The Demand for External Audit Quality: The Contribution of Agency Theory in the Context of Cameroon

This study examines the effect of agency theory on the demand for external audit quality in Cameroon. Specifically, it looks at the impact of shareholder/manager agency cost, shareholders/creditors agency cost, and majority/minority shareholders agency cost on external audit quality demand in Cameroon. The focus is on a sample of 171 companies drawn from the regions of Littoral, Centre and North-West using questionnaires. We assess the explanatory power of agency theory on the demand for a better quality of audit in the Cameroonian context by modelling external audit quality as a function of agency costs. The logistic regression analysis allows us to study the nature of any possible interaction. The analysis shows that while an increase in shareholder/creditor agency cost and an increase in shareholder/manager agency cost negatively affect the demand for audit quality, the majority/minority agency cost and the size of the audited client positively and significantly affect the demand for audit quality.

A Meta Analysis of Materiality Studies

The Supreme Court and the Public Company Accounting Oversite Board (PCAOB) has said that an amount is material if there is a substantial likelihood it will influence a reasonable investor’s judgment. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has said that an amount is material if there is a substantial likelihood it will influence a reasonable user’s judgment. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has refused to define materiality. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said that qualitative factors can make even small amounts material. Reasonable implies a consensus of opinion. This article is a meta-analysis of 31,155 materiality decisions made by 335 cohorts in 48 studies with the objective of defining what is reasonable. A cohort is a group of like individuals faced with a common materiality decision. Materiality in this study is measured as a percentage of net income. The mean threshold of materiality is 7.84% and the median is 6.81%. Both thresholds are substantially higher than the often-discussed threshold of 5.0%. A quarter of the participants in these studies set the threshold of materiality at 11.90% and the threshold for a statistically significant difference from the consensus is 17.51%. Ultimately, materiality will be decided through civil and criminal litigation. Finders of fact, usually jurors, will be asked to determine what a reasonable investor would conclude. Few jurors have the training and experience of investors, so without context, they can only guess what a reasonable investor would conclude. This study provides that context.

Reviewer Acknowledgements for Accounting and Finance Research, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2021

Reviewer Acknowledgements for Accounting and Finance Research, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2021

Financial Development in Developing Countries and Its Impact on Economic Growth between 2008 and 2017

This article examines how the level of financial development has changed in the ten years between 2008 and 2017 in connection to the most significant events in the global economy and finance and how financial development has influenced economic growth in developing countries. The study measures financial development following the World Bank (2020) approach and using indicators of financial access, financial depth, financial efficiency and financial stability, corresponding to financial institutions and financial markets. Based on a two-way fixed effects model, we find that financial development has positively and significantly contributed to economic growth in these countries during the ten years between 2008 and 2017, through increased access of individual consumers and firms to financial products and services. Other variables such as the depth, efficiency and stability of financial institutions and markets do not correlate significantly with the economic growth of developing countries between 2008 and 2017. This paper concludes that the access to financial institutions for individuals living in developing nations is favourably and significantly connected to economic growth in these countries.

Asset Allocation via Machine Learning

In this paper, we document a novel machine learning-based numerical framework to solve static and dynamic portfolio optimization problems, with, potentially, an extremely large number of assets. The framework proposed applies to general constrained optimization problems and overcomes many major difficulties arising in current literature. We not only empirically test our methods in U.S. and China A-share equity markets, but also run a horse-race comparison of some optimization schemes documented in (Homescu, 2014). We record significant excess returns, relative to the selected benchmarks, in both U.S. and China equity markets using popular schemes solved by our framework, where the conditional expected returns are obtained via machine learning regression, inspired by (Gu, Kelly & Xiu, 2020) and (Leippold, Wang & Zhou, 2021), of future returns on pricing factors carefully chosen.

Spillovers and Dynamic Correlations between REITs, Exchange Rates, and Equities in Japan

This paper investigates return transmission, volatility spillovers, and dynamic correlations between the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) index, the Nikkei 225 index, and the yen/dollar exchange rate. As a result, we find many new findings and these all show our significant contributions as follows. First, there is return transmission from the Nikkei 225 to the TSE REIT index. Second, there is bidirectional return transmission between the Nikkei 225 and the yen/dollar exchange rate. Third, there are bidirectional volatility spillovers between the Nikkei 225 and the TSE REIT index. Fourth, there are volatility spillovers from the Nikkei 225 to the yen/dollar exchange rate. Fifth, dynamic conditional correlations (DCCs) between TSE REIT returns and Nikkei 225 returns are not low. Moreover, DCCs between Nikkei 225 returns and yen/dollar exchange rate changes are not high. Furthermore, DCCs between TSE REIT returns and yen/dollar exchange rate changes are quite low. These our new findings shall be useful for not only deepening our understanding of financial markets but also our related future research.

