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AbstractProducts certified according to their environmental and social sustainability are becoming an important feature of production, trade and consumption in the agro‐food sector. 'Sustainability networks' are behind the emergence and growth of these new product forms, often evolving into multi‐stakeholder initiatives that establish and manage base codes, standards, certifications and labels. As sustainability moves into the mainstream, understanding the governance of these networks is essential because they partly reshape the structure and characteristics of commodity flows. In this article, we examine the role of expert knowledge and process management in governing two multi‐stakeholder initiatives (the Marine Stewardship Council and the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil) and in shaping their distributional effects. We find that the ability of developing countries, especially small‐scale actors within them, to shape standard setting and management to their advantage depends not only on overcoming important structural differences in endowments and access to resources, but also on more subtle games. These include promoting the enrolment of one expert group or kind of expert knowledge over another, using specific formats of negotiation, and legitimating particular modes of engagement over others.

Civil society is commonly assumed to have a positive effect on international cooperation. This paper sheds light on one important facet of this assumption: we examine the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on ratification behavior of countries vis-à-vis international environmental agreements (IEAs). The main argument of the paper focuses on a "democracy-civil society paradox": although ENGOs have a positive effect on ratification of IEAs on average, this effect decreases with increasing levels of democracy. This argument is counter-intuitive and appears paradoxical because democracy is generally associated both with a more active civil society and more international cooperation. The reasons for this hypothesized effect pertain to public demand for environmental public goods provision, government incentives, and problems of collective action among ENGOs. To test the net effect of ENGOs on countries' ratification behavior, the paper uses a new dataset on ENGOs in the time-period 1973–2006. The results offer strong support for the presumed democracy–civil society paradox.

AbstractManuscript TypeEmpiricalResearch Question/IssueIn this paper, we empirically investigate whether US listed commercial banks with effective corporate governance structures engage in higher levels of conservative financial accounting and reporting.Research Findings/InsightsUsing both market‐ and accrual‐based measures of conservatism and both composite and disaggregated governance indices, we document convincing evidence that well‐governed banks engage in significantly higher levels of conditional conservatism in their financial reporting practices. For example, we find that banks with effective governance structures, particularly those with effective board and audit governance structures, recognize loan loss provisions that are larger relative to changes in nonperforming loans compared to their counterparts with ineffective governance structures.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsWe contribute to the extant literature on the relationship between corporate governance and quality of accounting information by providing evidence that banks with effective governance structures practice higher levels of accounting conservatism.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsThe findings of this study would be useful to US bank regulators/supervisors in improving the existing regulatory framework by focusing on accounting conservatism as a complement to corporate governance in mitigating the opaqueness and intense information asymmetry that plague banks.

Corporate governance of Thailand has been developed and reformed, particularly after 1997 Asian financial crisis. However, problems regarding director's responsibilities are still entrenched in company law and corporate practices. The challenges of Thai corporate governance on director's responsibilities are found in the areas of director's accountability and minority shareholders protection. Legal provisions on director's fiduciary duties and director's duty of care and skill are unable to regulate director's misbehaviors. Directors are not fully aware of their proper responsibilities to the company. They tend to act for their own interest or interest of their group, the controlling shareholders. In addition, legal enforcement on director's responsibilities is not effective in practice. Shareholders litigation or other actions against directors who are in breach of their duties is rare, though there is derivative action provided as remedy for minority shareholders. In finding solutions for those problems, all relevant aspects should be brought into consideration. Corporate governance on director's responsibilities is related to law, business and ethics. Director's responsibilities are matters concerning human conducts, actions, behaviors as well as practices. They are related to ethics of each company director and ethics of the board members as a whole. In addition to legal and business aspects, ethical aspect should also be considered in the reform of corporate governance on director's responsibilities of Thailand. This thesis is the study of Thai corporate governance on director's responsibilities and ethics in order to find appropriate ethical theory where good corporate governance principles will be built on. Among relevant ethical theories i.e. utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics and contractualism, virtue ethics of Aristotle is the most appropriate ethical theory to be applied to corporate governance on director's responsibilities of Thailand. It is suitable for the nature of corporate governance on director's responsibilities, the conditions underlying its problems, and the understanding and practices of people in Thai society. Virtues and means of virtue ethics should be applied as complements to fiduciary principles for enhancing director's accountability. The doctrine of mean of virtue ethics should be applied as complement to derivative action for enforceability and effectiveness of minority shareholders protection. In this regard, some related regulations and codes of best practices will be prescribed by adopting appropriate virtues or means, and the relevant regulators i.e. the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) and the Stock Exchange of Thailand (the SET) will be given authority to interpret and apply such regulations and codes of best practices on a case by case basis. ; published_or_final_version ; Law ; Master ; Doctor of Legal Studies

