Issue-specific Factors Research Articles

The determinants of IPO initial returns in emerging markets: a quantile regression

PurposeThis article investigates the determinants of cross-section variation of initial public offerings' (IPOs) first-day returns in a sample of 710 issues across seven emerging markets between 2013 and 2017.Design/methodology/approachOrdinary least squares regression (OLS) and the semi-parametric quantile regression (QR) technique are employed. QR enables to analyse beyond the explanatory variables' relative mean effect at various points in the endogenous variable distribution. Furthermore, parameter estimates under QR are robust to the existence of outliers and long tails in the data distribution.FindingsUnderpricing varies across countries with an average of 78%. According to the OLS results, independent variables explain 26% of the variation of IPOs' first-day returns. Findings show that employing QR is important, given the non-normality of the data and because each quantile is associated with a different effect of explanatory variables.Originality/valueIn addition to firm-specific, market-specific and issue-specific factors, the paper extends IPOs' underpricing literature through studying the impact of country-specific characteristics, largely neglected by literature, on IPO underpricing.

Electoral competition and the welfare state

The article investigates how parties compete over the welfare state by emphasising specific welfare state issues. The core argument is that two issue-specific factors determine how much parties emphasise individual welfare state issues: the character of policy problems related to the policy issues and the type of social risks involved. To test the argument, a new large-N dataset is employed, with election manifestos from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The dataset contains information on how much parties have talked about health care, education, and labour market protection in national elections since 1980. With the data at hand, it is possible to provide the first systematic investigation of how parties compete for votes over the welfare state. The approach here is able to explain the empirical fact that health care is consistently receiving increased attention everywhere, while particularly labour market protection has witnessed a decline in attention.

The Domestic Issue-Specific Political Opportunity Structure and Migrant Inclusion Organization Activity in Europe

This analysis compares broad and issue-specific political opportunity structures (POS) to help explain the domestic conditions under which migrant inclusion organizations across the European Union undertake political activity. Using data from an original survey of European migrant inclusion organizations, the analyses model nine domestic activity types that range from conventional lobbying to more confrontational tactics. The results show that the national issue-specific POS is a stronger predictor of groups' domestic action, mobilizing participation across a range of activities. In contrast, the broad POS tends to decrease participation after controlling for issue-specific factors. The results lend support to the importance of refining the concept of the POS to include variables specifically relevant to the movement in question. Moreover, they demonstrate that the nation-state is an important factor in explaining groups' activities.

Racial Disparities in Political Participation Across Issues: The Role of Issue-Specific Motivators

Research documenting disparities in political participation across racial and ethnic groups (in particular lower levels of participation for Blacks and Latinos, compared to Whites) has primarily focused on broad explanations for racial and ethnic differences in participation (e.g., socio-economic status, social, or psychological resources). There is little research that links racial and ethnic differences in participation across issues to the literature on issue publics and issue-specific factors that may motivate participation. In this study, we examine racial and ethnic differences in participation for a variety of issues and test a model in which issue-specific motivators of participation (self-interest, racial or ethnic group interest, attitude importance, and policy change threat) and general explanations for participation differences (e.g., socio-economic status, political knowledge) account for these racial and ethnic differences. In particular, the results of a survey of Chicago residents show that Blacks, Latinos and Whites demonstrate significant differences in political participation across five issues (affirmative action, immigration, school funding, gentrification, the Iraq War), but that the specific pattern of racial and ethnic differences in participation varies across issues. Issue-specific factors help to explain why racial and ethnic differences in participation vary across issues above and beyond variables shown to be associated with participation more generally (e.g., political efficacy, education). This model has the potential to be expanded and applied to help explain other types of disparities in political participation.

Towards a conceptual model of whistle-blowing intentions among external auditors

Whistle-blowing has received considerable attention in the ethics literature. However, following the collapse of Arthur Andersen in the Enron debacle, whistle-blowing within audit firms has taken on greater importance. Given the profession's requirements to be confidential, independent and to act in the public interest (e.g. Sarbanes–Oxley Act, 2002), there is a need for a model that is specific to the audit profession (e.g. Louwers, Ponemon, & Radtke, 1997), and in particular, that addresses auditors' whistle-blowing intentions. This paper presents a conceptual model on whistle-blowing intentions among external auditors where an auditor's individual factors (attitudes toward whistle-blowing, perceived behavioural control, independence commitment, personal responsibility for reporting and personal cost of reporting) have a direct influence on his or her intentions to whistle-blow, but are moderated by isomorphic factors (perceived organisational support and team norms) and issue-specific factors (perceived moral intensity). Using justice and institutional theories, the proposed model anticipates that whistle-blowing within an audit firm produces both positive and negative consequences to society, the audit firm and the individual whistle-blower. However, where audit firms have adequate formal supporting mechanisms for reporting wrongdoings to internal and external parties, the negative effects and personal costs of reporting will be minimised.

