The relationship between information technology capability,inventory efficiency,and shareholder wealth: A firm-level empirical analysis

Inventories represent an important strategic resource for firms, with implications for shareholder wealth. As such, firms expend considerable effort in managing their inventories efficiently. Among other factors, information technology (IT) capability can play an important role in enabling inventory efficiency and financial performance. However, insight into the chain-of-effects linking IT capability, inventory efficiency, and stock market returns and risk remains limited. In this paper, we provide a conceptual model outlining the relationships between these constructs. Next, we evaluate the model using secondary information on firms from multiple industries across the 10-year time period of 2000–2009. Our analysis confirms that firms’ IT capability plays a significant role in enhancing their inventory efficiency, which, in turn, is observed to increase stock market returns. Our results also reveal that firms’ IT capability directly reduces their stock market risk and enhances their stock market returns. Taken together, these findings, along with the conceptual model that we advance, have important research and managerial implications.     

Market effects of private equity placement: Evidence from Chinese equity and bond markets

Research has provided empirical evidence for the stock market reaction toward private placement; however, similar research has not been conducted in terms of the bond market. Using the event study method, we empirically examine the explanatory power of the signaling, free cash flow, and wealth transfer hypotheses based on the reaction of the stock market, bond market, and firm abnormal returns to the private placement announcement. The results show that the stock market has a negative reaction toward private placement, whereas the bond market has a positive reaction. The results also show that the scale of private placement is correlated with the severity of the market reaction. Abnormal returns indicate no significant change both before and after the private placement, and they are unaffected by the scale of private placement. These results are consistent with the wealth transfer hypothesis; however, the market reaction is not attributable to the signaling hypothesis and the free cash flow hypothesis. Extensive research shows that the abnormal returns of private placement change dramatically in non-state-owned enterprises and firms with low credit rating bonds, whereas the bond maturity has no significant impact on the abnormal returns—the wealth transfer effect of private placement is stronger in non-state-owned enterprises and firms with low credit rating bond.     

REAL OPTIONS AND THE CROSS‐SECTION OF EXPECTED STOCK RETURNS

This paper surveys the theoretical literature investigating the effect of firms’ investment flexibility on the cross‐section of expected stock returns. Real options analysis derives firms’ value‐maximizing investment policies as functions of exogenous fundamental drivers of profitability and calculates firms’ market values as functions of the same variables. These functions yield the relationship between expected stock returns and firm fundamentals. Several plausible explanations for the value premium – the high average stock returns earned by firms with high book‐to‐market ratios – emerge from this literature.     

The Relationship Between Stock Market Returns and Technical Efficiency Innovations: Evidence from the US Airline Industry

This paper analyzes the association between two firm performance measures: stock market returns and relative technical efficiency. Using linear programming techniques (Data Envelopment Analysis and Free Disposal Hull), technical efficiencies are calculated for a panel of eleven US airlines observed quarterly from 1970–1990. A relationship, between efficiency news in a quarter and stock market performance in the following two months, is found. A risky arbitrage portfolio strategy, of buying firms with the most positive efficiency news and short-selling those with the worst news during this time frame, results in zero beta risk yet yields annual returns of 17% and 18% for the two methodologies.     

Disclosure quality,price efficiency,and expected returns

Using a composite disclosure quality measure, we examine the effect of disclosure quality on price delay and the effect of price delay determined by disclosure quality on expected returns in the Taiwan stock market. We find that higher disclosure quality can reduce stock price delay through more investor attention and higher stock liquidity after we control for accounting quality variables and consider the endogeneity issue. Furthermore, we show that disclosure quality reduces expected stock returns through the price efficiency channel associated with both investor attention and stock liquidity. Our results indicate that increasing a firm’s standardized information rating by one standard deviation can reduce its expected stock return by 0.63% annually. Taken together, our evidence suggests that regulatory activities enforced to improve public firms’ disclosure quality in the Taiwan stock market can make the stock market more efficient and therefore lower investors’ required return for stocks.     

Abnormal research and development investments and stock returns

We investigate the relation between abnormal research and development (R&D) investments change and expected stock returns. We provide evidence that firms that abnormally increase their R&D investments (RDI) earn higher returns in comparison to the market portfolio. Specifically, our findings document an economically significant annual positive abnormal RDI returns that ranges from 3.2% to 11.5%. These findings are robust to well-established risk factors in the literature and suggest that the abnormal increases in RDI impacts stock returns.     

The relationship between the smoothing of reported income and risk-adjusted returns

This paper uses risk-adjusted returns for the firms in the S&P 500 to test whether the stock market response to accounting performance measures is related to the smoothness of companies’ reported earnings. Three income models, increasing in their measure of smoothness, test the hypotheses using cumulative average abnormal returns. The results indicate that companies that report smooth income have significantly higher cumulative average abnormal returns than firms that do not. When size is considered, market returns are higher for small companies than for large companies. There is also a significant relationship between the type of industry and income smoothing.     