Im Wettbewerb der Volkswirtschaften ist die Governance von Innovation und Wissenstransfer ein zentraler Faktor. Michael Ortiz vergleicht für die Automobilbranche und die Biotechnologie, wie die Innovationsregime in Deutschland, Großbritannien und Spanien gestaltet werden. Er liefert damit wichtige Erkenntnisse zu den Gründen für ökonomische Erfolge und Misserfolge in den betrachteten Ländern und Regionen.

This study examines 147 banking crises in the period of 1976-2011 documented by the International Monetary Fund. The countries affected by crises are analysed in respect of publicly available World Bank indicators in the periods of three years before the crises. Machine learning methodology for subgroup discovery is used for the analysis. It enabled identification of five subsets of crises. Two of them are identified as especially useful for the characterization of EU countries affected by the banking crises in the year 2008. Fast growing credit activity is a characteristic for the first subgroup while socioeconomic problems recognized by non-increasing quality of public health are decisive for the second subgroup. Comparative analysis of the EU countries included into the second subgroup and the EU countries affected by the banking crises but not included into this subgroup demonstrated statistically significant differences in respect of World Bank good governance indicator values for the period before the crisis. Control of corruption, rule of law, and government effectiveness are the indicators that are statistically different for these sets of countries. The result is fully in accordance with the Francis's model connecting governance indicators and financial fragility. The significance of the result is in the segmentation of the corpus of countries with banking crises and recognition of connections between banking crises, socioeconomic problems, and governance effectiveness in some EU countries. The conclusions of the study might be useful for the policy makers in stressing that future banking crises prevention should also focus on governance effectiveness, more strict law implementation and especially on measures against corruption.

The starting point for the research has been the list of 147 banking crises within the period 1976-2011 prepared by the International Monetary Fund. The countries with crises have been analysed with respect to publicly available World Bank indicators in the periods of three years before the crises. The machine learning methodology for subgroup discovery has been used for the analysis. It enabled identification of five subsets of crises. Two of them have been identified as especially useful for the characterization of EU countries with banking crises in the year 2008. Fast growing credit activity is characteristic for the first subgroup while socioeconomic problems recognized by non-increasing quality of public health are decisive for the second subgroup. Comparative analysis of EU countries included into these subgroups demonstrated statistically significant differences with respect to World Bank good governance indicator values for the period before the crisis. Control of corruption, rule of law, and government effectiveness are the indicators which are statistically different for these sets of countries. The significance of the result is in the segmentation of the corpus of countries with banking crises and the recognition of connections between banking crises, socioeconomic problems, and governance effectiveness in some EU countries.

Corporate governance principles provide guidance on how corporations should operate and can be useful to attract foreign investments. In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), countries use national methodologies to assess corporate governance performance of publicly listed companies. The Asian Development Bank in partnership with the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum have jointly developed an ASEAN methodology of corporate governance assessment using a scorecard system that is based on international best practices and that encourages publicly listed companies to go beyond national legislation requirements. This inaugural report is a compilation of corporate governance assessments of publicly listed companies in six ASEAN countries using the Scorecard. The assessment is useful to improve corporate governance in the region collectively and to brand ASEAN as an asset class.

