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• Article | Accounting Horizons | March 2020

  Voluntary, Self-Regulatory, and Mandatory Disclosure of Oil and Gas Company Payments to Foreign Governments

  Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim

  Concerns about high rates of government corruption in resource-rich countries have led transparency advocates to urge oil and gas firms to disclose payments to host governments for natural resources. Transparency, they argue, can increase government accountability and mitigate corruption. However, we find a low frequency of voluntary disclosures of payments by oil and gas firms and negative stock price reactions for affected firms at the announcement of regulations mandating disclosure. This suggests that sample firm managers and their investors perceive that such disclosures generate private costs, despite any public benefits. We document that industry self-regulation has generated information to substitute for the gap in voluntary company disclosure and that such disclosures are accompanied by lower country corruption ratings. This suggests that collective action could be an effective way for companies to manage the private costs of disclosure and respond to public pressure for transparency that could provide public benefits.

  Keywords: oil ＆ gas; corruption; transparency; self-regulation; industry self-regulation; regulation; disclosure; disclosure regulation; Energy Sources; Crime and Corruption; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Energy Industry;

  Citation:

  Healy, Paul M., and George Serafeim. "Voluntary, Self-Regulatory, and Mandatory Disclosure of Oil and Gas Company Payments to Foreign Governments." Accounting Horizons 34, no. 1 (March 2020): 111–129.  View Details

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• Working Paper | 2020

  Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations

  J. Yo-Jud Cheng, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan

  Keywords: corporate governance; boards of directors; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Performance Effectiveness; Perception;

  Citation:

  Cheng, J. Yo-Jud, Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy, and Rajesh Vijayaraghavan. "Directors' Perceptions of Board Effectiveness and Internal Operations." Working Paper, February 2020. (Under revision at Management Science.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2011 (Revised December 2019)

  Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)

  Paul M. Healy, George Serafeim and David Lane

  The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS had helped some 52,000 U.S. residents hide billions of dollars in untaxed assets in secret Swiss accounts between 2000 and 2007, depriving the U.S. Treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Why did this happen inside UBS? What were the incentives and the corporate governance failures that led to these events? How should the board of directors of UBS respond to the requests of the tax and regulatory authorities?

  Keywords: fraud; regulatory enforcement; Reputation incentives; crony capitalism; tax havens; legitimacy; multinational; strategic change; incentives; transparency; financial services; Taxation; Crime and Corruption; Global Range; Asset Management; Ethics; Problems and Challenges; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Corporate Governance; Financial Services Industry; United States; Switzerland;

  Citation:

  Healy, Paul M., George Serafeim, and David Lane. "Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)." Harvard Business School Case 111-082, March 2011. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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