Does XBRL help improve data processing efficiency?

Purpose The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public companies to file structured data in eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). One of the key arguments behind the XBRL mandate is that the technical standard can help improve processing efficiency for data aggregators. This paper aims to empirically test the data processing efficiency hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach To test the data processing efficiency hypothesis, the authors adopt a two-sample research design by using data from Compustat: a pooled sample (N = 61,898) and a quasi-experimental sample (N = 564). The authors measure data processing efficiency as the time lag between the dates of 10-K filings on the SEC’s EDGAR system and the dates of related data finalized in the Compustat database. Findings The statistical results show that after controlling for potential effects of firm size, age, fiscal year and industry, XBRL has a non-significant impact on data efficiency. It suggests that the data processing efficiency benefit may have been overestimated. Originality/value This study provides some timely empirical evidence to the debate as to whether XBRL can improve data processing efficiency. The non-significant results suggest that it may be necessary to revisit the mandate of XBRL reporting in the USA and many other countries.

Spatial Diffusion of E-Commerce in China’s Counties: Based on the Perspective of Regional Inequality

In recent decades, China has been on a new journey toward a digital economy of which e-commerce accounts for a substantial proportion. Despite some controversy, the innovation diffusion hypothesis and efficiency hypothesis of online shopping have been tested in research on the urban–rural dual structure. However, research on the spatial diffusion model of online business is sparse. Based on the online business and online shopping index released by the Ali Research Institute, this article compares the spatial diffusion model of online shopping and online business in the core–periphery structure based on the inequality between the eastern and western regions of China. Our study suggests that online business trends are in line only with the innovation diffusion hypothesis, with marginal counties having lower levels of online business. Online shopping, on the other hand, is in line with the innovation diffusion hypothesis and partially with the efficiency hypothesis, with a higher index of online shopping in the core regions and some peripheral counties. The discrepancy in the spatial diffusion mode is due to the differences in aims and supporting elements between online business and online shopping. Apart from infrastructure, the diffusion of online business is largely constrained by the regional industrial base, while online shopping is influenced by income and savings levels, which is the main reason for the differences in the spatial diffusion of online business and online shopping. We argue that the diffusion of online business has not led to the ability to balance regional inequalities at the national scale, while online shopping has the potential to bridge core and peripheral disparities better than online businesses, not in terms of the ability to bridge economic disparities, but in terms of the potential to reduce spatial consumption inequalities and welfare gains.

Government Size and Openness: Insights Based on Country Classifications

This study investigates the nexus between government size and openness by paying special attention to country classification. The main results of our empirical investigations show that (i) there are two government size trends meaning two different country groups exist; (ii) there is a positive relationship between trade openness and government size for the first country group, which validates the compensation hypothesis; (iii) a negative relationship between financial openness and government size is found for the second country group, which confirms the efficiency hypothesis; (iv) the effect of financial openness is nearly ten times higher than trade openness; (v) an endogenous country classification process yields better results to understand the linkages between openness and government size. In this regard our study incorporates both hypotheses and provides a uniform explanation.

Illuminating the Development of Precontractual Liability

By using the tools of comparative law & economics, this article aims to shed a light on the development of precontractual liability. Precontractual liability sensu stricto is about the question to what extent one can be held liable for cost incurred by the other party preliminary to, or during precontractual negotiations, when negotiations fail. Comparative legal analysis has observed that the requirements for establishing a successful claim for precontractual liability are very similar at common law and at civil law despite the very different starting positions from which each legal system’s rules have developed. By finding correspondence between what comparative law has found and what is expected under an efficient legal system, this study provides empirical evidence for the efficiency hypothesis of law.

Do the Stock Market Indices Follow a Random Walk?

This chapter aims to test the hypothesis of an efficient market, in its weak form, in the stock markets of Brazil, China, South Korea, USA, Spain, Italy, in the period from December 2, 2020 to May 12, 2020. The results show that the market efficiency hypothesis is rejected in all markets. In corroboration the DFA exponents show long memories, which put in question the market efficiency, in its weak form, suggesting that the stock markets analyzed show some predictability. In conclusion, investors should avoid investing in stock markets, at least while this pandemic lasts, and invest in less risky markets in order to mitigate risk and improve the efficiency of their portfolios.

Weak Form of Efficiency Hypotheses: Empirical Modeling With Box –Pierce, ADF and ARCH Tests

The aim of this paper is to analyze the information efficiency after period of revolution. In particularly, it is a question of testing the weak form of efficiency on the Tunisian stock market. Based in many studies in literature of efficiency in developed countries, the select sample is compound of 52 companies over the period 2014-2018. By applying the different test of Unit Root (ADF), Box –Pierce and ARCH for detect the presence or not of Conditional heteroskedasticity. These tests show that the efficiency hypothesis in its weak form is not verified for majority of companies making up our sample, but it is only confirmed in 10 companies.

Product Market Peers in Lending

This study examines how product market peers affect lending relationships. We contend that firms are more likely to borrow from a bank that has previously lent to a peer to mitigate information asymmetry with the bank when potential information processing efficiencies are greater (i.e., information efficiency hypothesis), but there will be a decreased propensity to borrow from a shared lender when the costs of leaking proprietary information are greater (i.e., proprietary information leakage hypothesis). We find that, after bank mergers that involve peers’ lenders, firms are more likely to switch banks to avoid sharing the same lenders as a product market peer. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that after bank mergers that involve a peer’s bank, firms are less likely to switch when the firm’s financial reporting is more opaque and has greater monitoring needs, consistent with the information efficiency hypothesis. In contrast, firms are more likely to switch after bank mergers that involve a peer’s bank when the firm belongs to an industry with greater proprietary costs and when the bank has greater incentives to leak information, consistent with the proprietary cost hypothesis. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.

The Influence of Market Structure in Indonesian Banking Performance

There are three hypotheses about structure-conduct-performance paradigm; traditional hypothesis, differentiation hypothesis and efficiency hypothesis. The objective of this research is to examine how strong the influence of market structure in banking performance. This study uses the fix effect model by applying the Weiss model. This research also tries to prove whether market share and concentration in the banking industry as a proxy to efficiency. The result of the panel data analysis conducted on a sample of 15 biggest commercial banks over the period from 2009 to 2018 is strongly reject the traditional hypothesis. The empirical findings suggest that market concentration has a negative correlation between profitability, it means that Indonesian banking industry strongly reject the traditional hypothesis and support efficiency hypothesis and there is a positive correlation between market share and profitability, supports the differentiation hypothesis.