The article discusses several books about various topics. Some of the books are: "Deterring Fraud: The Internal Auditor's Perspective," by W. Steve Albrecht, Ketth R. Howe and Marshall B. Romney, "Management Control in Nonprofit Organizations," 3rd ed., by Robert N. Anthony and David W. Young, "Business Expansion Scheme," by Brian Armitage, "Bank Accounts: A World Guide to Confidentiality," by Edouard Chambost, translated by Peter Walton and Margaret Thompson, "The Tangled Web of Price Variation Accounting: The Development of Ideas Underlying Professional Prescriptions in Six Countries," by F.L. Clarke, "Fore-Runners of Realizable Values Accounting in Financial Reporting," edited by G.W. Dean and M.C. Wells, "Careers in Accounting," by Gloria L. Gaylord and Glenda E. Ried, "Bridges to Infinity: The Human Side of Mathematics," by Michael Guillen, "Bond Duration and Immunization: Early Developments and Recent Contributions," edited by Gabriel A. Hawawini, "Foundations: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Institutions," edited Harold M. Keele and Joseph C. Kiger, "The Impact of Taxes on U.S. Citizens Working Abroad," by Ernest R. Larkins.

Cadasters are public records of land ownership that facilitate clear assignment of property rights and land demarcation, thereby reducing transaction costs for economic agents and strengthening the state’s capacity to tax. Macro-level research on the evolution of formal land registration has largely been lacking. Using a novel dataset on the emergence and development of state-administered cadasters in 159 countries over the past millennium, we analyze empirically the association between the development of cadastral institutions and long-run economic growth. Our findings suggest a substantive positive effect of the introduction of cadasters on modern per capita income levels.

In this paper we quantify the differences between market and regulatory assessments of bank portfolio risk, and thereby demonstrate that larger differences significantly reduce corporate lending rates. Specifically, to entice borrowers, banks reduce spreads by approximately 4.3% following a one standard deviation increase in our measure for bank asset-risk differences. This is equivalent to an interest income loss of USD 2.03 million on a loan of average size and duration. The separate effects of market and regulatory risk are much less potent. Our study reveals a disciplinary-competition effect in favor of corporate borrowers when there is information asymmetry between investors and bank regulators.

Employees’ skill development is key to organizations’ competitiveness in a global, knowledge-based economy. Prior research in accounting, however, has mainly focused on motivating the provision of transitory effort. This study investigates how relative performance information (RPI) as a management control influences employees’ willingness to engage in skill development and whether the effect of RPI depends on whether employees face a tradeoff between training and current work performance. We predict and find that RPI increases the likelihood of taking training when a work-training tradeoff is absent but decreases it when a work-training tradeoff is present. We also predict and find RPI increases employee performance when a work-training tradeoff is absent and the effect is less positive (and directionally negative) when a work-training tradeoff is present. Our paper is an important first step in investigating how management controls interfere with employees’ investment in skill development and its tradeoff with transitory effort provision. Data Availability: Data are available upon request.

We investigate whether multiemployer defined-benefit pension plan (MEPP) underfunding is priced by shareholders and creditors. Prior to the FASB's new MEPP standard (effective December 2011), when the disclosures on such plans were sparse, we find evidence (some evidence) that our estimate of a firm's share of MEPP underfunding is credit (value) relevant. We also find some evidence that a proxy for the funded status of a firm's MEPPs is incrementally value relevant over and above the firm's cash contributions, but no evidence that it is credit relevant. Furthermore, an estimate of MEPP underfunding that incorporates the additional disclosures required under the new MEPP standard is value and credit relevant, both individually and incrementally, over and above our old estimate. Overall, our findings suggest that shareholders and creditors view MEPP underfunding as a debt-like obligation and that the additional MEPP disclosures under the new standard are useful to market participants.

Defaults often have a large influence on consumer decisions. We identify an overlooked but practical alternative to defaults: requiring individuals to make an explicit choice for themselves. We study such "active decisions" in the context of 401(k) saving. We find that compelling new hires to make active decisions about 401(k) enrollment raises the initial fraction that enroll by 28 percentage points relative to a standard opt-in enrollment procedure, producing a savings distribution three months after hire that would take 30 months to achieve under standard enrollment. We also present a model of 401(k) enrollment and derive conditions under which the optimal enrollment regime is automatic enrollment (i.e., default enrollment), standard enrollment (i.e., default non-enrollment), or active decisions (i.e., no default and compulsory choice). Active decisions are optimal when consumers have a strong propensity to procrastinate and savings preferences are highly heterogeneous. Financial illiteracy, however, favors default enrollment over active decision enrollment.

We show that, among college graduates, earnings differentials across field of study have increased substantially since the early 1990s. We study the degree to which this increase can be accounted for by changes in the labor market return to skills associated with a major. To do so, we define major-specific measures of the relative importance of abstract, routine, and manual tasks on the job, by linking majors to the occupations they typically lead to. Changes in the relationship between earnings and these measures can account for about two-thirds of the rise in inequality.

In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced many children to relocate across the Southeast. While schools quickly enrolled evacuees, families in receiving schools worried about the impacts on incumbent students. We find no effect, on average, of the inflow of evacuees on achievement in Houston. In Louisiana we find little impact on average and we reject linear-in-means models. Moreover, we find that student achievement improves with high achieving peers and worsens with low achieving peers. Finally, an increase in the inflow of evacuees raised incumbent absenteeism and disciplinary problems in Houston's secondary schools.

We study whether management practices determine merger and acquisition (M&A) success. We model management as an unobserved (latent) variable in a standard microeconomic model of the firm and derive firm-year management estimates. We validate these estimates against benchmark survey data on management practices and by using Monte Carlo simulation. We show that our measure is among the most important determinants of value creation in M&A deals, substantially increasing the predictive power of models that explain cumulative abnormal returns. Thus, we offer a measure of management practices that identifies the best-performing M&As. Our results are robust to the inclusion of acquirer fixed effects and many control variables, and to several other sensitivity tests. We identify the Q-theory as the key mechanism driving our results.