Tony Wirjanto, a curator for Insurance and Asset Management for the World Economic Forum and professor at the School of Accounting and Finance, takes us through how COVID-19 has affected the insurance industry, and what can be done about it.
The repercussions of COVID-19 and worsening climate change are among the issues that will impact the insurance industry, according to Tony Wirjanto, University of Waterloo professor.
Wirjanto, working as a curator in Insurance and Asset Management for the World Economic Forum (WEF), identified eight key issues poised to influence the insurance industry in the recently released WEF Transformation Maps.
Authors Kenneth Klassen (pictured) and Nick Pantaleo explore the pressure on the CRA to raise more tax revenues, as well as assess the efficiency of the audit process and the fairness of results.
Incentives to increase assessments were amplified by recent funding for the CRA that carries an expectation that additional tax revenues of $5 will be collected for each $1 spent, a “return” that is much higher than in the past. As well, these additional tax revenues are explicitly linked to closing the “tax gap,” the CRA’s measure of how much tax revenue theoretically exists versus how much is actually paid voluntarily.
Environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) scores have been widely touted as indicators of share price resilience during the COVID-19 humanitarian crisis. We undertake extensive analyses to investigate this claim and present robust evidence that, once the firm’s industry affiliation and accounting- and market-based measures of risk have been properly controlled for, ESG scores offer no such positive explanatory power for returns during COVID-19.
While many live events are being cancelled due to restrictions for in-person gatherings, Concept continues to showcase their achievements and successes by hosting virtual competitions. Similar to Velocity’s virtual Fund Pitch Competition (VFPC), Concept pivoted two of their major in-person events to video submissions which garnered more than one hundred applicants combined. Audiences were then invited to virtually attend each event where a panel of local startup founders scored and selected the final winners.
The Concept $5K grant supports undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Waterloo who have creative, technological ideas.
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed many workplaces from bustling offices with shared work spaces to remote, telecommuting networks. Employees around the world now find themselves working in isolation away from the familiarity of their colleagues and their workplace. This unplanned, but profound, shift in job design can have detrimental effects on employee engagement.
Facing an unprecedented global crisis, it’s natural to turn to taxes for comfort. As strange or unwanted a claim as this seems, our tax system reflects our societal wants and needs, and the behaviours we wish to encourage or discourage.
We investigate how board expertise affects chief executive officer (CEO) incentives and firm value. The CEO engages in a sequence of tasks: first acquiring information to evaluate a potential project, then reporting his or her assessment of the project to the board, and finally implementing the project if it is adopted.
Related party transactions (hereafter RPTs) involve a transfer of resources, services, or obligations between a reporting entity and a related party (SFAS 57; IAS 24). Although not all RPTs are “bad," prior research documents that some RPTs reflect insider opportunism and are harmful to shareholders.
Policy makers and regulators generally believe firms should enlist directors with more expertise. For example, the U.S.