Isaac Ofoeda

In periods of crisis, organizations and nations experience heightened demands to achieve financial targets, which result in unethical conduct such as the manipulation of financial data and the misrepresentation of financial information or funds. The study aimed at assessing the relationships between Crisis Accounting, Ethical Considerations and Financial Irregularities and establish the moderating role of Ethical Consideration in the relationship that exists between Crisis Accounting and Financial Irregularities. Data from 309 accountants were used to establish the relation between the variables using Partial Least Square - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysed in SmartPLS 3. The results revealed a positive relationship between Crisis Accounting and Financial Irregularities and also significant impact in the relationship between Ethical Consideration and Financial Irregularities. The results also revealed a strong moderating role of ethical consideration on the relation between Crisis Accounting and Financial Irregularities. The study, therefore, recommends that ethical standards and considerations should be enhanced in accounting practice to limit or deter financial irregularities in crisis situations.

Purpose: This study examines the influence of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations on the financial development-economic growth nexus around the world.Design/methodology/approach: The study uses data from 165 countries spanning continents, income levels, and regulatory regimes from 2012 to 2018. The Prais–Winsten (1954) and Hansen (2000) panel threshold estimation approaches were used to assess the study's hypothesized relationships.Findings: Financial development, according to the research, generally stimulates economic growth. However, the authors find evidence of AML regulations' threshold effect on the finance-growth connection, with the impact of finance on growth being positive below the threshold value. Above the threshold, however, the authors observe a negative influence. Further, the authors find that AML regulations have a considerable detrimental impact on the finance-growth nexus over the threshold for developed countries. However, the authors find a positive but insignificant effect of finance on growth below the AML regulations threshold for African countries, while finance positively impacts growth above the AML regulations threshold.Practical implications: The findings of the study imply that countries must make conscious efforts to combat the incidence of money laundering by establishing policies to improve financial transparency and standards, promoting public sector transparency and accountability, reducing legal and political risk, and combating bribery and corruption.Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature as it is the first attempt to examine the moderating role of AML regulations in the finance-growth nexus. Also, the study examines the threshold effect of how AML regulations impact the finance-growth nexus.

This paper is a systematic attempt to establish the effect of anti-money laundering (AML) systems on FDI flows across the globe. Complex and related hypotheses are tested using data from 2012 to 2018 across 165 economies across different continents, income levels, and regulatory environments. First, the paper examines the effect of AML systems on FDI flows. Second, the paper examines the nonlinearities of the AML systems-FDI nexus. Third, the paper examines if host country peculiarities such as an offshore financial centre (OFCs) or originating from Africa alter this relationship. The paper employs the two-step system GMM and the dynamic panel threshold regression techniques to test the hypotheses of the study. Generally, the paper provides evidence that AML systems positively promote FDI inflows. However, the paper finds that AML structures dampen FDIs inflows for OFCs. Further, the paper finds that the influence of AML systems on FDIs is threshold-specific. Specifically, AML systems positively impact FDIs below the threshold for our full, developing, and African country samples. At the same time, the study finds a negative impact of AML structures on FDIs above the threshold value for our full sample and developing countries. However, for Africa, the study provides evidence of a positive impact of AML systems on FDIs across the different AML structures. Again, the study finds that AML systems negatively impact FDI across all AML structures for offshore financial centres. The findings of the study provide insights into the importance of AML systems in influencing MNEs’ FDI decisions to a country.

This study seeks to establish the impact of anti‐money laundering (AML) regulations on economic growth as well as how AML regulations influence the foreign direct investment (FDI)–growth nexus for 165 economies across the globe. We employ Prais–Winsten and the Hansen (2000) panel threshold regression estimation techniques to test the hypotheses of the study. We use data ranging from 2012 to 2018. We provide evidence that AML regulations generally stimulate growth; however, AML regulations only stimulate growth below the threshold value. Again, although we report that FDI stimulates growth, the growth‐enhancing impact of FDI is more pronounced at higher levels of AML regulations.