Finance & accounting

Professor Shane Dikolli has used analytical modeling and empirical analysis to evaluate CEOs for much of his career, and he and the Batten Institute’s Sean Carr discuss why the insights hidden in plain sight within accounting disclosures have important implications for business managers at every level.

A new leader can turn around a failing organization — or drive it further into the ground. Strategy, leadership and success are intertwined phenomena, and accounting controls can make all the difference. This Case in Point examines a new pastor in a low-income community, confident he could turn around a small church — and the following controversy.

The Cambodia Rural Sanitation Development Impact Bond combines private and public capital with on-the-ground implementation expertise and market-based solutions to improve health and accelerate the Royal Government of Cambodia’s goal of universal sanitation. A finalist for the P3 Impact Award, it’s a public-private partnership changing the world.

The value of a culture of integrity: Using linguistic analysis of public communications, researchers studied which CEOs are likely to mislead investors and fail to follow through on promises. The CEO behavioral integrity index provides systematic evidence of the consequences of low integrity — here’s what it means for auditors and the bottom line.

Conventional wisdom is that active-fund managers are paid to be contrarians; they take risks and go against trends. But new research shows that sometimes they’re the herd: In the bear market of February and March 2020, institutional investors amplified price crashes and volatility by fire-selling, and they focused on cash rather than ESG metrics.

It’s a pivotal moment for the U.S. and global economies, and the U.S. Federal Reserve holds a key position of influence. Professor Frank Warnock, a former Fed economist and current research adviser with the Fed, discusses the tools available and possible next steps for the Fed as the Biden administration steps in.

Why would oil producers continue to pump oil despite an excess supply globally and a shortage in storage space? Darden Professors Elena Loutskina and Daniel Murphy examine how oil prices went negative (and could again), collateralized debt and oil producers’ relationships with lenders, and broader implications for the oil market.

Darden Professor Rich Evans recently published study of mutual fund managers’ performance which demonstrates that significantly different outcomes occur when employees get paid to compete against each other — versus when they are compensated for cooperating.

Darden Professor James Naughton calls the situation facing multiemployer pensions — plans in which workers from various employers pay into a single plan — a disaster, largely due to a combination of inadequate funding and risky investing. The impact of the chronic underfunding could be far-reaching.

The financial statements and supporting disclosures required of public companies have the reputation for being dense, impenetrable documents. But when you reach the point you can “read” the story behind the numbers, you can understand a company’s strategy and its trajectory — not only where it has been, but, potentially, where it is headed.