Abnormal investment and firm performance

We find a negative relation between abnormal investment and future stock performance. Such a negative relation is mainly driven by under-investment, not over-investment. Our results are robust to various estimation methods and investment models. Both delayed market reaction and agency issues may lead to the apparently anomalous return predictability of under-investment. First, market investors may not react promptly to the fundamental information contained in under-investment about a firm’s future profitability, asset growth, and financial distress probability. Second, the negative relation between under-investment and future stock returns is more pronounced for firms with lower investor monitoring and higher agency costs.     

Accounting for Intangibles: Can Capitalization of R&D Improve Investment Efficiency?

This paper investigates the potential for accounting rules to mitigate under-investment induced by myopic managerial incentives. It exploits the difference within US GAAP requiring the capitalization of some research and development (R&D) costs in software development but proscribing the capitalization of R&D in other industries. We first investigate whether other hi-technology firms with no capitalization of R&D costs suffer higher levels of under-investment in myopic settings relative to software development firms. Second, we investigate whether the capitalization rule assists in mitigating under-investment within the software development industry, and whether this comes at the cost of over-investment in the presence of financial flexibility. Our findings are consistent with the mitigation of under-investment in the software development setting but we find no evidence of over-investment in the presence of high financial flexibility. Other hi-tech firms that cannot capitalize R&D costs suffer higher levels of under-investment relative to software development firms. Finally, we find that the ability to capitalize for the sample of software firms does reduce the probability of cutting R&D investment when managers are under earnings pressure. The findings in this paper are relevant to standard setters seeking to understand the costs imposed by (understandably) conservative accounting rules, and how verification of points of feasibility alongside less conservative accounting can prevent dysfunctional investment outcomes. This is the first study to consider whether the ability to (justifiably) capitalize the costs of internally generated intangibles can improve investment efficiency (the allocation of resources).     

Corporate social responsibility and investment efficiency: Does business strategy matter?

This study investigates how business strategy moderates the effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on over-investment. We provide new evidence on the moderating effect of business strategy between CSR and over-investment. Using a sample of over 3000 US firms with 14,375 observations for the period 1996–2016, we show that high CSR involvement firms tend to over-invest. We demonstrate that both Defend and Prospect strategies can mitigate over-investment by interacting with high CSR firms. The Defend strategy effect on over-investment CSR firms is more pronounced for non-immorality stressed and non-high tech industry firms. We find that the strategy's moderating effect is channeled through agency problems and information asymmetry. The results show that business strategy plays an important role in shaping firms' investment behavior and efficiency.     

Selective Publicity and Stock Prices

I examine how media coverage of good and bad corporate news affects stock prices, by studying the effect of investor relations (IR) firms. I find that IR firms “spin” their clients' news, generating more media coverage of positive press releases than negative press releases. This spin increases announcement returns. Around earnings announcements, however, IR firms cannot spin the news and their clients' returns are significantly lower. This pattern is consistent with positive media coverage increasing investor expectations, creating disappointment around hard information. Using reporter connections and geographical links, I argue that IR firms causally affect both media coverage and returns.     

银行信贷、非效率投资与僵尸企业——来自中国A股上市公司的经验证据

利用2009－2017年中国沪深A股上市公司数据,探究企业非效率投资与僵尸企业的关系,以及银行信贷对非效率投资与僵尸企业之间关系的影响。结果表明：企业的非效率投资与僵尸企业正相关,特别是企业过度投资中耗费的资源、形成的产能具有不可逆性,将直接增加经营风险和财务风险,导致企业沦为僵尸企业;银行信贷对企业僵尸化具有负向调节效应,相对于过度投资来说,银行信贷对于抑制投资不足导致的企业僵尸化问题更加有效;从贷款期限来看,短期贷款能够给债务企业形成流动性压力和再融资压力,迫使企业经理人提高投资效率,从而对企业僵尸化问题的调节效应更显著。     

Institutional investors' horizons and corporate employment decisions

Monitoring by long-term investors should reduce agency conflicts in firms' labor investment choices. Consistent with this argument, we find that abnormal net hiring, measured as the absolute deviation from optimal net hiring predicted by economic fundamentals, decreases in the presence of institutional investors with longer investment horizons. Firms dominated by long-term shareholders reduce both over-investment (over-hiring and under-firing) and under-investment (under-hiring) in employees. The monitoring role of long-term investors is stronger for firms facing higher labor adjustment costs both in absolute terms and relative to capital adjustment costs, and those for which human capital is regarded as more important. The effect is also more pronounced for firms that have stronger incentives and/or more opportunities to deviate from expected net hiring. We address endogeneity concerns by exploiting exogenous changes to long-term institutional ownership resulting from annual reconstitutions of the Russell indexes.     

