Since its introduction to the field of environmental and natural resource economics in the late 1960s, existence value has faced several critiques from economists, psychologists, and philosophers. Critics have taken aim at the notion’s conceptual ambiguity and lack of connection to observable behavior, its incompatibility with cognitive processes and its sensitivity to cognitive biases, and ethical shortcomings in applying existence values to environmental decisionmaking. Unlike some critiques of existence value that draw on cognitive and ethical frameworks for decisionmaking fundamentally at odds with stated preference methods and benefit–cost analysis (BCA), this paper takes as given the use and adequacy of both. It focuses on challenges to existence value per se, with respect to the ability of existence value estimates to contribute to benefit–cost analyses in a way that is consistent with qualities of BCA that its proponents value: the objectivity, commensurability, and moral salience of the values analyzed. In light of the challenges, inclusion of existence value in benefit–cost analyses is found to inevitably compromise the quality of the BCA with respect to each criterion.

We study the dynamics of cash-and-carry arbitrage using the U.S. crude oil market. Sizable arbitrage-related inventory movements occur at the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) futures contract delivery point but not at other storage locations, where instead, operational factors explain most inventory changes. We add to the theory-of-storage literature by introducing two new features. First, due to arbitrageurs contracting ahead, inventories respond to not only contemporaneous but also lagged futures spreads. Second, storage-capacity limits can impede cash-and-carry arbitrage, leading to the persistence of unexploited arbitrage opportunities. Our findings suggest that arbitrage-induced inventory movements are, on average, price stabilizing.

The liquidity-coverage ratio (LCR) requires banks to hold enough liquidity to withstand a 30-day run. We study the effects of the LCR on broker-dealers, the financial intermediaries at the epicenter of the 2007–2009 crisis. The LCR brings some financial-stability benefits, including a significant maturity extension of triparty repos backed by lower-quality collateral, as well as the accumulation of larger liquidity pools. However, it also leads to less liquidity transformation by broker-dealers. We also discuss the liquidity risks not addressed by the LCR. Finally, we show that a major source of fire-sale risk was self-corrected before the introduction of postcrisis regulations.

Is offering hazard pay ethically permissible when the pay premium is the only reason that a dangerous job is accepted? Robert C. Hughes argues that it is not. Central to his argument is the claim that in such cases, workers intend the foreseeable risks of harm as a means to the pay premium. Herein I question the plausibility of this claim and then develop a conception of the concept of means sufficient to make it plausible. By so doing, I provide support for Hughes’s stringent position.

This article studies dynamic compensation and risk management under cash-flow volatility shocks. The optimal contract depends critically on firms’ ability to make good on promised future payments to managers. When volatility is low, firms with full commitment ability implement high pay–performance sensitivity to motivate effort from managers, and they impose large penalties on the arrival of volatility shocks to incentivize prudent risk management. In contrast, firms with limited commitment may allow excessive risk taking in exchange for low pay–performance sensitivity. When volatility becomes high, firms with full commitment defer compensation more, whereas firms with limited commitment must expedite payments.

This article investigates the relationship between director networks and earnings quality in Malaysia. Using data on 4,416 individual directors who served on the boards of 745 firms listed on Bursa, Malaysia during 2011, we map the entire network of directors and generate measures to reflect the size and quality of information within the network. We find a negative and significant relationship between the overall connectedness of a director's network and the firm's earnings quality. In addition, we find a negative and significant relationship between the political connectedness of the director's network and earnings quality. Our results are robust for different measures of earnings quality.

Taking urgent action to combat climate change is a pivotal Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Since it is closely intertwined with the other 16 goals, it is frequently characterized as a ‘wicked problem par excellence.’ Interdisciplinary research, i.e., research crossing disciplinary boundaries, offers promise for grappling with wicked problems, but also entails significant challenges to researchers. In this study, we use bibliometric methods to understand how management scholars have, over the course of four decades, straddled disciplinary boundaries and what impact their efforts have had on top-tier climate change research appearing in Science and Nature. We find that management scholarship on climate change (1) has grown significantly since the mid-2000s, (2) features substantial engagement with an interdisciplinary knowledge base, and (3) fails to attract the attention of climate change research within top-tier interdisciplinary journals. We discuss these findings with reference to the ongoing discourse on raising management scholarship's relevance and impact.

By employing a novel, hand-collected sample of withdrawn and completed share issue privatizations, we show that both groups undergo comparable restructuring processes over the 3 years preceding the event. We employ matching procedures to explicitly control for the restructuring effect, isolating the effect of the ownership transfer from state to private investors on corporate policies and performance. We document that, absent the ownership transfer, most of the gains realized during the restructuring process are reabsorbed over the posttreatment period. The transition from state to private ownership thus represents a necessary condition for the long-term success of privatization programs.

This paper presents my thinking and concerns about formation of COVID-19 policy. Policy formation must cope with substantial uncertainties about the nature of the disease, the dynamics of transmission, and behavioral responses. Data uncertainties limit our knowledge of the past trajectory and current state of the pandemic. Data and modeling uncertainties limit our ability to predict the impacts of alternative policies. I explain why current epidemiological and macroeconomic modeling cannot deliver realistically optimal policy. I describe my recent work quantifying basic data uncertainties that make policy analysis difficult. I discuss approaches for policy choice under uncertainty and suggest adaptive policy diversification.

We study the impact of board reforms implemented in 40 countries worldwide on corporate dividend policy. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that firms pay higher dividends following the reforms. The increase in dividend payouts is more pronounced for firms with weak board governance in the pre-reform period and those in countries with strong external governance mechanisms. Our findings corroborate the dividend outcome model, which postulates that board reforms strengthen the monitoring role of the board and empower outside shareholders to force management to disgorge dividends.

We propose an explanation for why corporate investment used to be sensitive to cash flow and why the sensitivity declined over time. The sensitivity stems from the informational role of cash flow in inferring the productivity of tangible capital in the old economy. Over time, however, more new-economy firms enter the market. These firms have reduced tangible capital productivity and reduced cash-flow predictability, which drives the decline in the average investment–cash flow sensitivity. Theoretical and empirical analyses support this explanation.