In recent years, randomized controlled trials have become increasingly popular in the social sciences. In development economics in particular, their use has attracted considerable debate in relation to the identification of 'what works' in development policy. This paper focuses on a core topic in development policy: governance. It aims to address two key questions: (1) 'what have the main contributions of randomized controlled trials been to the study of governance?' and (2) 'what could be the contributions, and relatedly the limits of such methods?'. To address these questions, a systematic review of experimental and quasi-experimental methods to study government performance was conducted. It identified 139 relevant papers grouped into three major types of policy interventions that aim to: (1) improve supply-side capabilities of governments; (2) change individual behaviour through various devices, notably incentives, and (3) improve informational asymmetries. We find that randomized controlled trials can be useful in studying the effects of some policy interventions in the governance area, but they are limited in significant ways: they are ill-equipped to study broader governance issues associated with macro-structural shifts, national level variation in institutions and political culture, and leadership. Randomized controlled trials are best for studying targeted interventions, particularly in areas of public goods provision, voting behaviour, and specific measures to address corruption and improve accountability; however, they can provide little traction on whether the intervention is transferable and 'could work' (and why) in other contexts, and in the longer run.

The present paper aims to present the significant role that the concept of governance can play in order to combine naturals resources as useful funding basis for the formation of a stable and effective welfare state model. The combination of those two different fields aims to represent the modern trends of our era as the means to solve the severe financial and economic issues caused mostly due to the malfunction of the welfare state and its public sector. European Union and Asian countries (especially China) are the main areas of interest since EU experiences a fiscal and economic crisis while China rules the area of the natural resources exploiting 97% of rare earths elements worldwide.

Ethiopia's montane rainforests have witnessed high rates of depletion and deforestation in the last decades. The main reasons are expansion and intensification of smallholder agriculture and forestry. Forest governance in Ethiopia is characterized by the complex interaction of factors such as nationalization of land, weak state structures, the persistence of traditional local institutions, and socio-cultural heterogeneity promoted by state-enforced resettlement. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of forest governance in Ethiopia and the underlying reasons for and variables influencing forest depletion and deforestation by analysing a local institutional arena in a case study approach. The paper is based on local-level empirical field research conducted in the montane rainforests of southwestern Ethiopia. Methodologically, a combination of semi-structured expert interviews with forest users, local traditional decision-makers and representatives of governmental and nongovernmental organizations was used, as well as focus group discussions and visual communication techniques. The paper adopts a historical perspective, reflecting the path-dependent character of local institutions. Historically, the rainforests in the case study area, Koma forest in Kaffa zone, are divided into forest use-right plots individually held by local peasants. The nationalization of all land in Ethiopia in 1975 was a major institutional turning point. By decree, responsibility for forest management was shifted to state bodies. In practice the newly established state bodies never had the necessary resources or expertise to effectively fulfil their tasks. Instead the traditional forest use rights lingered on, backed by local community-initiated institutional systems with a status of 'tolerated illegality'. However, the research findings also indicate that local community-initiated institutional systems are limited to certain forest user groups, and exclude others. This explains their little practical assertiveness, and contributed to the creation of a local-level power vacuum that allows high rates of deforestation and forest degradation.

We explore the capital structure and governance of a mortgage-insuring securitization utility operating with government reinsurance for systemic or 'tail' risk. The structure we propose for the replacement of the GSEs focuses on aligning incentives for appropriate pricing and transfer of mortgage risks across the private sector and between the private sector and the government. We present the justification and mechanics of a vintage-based capital structure, and assess the components of the mortgage guarantee fee, whose size we find is most sensitive to the required capital ratio and the expected return on that capital. We discuss the implications of selling off some of the utility's mortgage credit risk to the capital markets and how the informational value of such transactions may vary with the level of risk transfer. Finally, we explore how mutualization could address incentive misalignments arising out of securitization and government insurance, as well as how the governance structure for such a financial market utility could be designed.