Longing for Haute Finance in the 21st Century? A Neo-Polanyian Approach to the Theory of Money in the Digital Age

This article examines the Libra project, which was announced by Facebook in 2019 as an important turning point in the development of digital currency since Bitcoin. Libra is a kind of stablecoin, and it has been identified as a global stablecoin owing to its wide-ranging impact on the dimension of global finance. Because the Libra project aims to offer a globally accessible low-cost payment system for all users, we analyse it in the research area of global finance with a qualitative approach to the history of economic theories of money and finance. In this area, Karl Polanyi’s thoughts on money and finance and the interpretation by Saiag, which he called a neo-Polanyian approach, deserve attention. Taking this approach, we understand that unofficial functions of haute finance played a significant role in sustaining the international and interdependent financial system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this context, although it also saved colonized and dependent regions from falling into financial crises, it was not socially helpful for them. If Libra wants to be the haute finance of our age in the real sense of serving to bring about financial inclusion, such a point should be considered. However, for the moment, existing international monetary institutions are only keen to take regulatory measures against the risk of dirty transactions. There is a substantial lacuna of publicness in the discussion, and this needs to be filled in in the near future.

Stewardship Accounting Practice by Government Ministries in Cameroon

The study examined the practice of stewardship accounting by Government Ministries in Cameroon. It investigated how inclusive budget planning, timely budget execution, stringent budget control, and resolute scrutiny of government financial statements, affect the government stewardship accounting practice. To archive this, primary data collected from members of parliament were analysed, and regressed using the Ordinary Least Squares technique. The empirical results therefrom were of positive and statistical significance. They revealed that stringent budget control, and resolute scrutiny of government financial reports, significantly improve the practice of stewardship accounting in the Government Ministries. It was recommended that the government of Cameroon should frankly facilitate the participation of parliamentarians, civil society organisations, advocacy groups, and the citizens, in the budget preparation and execution processes. Such sincere participation invokes debates on problematic trade-offs and opportunity costs which are crucial in improving the wellbeing of Cameroonians. It was further recommended that parliamentarians should effectively play their role as representatives of the Cameroonian people, not withstanding their political inclinations. Consequently, they will not falter in their responsibility to resolutely scrutinise and authorise the budgets, and hold the Government and its Ministries fully accountable. The last recommendation was that Article 66 of the Cameroon Constitution (lying dormant since 2006) be put into practice. Article 66 provides for the declaration of assets by senior government officials, and others elected or appointed, at the beginning and at the end of their office tenures.

Financial Situation Unique Indicator for Electric Sector Firms

This paper develops a unique indicator to identify the financial situation of firms in the electric sector in Brazil. The National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) regulates this sector through five dimensions: indebtedness, efficiency, investment, profitability, and pay-out ratio. Each of these dimensions contains one or two indicators. Based on these indicators, we develop a unique indicator that shows companies' financial situation. To create a unique indicator, we follow the idea of Altman’s solvency indicator. But, we use a logit regression. Our dependent variable is Global Performance of Continuity which indicates the financial situation of the firm. Our independent variables are based on the five dimensions of the ANEEL indicators for financial situation. We collect data from 2011 to 2018. This research follows three main steps: (1) Collection of the data from the ANEEL database; (2) Creation of variables based on ANEEL’s five dimensions of performance; and (3) Econometric proceedings with variables according to ANEEL’s data and indicators of each dimension. First, we estimate one regression with all variables created based on ANEEL’s five dimensions. Then, we make improvements to find a more suitable model with different combinations of variables. We chose the best model by analysing the Akaike information criterion (AIC). Our results show that the unique indicator we create to evaluate firm performance is based on Debt, Efficiency, Investment (CapexA) and the Pay-out Ratio.

Reviewer Acknowledgements for Accounting and Finance Research, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2021

Reviewer Acknowledgements for Accounting and Finance Research, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2021