Jennifer E. James, Meghan Foe, Riya Desai, Apoorva Rangan and Mary Price
The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical overview of compassionate release policies in the USA and describe how these policies have been used during the COVID-19…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical overview of compassionate release policies in the USA and describe how these policies have been used during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors then describe how these programs have been shaped by COVID-19 and could be reimagined to address the structural conditions that make prisons potentially life limiting for older adults and those with chronic illness.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is primarily descriptive, offering an overview of the history of compassionate release policies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors augmented this description by surveying state Departments of Corrections about their utilization of compassionate release during 2019 and 2020. The findings from this survey were combined with data collected via Freedom of Information Act Requests sent to state Departments of Corrections about the same topic.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that while the US federal prison system saw a multifold increase in the number of individuals released under compassionate release policies in 2020 compared to 2019, most US states had modest change, with many states maintaining the same number, or even fewer, releases in 2020 compared with 2019.
Originality/value
This paper provides both new data and new insight into compassionate release utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic and offers new possibilities for how compassionate release might be considered in the future.
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Apoorva Arunachal Hegde, Ajaya Kumar Panda and Venkateshwarlu Masuna
This paper aims to investigate the non-homogeneity in the speed of adjustment (SoA) of the capital structure of manufacturing companies. It also attempts to study the key…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the non-homogeneity in the speed of adjustment (SoA) of the capital structure of manufacturing companies. It also attempts to study the key determinants that accelerate the speed of adjustment towards the target leverage level.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the dynamic panel fraction (DPF) estimator on the partial adjustment model, the study captures the heterogeneous SoA of 2,866 firms across eight prominent sectors of the Indian manufacturing industry from 2009 to 2020. To ensure robustness, the empirical inferences of DPF are cross-verified with the estimates of panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE).
Findings
The authors find a combination of the capital structure's slow, moderate and rapid adjustment speed along with the relevance of trade-off theory. Interestingly, the lowest and fastest SoA is recorded by the dwindling textile sector and expanding food and agro sector, respectively. Profitability, firm size, asset tangibility and non-debt tax shields are the key firm-specific parameters that impact the SoA towards the target.
Originality/value
Availing the rarely employed estimator ‘DPF’ and the objective of documenting diverse and non-uniform adjustment speeds across the Indian manufacturing sectors marks a novel addition to capital structure literature.
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Apoorva Arunachal Hegde, Venkateshwarlu Masuna, Ajaya Kumar Panda and Satish Kumar
This paper aims to conduct bibliometric analysis on the studies dealing with capital structure’s speed of adjustment (SoA) and identify the prominent themes while suggesting…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to conduct bibliometric analysis on the studies dealing with capital structure’s speed of adjustment (SoA) and identify the prominent themes while suggesting future research directions in the area. The existing reviews broadly focus on the capital structure, which provides the scope for conducting a review on this sub-aspect of capital structure.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a three-stage process to conduct this review: identification of academic journals, selection and analysis of target papers. This study uses a combination of bibliometric tools and a system thinking approach to assess the current status of publications and emerging themes within the literature.
Findings
This study has found a progressive evolution of SoA in capital structure research from 1984 to 2021. Studies largely focus on implementing the dynamic models to analyse the impact of adjustment costs, dynamic economic conditions, corporate governance practices and other variables on the firms’ adjustment speed and financial decisions. The network analysis of citations, keywords and clusters gives further knowledge on the intellectual structure of the data.
Research limitations/implications
This study is highly dependent on the papers available within the SCOPUS database. Studies not included herein are not part of this analysis, which may or may not bear an effect on the study’s findings.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the application of systems engineering concept of “system thinking approach” to identify literature gap and suggest directions for forthcoming research is the first of its kind, thus adding a novel and multidisciplinary aspect to this study.
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Apoorva Arunachal Hegde, Ajaya Kumar Panda and Venkateshwarlu Masuna
This paper aims to study the leverage adjustment behavior of firms distinguished based on financial flexibility. Financial flexibility is one of the key strengths of the companies…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the leverage adjustment behavior of firms distinguished based on financial flexibility. Financial flexibility is one of the key strengths of the companies to borrow funds for long-term capital investment. The lack of extensive studies in this domain motivates the authors to delve into the significance of financial flexibility in making corporate capital structure decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
The data comprise a combination of firm-specific and macroeconomic variables for firms in eight manufacturing sectors from 2009 to 2020. The authors employ an advance estimator, dynamic panel fraction, on the partial adjustment model to investigate the diverse impact on capital structure's speed of adjustment (SoA) between the financially flexible and financially inflexible firms. Furthermore, the authors utilize the generalized method of moments and panel-corrected standard errors to establish the robustness.
Findings
The empirical analysis reveals that the SoA of financially flexible firms lies between 19.75% and 35.38% and the SoA of financially inflexible firms lies between 11.66% and 25.81%. Due to their conserved debt capabilities, financially flexible firms can rely on leverage to stay near the target whenever they move away from it. Furthermore, financially inflexible firms exhibit a low adjustment speed due to their incompetence to borrow funds to benefit from new growth opportunities. The existence of a target ratio among the studied firms is identified from the positive coefficient of lagged dependent variable, and the relevance of trade-off theory is proved by the quick adjustment speeds in most sectors.
Originality/value
The sectoral distinction in the backdrop of the financial flexibility component adds to the research novelty and managerial implications.