Journal of Risk and Financial Management

From fiscal year 2020, Korea has required a listed company that has kept the same auditor for six consecutive years to accept an auditor chosen by the securities regulator and keep it for three years. This study estimates what the rule costs and what it delivers. Using 17,890 firm-years from 2258 listed companies over 2015 to 2024, with designation identified from the auditor-change pattern the statute dictates, it estimates firm and year fixed-effects regressions against voluntary switchers. Designation raises the audit fee by 37.5 per cent and contracted audit hours by 14.8 per cent, so the average fee per audit hour rises by 19.7 per cent. Hours actually worked, disclosed separately by the auditor, give the same answer, and the composition of the engagement team does not change. Net of a voluntary change, the fee still rises by 0.1475 log points and hours by 0.0866. Absolute discretionary accruals do not move, and the interval excludes any improvement larger than a tenth of a standard deviation. Every effect appears in the designation year and disappears when the term expires. The costs of the regime are high and precisely estimated; no consistent improvement is observed in the accrual-based measure examined.

This study examines perceived anti-money laundering (AML) effectiveness in the context of cryptocurrency usage in Nigeria, with particular emphasis on perceived regulatory awareness and institutional experience. As cryptocurrency adoption continues to expand in developing economies, concerns have emerged regarding the capacity of existing regulatory frameworks to effectively monitor and control illicit financial activities. A quantitative research design was adopted using structured questionnaires administered to regulatory stakeholders, including personnel from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Data were analysed using statistical techniques, including analysis of variance and regression analysis, to assess differences in perceived AML effectiveness and its association with awareness and experience. The findings indicate that perceived regulatory awareness and institutional experience were not significantly associated with perceived AML effectiveness. This suggests that perceived regulatory awareness and institutional experience alone may have limited explanatory value for differences in perceived AML effectiveness in the context of cryptocurrency-related financial crime. The results indicate that perceived regulatory awareness and institutional experience explain only a small proportion of the variation in perceived AML effectiveness. The study contributes to the literature by providing evidence on regulatory stakeholders’ perceptions of AML effectiveness and the roles of perceived regulatory awareness and institutional experience within Nigeria’s cryptocurrency context.

This study examines regional agricultural credit allocation and intensity in Kazakhstan and their relevance to financial inclusion. Data cover 17 harmonised units in 2014–2023. Two-way fixed-effects models use 153 observations for 2015–2023 (T = 9), after lagging output. Outcomes comprise total real credit, credit per agricultural worker, and credit per hectare. Credit remains concentrated: the 2014–2023 Spearman rank correlation is 0.93, and 13 of 17 units remain in the same quartile. The modest decline in the top-three share is not statistically distinguishable from zero. A 1% increase in lagged agricultural output is associated with 0.63% higher current credit. Subsidies are positively associated with credit, with moderate evidence of a stronger association in initially high-credit regions. The interaction has weaker bootstrap support (p = 0.061; 95% CI [−0.01, 0.30]), so the distributional evidence is suggestive rather than definitive. Separate and joint models support a positive branch-density association; ATM-density estimates are imprecise. Regional differences and the main associations persist in the normalised outcomes. These non-causal associations concern geographic financial access and cannot establish borrower-level exclusion. Aggregate credit growth alone does not establish geographically inclusive agricultural finance.