Marc van Essen

Research on crime has by no means reached a definitive conclusion on which factors are related to crime rates. We contribute to the crime literature by providing an integrated empirical model of economic and sociological theories of criminal behavior and by using a very comprehensive set of economic, social as well as demographic explanatory variables. We use panel data techniques to estimate this integrated crime model for property and violent crime using the entire population of all 100 counties in North Carolina for the years 2001-2005. Both fields contribute to the explanatory power of the integrated model. Our results support the economic explanation of crime with respect to the deterrent effect of the probabilities of arrest and imprisonment concerns, as well as the time allocation model of criminal activities. In contrast, the integrated model seems to reject the impact of the severity of punishment on crime levels. With respect to the sociological theories of crime, we find most support for the social disorganization theory and for the routine activity theory. Finally, we find differences between property and violent crimes, mostly explained by the sociological models.

By using hierarchical linear modeling, we show that 25 percent of the heterogeneity in firm performance is among countries, indicating the importance of including country-level institutions in our analyses. We find that the general quality of the legal system and creditor rights protection are positively related to firm performance. Moreover, at the firm level, we find that larger and more active boards, where the role of board chairman and CEO are combined in same person performed the best, while ownership wedge and more CEO equity based compensation negatively impact firm performance during the recent financial crisis. Finally, our study shows that both levels - firm and country -do not substitute or complement each other with respect to firm performance, but rather function independently from each other.

This paper analyzes the relationship around the world between the underpricing of IPOs and a country's legal framework. From the theoretical research we expect a negative relationship between a higher level of investor protection (and other measures of a country's legal framework) and the level of underpricing. The empirical results support our expectations and show a negative relationship between a country's legal framework and the underpricing of IPOs. In this way, this study adds to the growing law and finance literature. Firms in countries with stronger investor protection (and other measures of the country's legal framework) have, ceteris paribus, lower costs to go public, and thus an international advantage in comparison to firms from other countries with less developed legal frameworks.

Responsible investment (RI) and responsible corporate behaviour received a lot of attention during the last decade in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature (McWilliams and Siegel 2001, 2006). After the U.S. and European financial markets were being troubled in the early 2000s by several major scandals like Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Parmalat, financial ethics received a lot of attention by the public as well. Irresponsible corporate behaviour can occur in different ways such as corruption, market abuse, fraud, insider trading, ecological harm, racial or sexual discrimination. Examples include foreign briberies to get supply contracts (Volkswagen), insider trading ahead of a profit warning (EADS), lower salaries for female employees (Wal-Mart), and worker’s conditions in Indonesia (Nike).