Community Informatics has declared that the global is a federation of locals. James Quilligan has written an essay to the effect that applying such a definition of global requires a world institution of democratic governance. Some members of the community of community informatics researchers have come to a similar conclusion. This essay outlines an alternative interpretation based on complex ad...

This paper examines the relation between political connections and informed trading by corporate insiders in the context of government intervention during the Financial Crisis. Consistent with politically connected insiders extracting rents from shareholders, we find strong evidence of a relation between political connections and informed trading by corporate insiders. We find that the relation...

This paper examines how ownership structure and institutional development influence the liquidity management and investment policies of firms, in response to the threat of political extraction in China. First, we document evidence that firms controlled by private entrepreneurs hold less cash reserves than their state-owned counterparts. In addition, cash holdings (investments) is positively (ne...

In this paper, we examine the role of political connections by analyzing the short-and long-term performance of Chinese state owned enterprise (SOE) acquirers relative to private owned enterprise (POE) from 1994 to 2008. The empirical result shows that 1) SOE acquirers outperform the POE acquirer both in terms of long-run stock and operating performance; 2) announcement effect of POE acquirer t...

Uncertainty in the policy making process creates substantial transaction costs for firms (Williamson, 1991; Henisz andZelner, 2004). Consequently, business organisations engage in political behaviour to internalise these costs and influence the policy process in ways favourable to them. The current paper is concerned with a particular form of political strategy adopted by firms in China. A sign...

Usingdata fromthe2000NationalAnnenbergElectionSurvey, this study looksat the relationshipsbetween Internet access andonlineexposure to information about the presidential campaign and political efficacy, knowledge, and participation. Results show that Internet access and online exposure to information about the presidential campaign are significantly associated with these important political var...

In this paper, we study the corporate transparency choices of firms operating in a weak institutional environment. We argue that in relationship-based systems, high levels of corporate transparency and strong political connections are alternative means to create firm value. Firms can try to commit to more transparency by issuing securities abroad. However, the expanded disclosures and additiona...

We use the occasion of a change in tax policy that raised the tax rate for many of the listed companies in China to examine tax-induced earnings management (TEM) from the perspective of political connections. We find that when the tax rate increased, only those affected firms with politically connected management engaged in TEM. This suggests that, in addition to motivation for managing earning...