Volume 15, Issue 4

Termination fees have become a frequently employed non-price term in acquisition contracts. They allow the breaking party to walk-away from the transaction after paying a fee to the remaining party. While the inclusion of termination fees has been shown to increase contracting efficiency, the fee size has received only scant academic interest. This is surprising as termination fees are often asymmetric, i.e., of unequal magnitude for the bidder and the target. Based on an international dataset of 25,026 global acquisitions between 2012 and 2015, we find that bidder and target characteristics influence the structure of termination fees. More precisely, we show that target termination fees are higher if the target is insolvent. Bidder termination fees are higher, in contrast, if the bidder is an institutional investor. Our study thus contributes to understanding the influence of bargaining power on non-price terms by examining the structure of termination fees.

The study challenges the dominant narrative that Romanian consumer and residential credit laws are a product of the country’s return to capitalism and the market economy, proposing an alternative interpretation. It demonstrates that the origins of Romanian consumer and residential credit laws lay in the pre-World War II and communist legislation that survived the 1989 Revolution. This shows that the communist legacy in consumer and residential credit is real and more enduring than expected and that communism did not differ from capitalism in this respect, other than how consumer and residential credit was organised. Using legal history and doctrinal analysis in a functional approach coupled with statistical and empirical data, the study proves the existence of a normative continuity between pre-and post-1989 Romanian consumer and residential credit laws that ended with the EU accession efforts. Finally, this continuity between communist and capitalist consumer and residential credit laws indicates functional similarities between the monarchic (capitalist) and communist legal systems, further undermining the relevance of political and economic ideology and the idea that communism was inimical to consumers and consumer or residential credit.

The paper considers the problem of the economic feasibility of cannabis legalization in the Russian Federation. The paper also analyzes attitudes towards cannabis legalization among 584 residents (291 female and 293 male, 18.8 ± 1.4 for men, 18.3 ± 1.6 for women) from two different Russian regions (with the highest (Republic of Khakassia, Chelyabinsk Region, Moscow Region, Amur Region, and Saint-Petersburg) and lowest (Chukotka Autonomous District, Nenets Autonomous District, Chechen Republic, Arkhangelsk Region, and Orel Region) per capita drug use in the Russian Federation). All participants were interviewed via the Internet. In the first stage, a keyword analysis categorized articles into medical (48 %) and non-medical (52 %) cannabis use, revealing varied perspectives on its benefits and risks. The second stage surveyed Russian citizens, indicating regional differences in attitudes toward cannabis legalization based on per capita drug use. The third stage conducted a PEST analysis, highlighting economic consequences and offering recommendations. Practical implications include the need for targeted prevention programs, effective curriculum modules, and collaborative efforts to address the complex challenges associated with cannabis legalization. The study found that the public attitude towards the legalization of drugs for non-medical purposes is negative. In regions with the highest per capita soft drug use, the legalization of non-medical cannabis is unlikely to cause an increase in the level of usage. Teenagers living in regional centers tend to be more engaged in trying and using cannabis (11.9 %) compared to other cities (8.8 %, p  ≤ 0.05) and rural areas, where the rate of cannabis use was the lowest (5.4 %, p  ≤ 0.05). This research underscores the importance of tailored interventions and educational strategies to address diverse attitudes toward cannabis legalization. The findings contribute valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and health professionals, guiding the development of informed approaches to substance use prevention. The recommendations emphasize the necessity of proactive measures, such as outreach programs and collaborative efforts, to navigate the multifaceted implications of cannabis legalization and promote overall societal well-being.

We explore social networks in accounting research. Our sample spans the 1996–2015 period and includes all research articles that were published in the Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting Organizations and Society, Review of Accounting Studies, and Contemporary Accounting Research. Employing social network analysis, we delineate and discuss the structure of scientific collaboration as it appears in the acknowledgments of published research articles. We identify the most central nodes in this nexus of intellectual partnership. Furthermore, we discover that acknowledgments constitute a small-world social network, with high average clustering coefficient and small average distance within a giant component which covers the biggest part of the acknowledgment network.

Credit risk assessment forms the cornerstone of banking stability, yet lending decisions continue to vary substantially across institutions, reflecting heterogeneity in appraisal mechanisms and the subjective influence of lending officers. While prior studies extensively document global practices in credit evaluation and risk management, relatively little is known about how loan officers exercise judgment and decision-making during the lending process. This study addresses this gap by analysing behavioural factors that shape credit risk assessment in Indian banks. The investigation proceeds across three dimensions: the relationship between risk attitude and information acquisition, the role of professional experience in lending behaviour, and the desirable personal attributes of loan officers. Data were collected through questionnaires administered to 275 executives, fictitious case analyses, and unstructured interviews with senior loan officers. The empirical analysis employed the Kruskal–Wallis test, correlation and Cramer’s V, factor analysis, and the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). Findings reveal that risk attitude does not significantly influence information acquisition, whereas experience exerts a strong effect on lending behaviour. Junior and senior loan officers demonstrate more cautious and structured approaches than outsourced loan officers, with senior loan officers exhibiting a stronger rejection bias in loan approval decisions. In addition, twenty-seven desirable loan officer attributes were identified, which were subsequently prioritised using FAHP and synthesised into three broad dimensions – capability, basic abilities, and interpersonal abilities. These results indicate that senior loan officers provide higher but less dispersed evaluations of attributes, underscoring the importance of domain expertise and interpersonal effectiveness. Although the study does not employ psychometric validation for personal attributes, it contributes practical insights for recruitment and training processes by highlighting the qualities that enhance credit appraisal reliability. The research also advances interdisciplinary understanding by integrating behavioural finance and decision-making perspectives to explain the cognitive and psychological foundations of lending behaviour.