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This paper provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date (1997–2016) review of the archival empirical risk-reporting literature. The reviewed papers are classified into two principal themes: the incentives for and/or informativeness of risk reporting. Our review demonstrates areas of significant divergence in the literature specifically: mandatory versus voluntary risk reporting, manual versus automated content analysis, within-country versus cross-country variations in risk reporting, and risk reporting in financial versus non-financial firms. Our paper identifies a number of issues which require further research. In particular we draw attention to two: first, a lack of clarity and consistency around the conceptualization of risk; and second, the potential costs and benefits of standard-setters’ involvement.

A number of digital libraries have been set up in the course of various research and development activities in different parts of the world during the last few years. How do these digital libraries fair in terms of information retrieval features? This paper looks into this question by reviewing the information retrieval features of 20 digital libraries chosen from around the globe. The first part of the paper briefly describes the features of the chosen digital libraries in terms of their nature and content. The second part looks into the information retrieval features of each digital library. Unique features of some digital libraries have been indicated. Major areas of research that would improve the information retrieval features of the future digital libraries have been indicated.

This synthesis covers academic research on the use of valuation, tax, information technology (IT), and forensic specialists on audit engagements. The importance and role of specialists on audit engagements have recently increased, and specialist use has garnered significant attention from regulators and academics. Given the PCAOB’s (2017b) recent proposal to revise auditing standards regarding specialists’ involvement, it is important to review the specialist literature as a whole. By integrating research across these four domains, I identify commonalities and differences related to: (1) factors associated with the use of specialists on audit engagements (including the nature, timing, and extent of use); (2) factors impacting auditors’ interactions with specialists (including specialists contracted by the auditor or management); and (3) outcomes associated with the use of specialists. This integrated analysis of the specialist literatures shows variation in the use of specialists, and various factors affecting both if and how they are involved and whether auditors use specialists internal or external to the audit firm. Additionally, research has sometimes (but not always) linked specialist involvement to higher audit quality. The commonalities and areas of variation identified are informative to audit research and practice, particularly as regulators and audit firms look to improve the quality of audits using specialists. Throughout the synthesis, I also provide a number of directions for future research.

In 2001, the US moved to regulate internal control reporting by management and auditors. While some jurisdictions have followed the lead of the US, many others have not. An important question, therefore, is the relevance of internal control to stakeholders. The more specific issue of the benefits of US-style regulation of internal control reporting is also topical. We review studies on the determinants of internal control quality and its economic consequences for stakeholders including investors, creditors, managers, auditors and financial analysts. We extend previous reviews by focusing on US studies published since 2013 as well as all non-US studies investigating IC quality including countries regulating IC disclosure as well as unregulated settings and both developed and developing economies. In doing so, we identify research questions where evidence remains mixed and new directions in which there are research opportunities.

Three main insights arise from our analysis. First, evidence on the economic consequences of internal control quality suggests that the quality of internal control can have a significant effect on decision making by users of financial information. Second, the results of research on the empirical association between ownership structure, certain board characteristics and internal control quality is generally mixed. Empirical evidence concerning the association between audit committee characteristics and internal control quality generally supports a positive and significant association. Finally, while studies in non-US jurisdictions are increasing, opportunities remain to explore the determinants and consequences of internal control in other jurisdictions. Our review provides evidence for policy makers of whether there are benefits from requiring management and auditors to report on internal control over financial reporting.

This paper reviews academic literature related to the consequences that outside directors and boards may face in the wake of earnings restatements and suggests directions for future research. We examine loss of board seats; recruitment of new directors; proxy recommendations and shareholder support; pre-emptive director departures; director wealth effects; director reputation, litigation, and sanction risks; international evidence; and legal proposals for reform. The overall picture that emerges from the literature is that directors’ primary risk in the wake of earnings restatements is loss of board seats, in part through adverse proxy advisor recommendations and reduced shareholder support. Directors typically face little risk of legal liability or SEC sanctions, and some directors pre-emptively leave a problem company’s board and reduce their loss of interlocked board seats. Some legal scholars have called for director liability to be increased so as to promote more vigilant board oversight. Companies often focus on increasing the independence of the board in the wake of a restatement in an effort to repair organizational reputation. While researchers have revealed a host of important findings to date, much more can be learned about the effects of restatements on outside directors and boards.

This systematic literature review analyses the determinants and consequences of executive compensation-related shareholder activism and say-on-pay (SOP) votes. The review covers 71 empirical articles published between January 1995 and September 2017. The studies are reviewed within an empirical research framework that separates the reasons for shareholder activism and SOP voting dissent as input factor on the one hand and the consequences of shareholder pressure as output factor on the other. This procedure identifies the five most important groups of factors in the literature: the level and structure of executive compensation, firm characteristics, corporate governance mechanisms, shareholder structure and stakeholders. Of these, executive compensation and firm characteristics are the most frequently examined. Further examination reveals that the key assumptions of neoclassical principal agent theory for both managers and shareholders are not always consistent with recent empirical evidence. First, behavioral aspects (such as the perception of fairness) influence compensation activism and SOP votes. Second, non-financial interests significantly moderate shareholder activism. Insofar, we recommend integrating behavioral and non-financial aspects into the existing research. The implications are analyzed, and new directions for further research are discussed by proposing 19 different research questions.

This chapter proposes semiparametric estimation of the relationship between growth rate of GDP per capita, growth rates of physical and human capital, labor as well as other covariates and common trends for a panel of 23 OECD countries observed over the period 1971–2015. The observed differentiated behaviors by country reveal strong heterogeneity. This is the motivation behind using a mixed fixed- and random coefficients model to estimate this relationship. In particular, this chapter uses a semiparametric specification with random intercepts and slopes coefficients. Motivated by Lee and Wand (2016), the authors estimate a mean field variational Bayes semiparametric model with random coefficients for this panel of countries. Results reveal nonparametric specifications for the common trends. The use of this flexible methodology may enrich the empirical growth literature underlining a large diversity of responses across variables and countries.

The aim of this article is to summarise the available evidence from systematic reviews about the effectiveness of interventions to prevent or treat child physical abuse and neglect. A computerised search was undertaken of major electronic databases up to December 2005 using key search terms. Only systematic reviews were included in which the primary studies evaluated the effectiveness of targeted or indicated interventions for child physical abuse or neglect. A total of 31 systematic reviews were identified and 15 met all the inclusion criteria. They covered a range of interventions/services, including home visiting, parenting programmes, multi‐component interventions, intensive family preservation services, family‐focused casework and multi‐systemic family therapy. There was limited evidence of the effectiveness of services in improving objective measures of abuse and neglect, due in part to methodological issues involved in their measurement, but good evidence of modest benefits in improving a range of outcomes that are associated with physical abuse and neglect, including parental and family functioning and child development. The results also showed some interventions (eg. media‐based and perinatal coaching) to be ineffective with high‐risk families. The evidence provided by these reviews has clear implications for children's services in the UK and other western developed countries.