The effect of taxes on multinational debt location

We provide new evidence that differences in international tax rates and tax regimes affect multinational firms' debt location decisions. Our sample contains 8287 debt issues from 2437 firms headquartered in 23 different countries with debt-issuing subsidiaries in 59 countries. We analyze firms' marginal decisions of where to issue debt to investigate the influence of a comprehensive set of tax-related effects, including differences in personal and corporate tax rates, tax credit and exemption systems, and bi-lateral cross-country withholding taxes on interest and dividend payments. Our results show that differences in personal and corporate tax rates, the presence of dividend imputation or relief tax systems, the tax treatment of repatriated profits, and inter-country withholding taxes on dividends and interest significantly influence the decision of where to locate debt and the proportion of debt located abroad. Our results are robust to firm and issue specific factors and to the effect of legal regimes, debt market development, and exchange rate risk.

Party Potential and the Pattern of Party Competition in the 2003 Swiss Federal Elections

This article explores both the party potential of the five major parties in Switzerland at the 2003 elections and how well the parties actually did in relation to how well they could have done. A party's electoral potential depends on both the probability of the electorate voting for the party and on the probability of individual voters participating in an election. The analysis shows that the SVP and the CVP were successful in mobilising their potential voters in the 2003 elections, while the FDP did almost as badly as they could have done. However, compared to the potential of the FDP or the SP, the overall potential of the SVP is limited. For the SVP, issue specific factors account for the mobilising success. This is especially the case for its stands against the EU and asylum seekers. The CVP profited from the Ruth Metzler effect, who was a key figure in the 2003 CVP campaign.

First Landmines, now Small Arms? The International Campaign to Ban Landmines as a Model for Small-Arms Advocacy

This paper is a comparative analysis of the international campaigns around landmines and small arms. The aim is to determine whether aspects of the successful campaign to ban landmines can be replicated by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) campaigning on other issues, such as the regulation of small arms. Drawing on the literature on globalisation, transnational civil society, social movements, global governance and international norms, five main factors influencing the success of the landmines campaign are identified and applied to the small-arms campaign. These include geopolitical conditions, the effects of globalisation, the attitude of other actors in the international system, how campaigners framed the issue and how they linked it to pre-existing norms and legal precedents. The paper concludes that the landmines campaign is best regarded as a one-off success, resulting from a particular coincidence of issue-specific factors and external conditions, which cannot easily be replicated. It also suggests that the success of NGO campaigns may also be limited to relatively 'straightforward' problems amenable to simple solutions.

The Timing of Debt Issuance and Rating Migrations: Theory and Evidence

This paper develops and tests a recursive model of debt issuance and rating migration. We examine a signaling game with firms who have private information about their probability distribution of future rating migration. A key assumption of the model is that rating agencies reveal information over time, creating a recursive information problem, which in turn generates an adverse selection problem in debt issuance similar to that for equity issuance in Myers and Majluf (1984). This adverse selection model predicts that debt issuance provides a negative signal of rating migration, and that the signal strengthens with economic downturns. Another prediction regarding the maturity of debt issuance is that long maturity debt sends a negative signal relative to short maturity debt (Flannery 1986). Using data from 1980 to 1998 on straight bond issuance and Moody's ratings, and controlling for firm and issue specific factors, we find that debt issuance sends a negative signal of a firm?s default probability, and that this signal intensifies with a decline in economic activity and with an increase in debt maturity.

The Timing of Debt Issuance and Rating Migrations: Theory and Evidence

This paper develops and tests a recursive model of debt issuance and rating migration. We examine a signaling game with firms who have private information about their probability distribution of future rating migration. A key assumption of the model is that rating agencies reveal information over time, creating a recursive information problem, which in turn generates an adverse selection problem in debt issuance similar to that for equity issuance in Myers and Majluf (1984). This adverse selection model predicts that debt issuance provides a negative signal of rating migration, and that the signal strengthens with economic downturns. Another prediction regarding the maturity of debt issuance is that long maturity debt sends a negative signal relative to short maturity debt (Flannery 1986). Using data from 1980 to 1998 on straight bond issuance and Moody's ratings, and controlling for firm and issue-specific factors, we find that debt issuance sends a negative signal of a firm's default probability, and that this signal intensifies with a decline in economic activity and with an increase in debt maturity.

An in-depth look at congressional committee jurisdictions surrounding health issues.

Congress plays an important role in shaping U.S. health care policy, and within Congress, committees play the lead policy-making role. To determine the range and extent of committee involvement on health issues, I examine nine health issue categories over a fifteen-year period (1979-1993) to discover how both "legislative" and "nonlegislative" committee jurisdictions differ across three dimensions: congressional chambers, committees within those chambers, and specific health issue categories. Then, to capture differences across a fourth dimension, time, I also calculate annual measures of jurisdiction "concentration" for legislative and nonlegislative jurisdictions. Together, the jurisdiction differences across the four dimensions provide a comprehensive view of congressional committee jurisdiction arrangements surrounding health issues. I find that the differences in jurisdiction across each dimension follow general patterns resulting from institution-specific factors (e.g., rules, norms) and from issue-specific factors (e.g., salience, complexity). Recognizing these dimensions and their respective patterns helps us understand the power that committees exercise over health issues.