Amin Mawani

This study examines whether and how closely-held ownership is associated with the relationship between tax and financial reporting aggressiveness. More specifically, we find that although both closely-held and widely-held firms pursue tax savings and higher reported earnings, closely-held firms are less aggressive compared to widely-held firms in pursuing both simultaneously. We argue and find evidence that this is associated with non-controlling shareholders and controlling shareholders concerned about agency costs imposed by each on the other. Furthermore, this finding is driven mainly by firms with high information asymmetry (as proxied by firm size, analyst following and board size), suggesting that information asymmetry is a channel through which closely-held ownership is associated with firms’ tax and financial reporting choices.

This study examines taxpayer compliance in the presence and absence of collusively corrupt tax auditors and compares it to taxpayer compliance in the presence and absence of coercively corrupt tax auditors. Our experimental results show that overall taxpayer compliance declines in the presence of a collusively corrupt tax auditor who accepts bribes that leave the taxpayer economically better off. In contrast, taxpayer compliance increases in the presence of coercive tax auditors who demand moderate bribes. This may reflect taxpayers’ attempt to create a moral distance between themselves and the corrupt auditor. However, such economic sacrifices disappear when the level of bribe demanded by coercive auditors is increased to a higher component of reported income, suggesting that taxpayers may be willing to bear only relatively modest costs to morally differentiate themselves from coercive tax auditors.

Background:
A student mental health crisis is increasingly acknowledged and will only intensify with the COVID-19 crisis. Given accessibility of methods with demonstrated efficacy in reducing depression and anxiety (eg, mindfulness meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT]) and limitations imposed by geographic obstructions and localized expertise, web-based alternatives have become vehicles for scaled-up delivery of benefits at modest cost. Mindfulness Virtual Community (MVC), a web-based program informed by CBT constructs and featuring online videos, discussion forums, and videoconferencing, was developed to target depression, anxiety, and experiences of excess stress among university students.

Objective:
The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an 8-week web-based mindfulness and CBT program in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress (primary outcomes) and increasing mindfulness (secondary outcome) within a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with undergraduate students at a large Canadian university.

Methods:
An RCT was designed to assess undergraduate students (n=160) who were randomly allocated to a web-based guided mindfulness–CBT condition (n=80) or to a waitlist control (WLC) condition (n=80). The 8-week intervention consisted of a web-based platform comprising (1) 12 video-based modules with psychoeducation on students’ preidentified life challenges and applied mindfulness practice; (2) anonymous peer-to-peer discussion forums; and (3) anonymous, group-based, professionally guided 20-minute live videoconferences. The outcomes (depression, anxiety, stress, and mindfulness) were measured via an online survey at baseline and at 8 weeks postintervention using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ9), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire Short Form (FFMQ-SF). Analyses employed generalized estimation equation methods with AR(1) covariance structures and were adjusted for possible covariates (gender, age, country of birth, ethnicity, English as first language, paid work, unpaid work, relationship status, physical exercise, self-rated health, and access to private mental health counseling).

Results:
Of the 159 students who provided T1 data, 32 were males and 125 were females with a mean age of 22.55 years. Participants in the MVC (n=79) and WLC (n=80) groups were similar in sociodemographic characteristics at T1 with the exception of gender and weekly hours of unpaid volunteer work. At postintervention follow-up, according to the adjusted comparisons, there were statistically significant between-group reductions in depression scores (β=–2.21, P=.01) and anxiety scores (β=–4.82, P=.006), and a significant increase in mindfulness scores (β=4.84, P=.02) compared with the WLC group. There were no statistically significant differences in perceived stress for MVC (β=.64, P=.48) compared with WLC.

Conclusions:
With the MVC intervention, there were significantly reduced depression and anxiety symptoms but no significant effect on perceived stress. Online mindfulness interventions can be effective in addressing common mental health conditions among postsecondary populations on a large scale, simultaneously reducing the current burden on traditional counseling services.

CEO compensation in Canada is significantly lower than that in the U.S. In this paper we examine the choice of, and impact on Canadian CEO Compensation, of using U.S. firms in their compensation peer groups. Using a two-stage model to control for endogeneity, while we find the choice of peers associated with labor market factors, we still find that the use of US peers positively associated with higher Canadian CEO compensation. This finding is after controlling for the traditional determinants of CEO compensation, as well as use of domestic peers. While this result holds for all components of the compensation package, we also find that having U.S. peers is associated with a greater proportion of equity in the compensation package. Our results are robust to various formulations including change models, and using an earlier time period when peer disclosure was voluntary.

We examine whether the social capital index of the county where the bank is headquartered is associated with the ambiguity of tone measures constructed from the textual analysis of banks’ 10-K filings. We hypothesize and find that banks located in high social capital areas exhibit lower ambiguous tone in their 10-K filings. Furthermore, the impact of social capital on management’s 10-K disclosure for banks located in high social capital areas is not mitigated during recessionary periods when management may have more unfavorable news to report. Unlike other studies that suggest that social norms can be forsaken when motive and opportunity exist, our results suggest that social capital is reasonably entrenched in banks’ reporting. In contrast, we find that banks located in low social capital areas report more ambiguously during recessionary periods when management may have to report unfavorable news.

We examine the association between societal trust and the levels of CEO compensation and the proportion of equity-based compensation of 897 firm-years from 18 countries over the 2007–2013 period. We find both the levels of CEO compensation as well as the proportion of equity-based compensation to be lower in countries with higher levels of societal trust. This suggests that costly regulations on CEO compensation may not be as necessary in jurisdictions with higher levels of societal trust. We also examine the association between pay disparity and societal trust. Consistent with our finding of lower pay at the CEO rank, we find pay disparities are lower in countries with higher levels of societal trust.