and lodging) was far lower than expected (3.8%, 5.4%, and 4.2% respectively). Conclusions: Female cardiologists received fewer payments and lower compensation per payment from drug and device manufacturers as compared to their male counterparts. Further studies are required to determine reasons behind differences in compensation and efforts be made to standardize compensation regardless of sex to promote equal opportunities for all physicians.

Deep Convolutional Neural Network-Based Lymph Node Metastasis Prediction for Colon Cancer Using Histopathological Images

Background: Human evaluation of pathological slides cannot accurately predict lymph node metastasis (LNM), which is urgently needed to determine treatment and follow-up strategies for colon cancer. We aimed to develop an accurate histopathological feature for LNM in colon cancer. Methods: We developed a deep convolutional neural network model to distinguish the cancer tissue component of colon cancer using data from the tissue bank of the National Center for Tumor Diseases and the pathology archive at the University Medical Center Mannheim in German. This model was applied to whole-slide pathological images of colon cancer patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The predictive value of the peri-tumoral stroma (PTS) score for LNM was assessed. Findings: A total of 164 patients with stage I, II, and III colon cancer from TCGA were analyzed. The mean PTS score was 0.380 (±SD = 0.285), and significantly higher PTS scores were observed in patients in the LNM-positive group than those in the LNM-negative group (P < 0.001). In the univariate analyses, the PTS scores for the LNM-positive group were significantly higher than the scores for LNM-negative group (P < 0.001). Further, the PTS scores in lymphatic invasion and any one of perineural, lymphatic, or venous invasion were significantly increased in the LNM-positive group (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001). Interpretation: We established the PTS score, a simplified reproducible parameter, for predicting LNM in colon cancer using computer-based analysis that could be used to guide treatment decisions. These findings warrant further confirmation through large prospective clinical trials. Funding Statement: This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program of National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), which is funded by the Korean Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (grant number: NRF-2019R1C1C1003524). Declaration of Interests: None of the authors have any conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong (KHNMC IRB 2020-09-025). The need for informed consent was waived because all data used in this study were de-identified.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Cirrhotics with Hepatocellular Carcinoma During Follow-Up: Direct Consequences or Collateral Damages?

Background & Aims: COVID-19 posed a major worldwide threat to population health as well as to patients with comorbidities, but its impact on patients with cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma is currently poorly understood. This study aimed at evaluating the effects of COVID-19 outbreak both on the clinical outcome of these patients and on their follow-up. Methods: We conducted a phone survey off all patients living in Lombardy (the region with the highest incidence of Covid-19 infections in our country) included in our database and treated for hepatocellular carcinoma from January 2017 to April 2020. Results: We analyzed the database concerning 187 patients submitted to surgical treatment for HCC: 35 patients died before the pandemic. Therefore, we obtained a complete answer to the questionnaire from 131 patients while in other 7 cases we gained information by a family member because the patient had died in the meanwhile; 14 cases were unreachable (9%). We identified 7 cases of Covid-19 among the 138 patients (5%): 5 confirmed and 2 probables. One patient died for COVID-19 pneumonia. During the lockdown period (March-April 2020), we registered 7 deaths: 1 patient for Covid-19 pneumonia, 2 patients for diffuse HCC recurrence and the remnant 4 for other causes. (crude death rate: 46.4). In the same period of 2018, we registered a crude death rate of 25.6 while in the 2019 a crude death rate of 10. Conclusions: irrespective of a low rate of Covid infections in a group of frailty patients, we observed a higher rate of mortality due to other causes: the reduced access to health services due to the disruption of the normal activities and the forced reassurance of sick patients could be the primary causes of this increase.Funding Statement: None.Declaration of Interests: All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: This retrospective study protocol was approved by our Institutional Review Board and waived the requirement for informed consent. Research involving human participants and/or animals Institutional review research board approval was granted by ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco, and appropriate good clinical and research practices were followed.