The changing relationship between job loss announcements and stock prices: 1970–1999

We study the reaction of stock prices to announcements of reductions in force (RIFs) using a sample of 4273 such announcements in 1160 large firms during the 1970–99 period collected from the Wall Street Journal. We note that the total number of actual announcements for the firms in our sample follows the business cycle quite closely. We then examine changes over time in standard summary statistics (means, medians, fraction positive) of the distribution of stock market reactions, measured by the cumulative excess returns (CER) of firms' stock prices over a 3-day event window centered on the announcement date, as well as changes over time in kernel density estimates of this distribution. We find clear evidence that the distribution of stock market reactions shifted to the right (became less negative) over time. One possible explanation for this change is that, over the last three decades, RIFs designed to improve efficiency have become more common relative to RIFs designed to cope with reductions in product demand. We estimate multivariate regression models of the CER controlling for the stated reason for the announced layoff, industry, and other characteristics of the announced layoff. We find that almost none of the decline in the negative average stock price reaction between the 1970s and 1990s can be explained by these factors.     

Supply chain integration and shareholder value: Evidence from consortium based industry exchanges

Recent trade and academic literature point to the importance of supply chain integration among partners as a key determinant of value creation. This paper analyzes the shareholder value effects of setting up industry exchanges, a prominent mechanism used to achieve supply chain integration. Shareholder value effects are estimated by measuring the stock market reaction (abnormal returns) associated with announcements to form or join industry exchanges. We find that abnormal returns from participation in industry exchanges are positive but only marginally significant in the whole sample of 144 firms in 18 exchanges formed during 2000–2001. In the sub-sample of 88 exchange founders who were part of the original announcements to form the exchange, the abnormal market reaction is about 1% and significant. We also find that firms with greater bargaining power and higher process efficiency benefit more from participation in industry exchanges.     

The stock performance of America's 100 Best Corporate Citizens

We consider the stock performance of America's 100 Best Corporate Citizens following the annual survey by Business Ethics. We examine both possible short-term announcement effects around the time of the survey's publication, and whether longer-term returns are higher for firms that are listed as good citizens. We find some evidence of a positive market reaction to a firm's presence in the Top 100 firms that are made public, and that holders of the stock of such firms earn small abnormal returns during an announcement window. Over the year following the announcement, companies in the Top 100 yield negative abnormal returns of around 3%. However, such companies tend to be large and with stocks exhibiting a growth style, which existing studies suggest will tend to perform poorly. Once we allow for these firm characteristics, the poor performance of the highly rated firms declines. We also find companies that are newly listed as good citizens and companies in the Top 100 but outside the S&P 500 can provide considerable positive abnormal returns to investors, even after allowing for their market capitalization, price-to-book ratios, and sectoral classification.     

Firm efficiency and stock returns

In this paper, we investigate the role of firm efficiency in asset pricing using a sample of US publicly listed companies for the period 1988–2007. We employ non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) on various input/output combinations, focusing on sales and market value as output measures in the construction of the frontier technologies. Using these performance measures, we examine whether efficient firms perform differently from inefficient firms following standard financial analysis procedures. First, we employ performance attribution regressions, by forming portfolios based on efficiency scores and tracking the performance of the various portfolios over time. Second, we perform cross-sectional/panel regressions to determine whether firm efficiency indeed has explanatory power for the cross-section of stock returns. Our results suggest that firm efficiency plays an important role in asset pricing and that efficient firms significantly outperform inefficient firms even after controlling for known risk factors.     

The impact of reshoring decisions on shareholder wealth

Interest in reshoring, defined as the return of manufacturing and service operations from previously offshored locations to the U.S., has gained momentum recently. Yet, there is no academic evidence on the shareholder value implications of reshoring decisions. This paper analyzes the shareholder wealth effects of 37 reshoring decisions announced by U.S. firms during 2006–2015. Our results indicate that reshoring announcements result in positive abnormal stock returns. Mean (median) abnormal stock returns on reshoring announcements are 0.45% (0.29%), corresponding with a mean (median) market value change of $322.57 million ($31.60 million). Our findings imply that the benefits associated with the reshoring tend to outweigh the costs. This finding is relevant for firms faced with the decision of whether to move business activities from offshore to domestic locations. It is also of interest to policy makers who may seek to further stimulate the reshoring phenomenon.     

Selecting the portfolio investment strategy under political structure change in United States

This paper investigated whether stock market returns and volatilities were induced by change of long-term political structure. The empirical study finds that the political change is a crucial variable to DJIA and S&P 500 stock returns, but is insignificant to volatilities. But after the 1987 Crash, the political change has a positive effect on DJIA stock returns, and reduced the risk of DJIA and S&P 500. When political structure change, significant economic policies must submit to political realities and those proposed by previous governments often do not get implemented, resulting in market confusion. But following the increasing the consummation of market structure during post-1987 crash, hence, the political change effect increased DJIA stock returns, and reduced the risk of DJIA and S&P 500, and therefore the investors might be able to make a profit when they took active portfolio positions of DJIA.     

Order Imbalance,Liquidity, and Market Efficiency: Evidence from the Chinese Stock Market

We used data from the Chinese stock market to quantify the amount of time for the market to converge to efficiency. Order imbalance may predict returns when there is no designated market maker. In spite of availability of the direction of trade information in the Chinese stock market, it takes longer for information regarding order imbalance to be incorporated into stock prices in China than in the USA. With information on past returns and order imbalance, it takes between 15 and 30 min to converge to efficiency in the Chinese stock market. The process of converging to efficiency depends highly on liquidity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of the logistics service standardization on firm value: Evidence from China

In 2014, the Standardization Administration of China launched its first pilot project of the logistics service standardization (LSS). We examine whether the staggered adoption of the LSS creates value for shareholders using a difference-in-difference research design. The findings suggest that firms located in LSS cities have higher firm value in terms of Tobin’s Q and stock returns than those of non-LSS cities. In further analysis, we find that the LSS enhances firm value by improving corporate operational efficiency. However, the LSS increases large firms’ market share at the expense of small firms. Overall, our findings advance the literature of logistics system reform and show that such reform creates value for shareholders.     

The role of the seller’s stock performance in the market reaction to divestiture announcements

Divestitures have the potential to create shareholder value. However, the extent of the market reaction should depend on the likelihood of finding more valuable uses for the divested assets or the ability on the part of the seller to eliminate negative synergies. We hypothesize that strong performers have less scope to achieve substantial improvements compared to poorly performing firms. Using the seller’s stock return in excess of the market return in the 1-year and 2-year periods preceding the divestiture announcement to expose the divesting firm’s inefficient use of its assets, we show that the market reaction to divestiture announcements is significantly higher for underperforming firms. The difference in abnormal returns can be as high as 4 %. In contrast, none of the accounting-based variables that have been used in previous studies are found to be significantly related to the announcement returns. These results suggest that the firm’s stock performance is a more useful indicator of the wealth effect associated with divestitures.     

On the differential market reaction to dividend initiations

The finance literature documents substantial positive stock price reaction to dividend initiations. Most dividend initiation studies focus on the average positive reaction; however, 40 percent of the firms that initiate dividends experience negative abnormal returns at announcement. This paper focuses on the apparent heterogeneity in the stock price reaction to dividend initiation. I find that the observed negative market reaction reflects the market’s economic assessment of the impact of the event on these firms, and that it is not caused by anticipation or confounding events. The result is also supported by the fact that the market reaction to dividend initiation for these firms is negatively related to initial dividend yield. Both the positive and negative observed reactions are consistent with conventional arguments regarding the information content of dividends, and their role in mitigating agency problems.     

Executive compensation,method of payment and abnormal returns to bidding firms at takeover announcements

This study investigates the association between method of payment, long-term performance plans, managerial stockholdings and abnormal returns to bidding firms at takeover announcements, using a cross-sectional regression methodology. Previous studies have examined each of these factors separately. The results indicate that firms with long-term performance plans and high managerial stockholdings in cash offers experience significantly higher abnormal returns at the announcement of mergers prior to 1980. The study provides additional evidence in explaining the previous conflicting results (Jensen and Ruback, 1985), examining the stock market reaction of bidding firms at merger announcements.     

Mandated Recognition of Employee Stock Option Expense – The Case of Canada

On December 18, 2003 the Accounting Standards Board of Canada announced that all firms registered in Canada would be required to expense stock options‐based compensation effective January 1, 2004. While a few firms had voluntarily opted to expense stock options prior to this date, the vast majority of firms had not. This study investigates the market reaction to this announcement by listed firms in the Toronto Stock Exchange that continued to disclose option expense rather than report it in the financial statement. We find no average market reaction by our sample firms affected by this mandate around the announcement date, but a significantly negative market reaction during the 5‐day window around the issuance date of the exposure draft. However, in cross‐sectional tests around the mandated expense announcement date, we find a significant negative relationship between the cumulative abnormal returns and the Black–Scholes value (and number) of options outstanding and of options granted the previous year. These results suggest that the magnitude of the market reaction to the mandated expense announcement is related to the firm's usage of options. Our results provide further evidence that stock prices may not fully impound information disclosed in footnotes.     

Long-term stock performance following extraordinary and special cash dividends

Using essentially all declared extraordinary and special cash dividends between 1926 and 2001 which are not preceded or followed by the same for a period of three years, we find no robust post-declaration long-term abnormal stock returns, even in sub-samples defined by the special dividend yield, the bang-for-the-buck, the declaration-period abnormal return, the sub-sampling period or the stock market condition at declaration. Only event firms in the smallest CRSP market capitalization quintile display significant positive abnormal returns during the first-year following the declaration. However, these latter are not robust across sub-sampling periods. Overall, there is no compelling evidence that investors under- or over-react to extraordinary or special cash dividends.