The impacts of share pledging on firm investment timing and valuation

This paper applies a model in the real options framework to analyze the impacts of controlling shareholder’s share pledging on corporate investment timing and valuation. We find that the optimal investment timing shows an inverted U-shape with the pledge ratio, indicating that share pledging exacerbates firms’ over-investment and worsens firms’ under-investment. Furthermore, share pledging hurts firms’ option value unless active measures are taken to control the pledging risks. The maintenance requirement can keep controlling shareholder from irrational early investments and protect investors from severe wealth losses. In addition, our work can provide testable empirical implications.     

生命周期视角下非效率投资的影响动因研究

以2009~2012年沪深 A 股上市公司为样本,从企业发展动态的角度检验非效率投资的影响动因。研究表明：成长期和成熟期上市公司的过度投资行为由管理者代理冲突所致,衰退期国有企业的过度投资由大股东代理矛盾所致,非国有企业的过度投资行为由管理者代理冲突和大股东代理矛盾共同所致;成长期上市公司投资不足主要由融资约束所致,成熟期和衰退期公司投资不足由融资约束和两类代理冲突共同所致,且非国有公司比国有公司面临更加严格的融资约束。     

数字化转型视角下数字金融对企业投资效率的影响效应分析

以2011—2021年沪深A股和中小板上市公司为样本,分析数字金融对企业投资效率的影响效应。研究结果表明：数字金融能够缓解企业的投资不足,但会加剧企业的投资过度,与A股上市公司相比,数字金融对中小板上市公司的影响程度更大;数字金融影响投资效率的内在机制为缓解企业融资约束,主要表现为提高企业的信贷可得性;数字金融对投资效率的影响主要体现在制造业、软件和信息技术服务业、生产和生活性服务业,数字金融对内控有效企业投资过度的影响不显著。因此,要大力推进数字金融的发展,优化农村地区数字金融环境和强化企业内部控制建设。     

The Bankruptcy Decision and Debt Contract Renegotiations

We consider the bankruptcy law and workout practices in the United States and model bankruptcy as a strategic decision. We analyze a firm's choice between liquidation under Chapter 7, renegotiation of the debt contract in a workout, and reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. Our premise is that a financially distressed firm chooses its action in order to minimize the loss in value caused by the well-known over- and under-investment problems. We show that the firm initiates a workout when it faces under-investment, and commences Chapter 11 when it faces over-investment. Some of the results are: (i) in default, total firm value and equity value increase upon the announcement of a workout and decrease upon the announcement of Chapter 11; (ii) firms with shorter maturity of debt are more likely to reorganize in a workout; (iii) among the firms that renegotiate their debt contract, the proportion of firms entering Chapter 11 is higher for firms in mature industries than for firms in growth industries.     

高管薪酬粘性、风险承担与企业投资效率——管理者权力与融资约束的调节作用

本文选取2010―2019年中国A股上市公司数据,实证分析了高管薪酬粘性对企业投资效率的影响及其作用机制。研究表明:(1)高管薪酬粘性对企业投资效率具有负向影响,会加剧企业过度投资,由此加大非效率投资及降低投资效率。(2)高管薪酬粘性对企业投资效率的负向影响仅对“奖优-低惩劣”薪酬契约有效。相对于非国有、高估值与制造业企业,高管薪酬粘性对国有、低估值与非制造业企业投资效率的负向影响更为显著。(3)管理者权力的提高会加剧高管薪酬粘性对企业投资效率的负向影响,加剧高管权力寻租引发的薪酬补偿效应,由此稀释薪酬奖惩对业绩变动的敏感度。融资约束程度的提高会减弱高管薪酬粘性对企业投资效率的负向影响,这种负向影响主要针对投资不足企业,对过度投资企业不显著。(4)风险承担在高管薪酬粘性与企业投资效率的关系中承担着中介作用,高管薪酬粘性通过影响企业风险承担来影响企业投资效率,“高管薪酬粘性-风险承担-企业投资效率”的传导渠道有效。     

Financial Contracting and Leverage Induced Over- and Under-Investment Incentives

This paper investigates the effects of seniority rules and restrictive dividend convenants on the over- and under-investment incentives associated with risky debt. We show that increasing seniority of new debt decreases the incidence of under-investment but increases over-investment, and vice versa. Under symmetric information, the optimal seniority rule is to give new debtholders first claim on a new project without recourse to existing assets (i.e., project financing). Under asymmetric information, the optimal debt contract requires equating the expected return to new debtholders in the default state to the new project's cash flow in the same rate. If this is not possible, the optimal seniority rule calls for strict subordination of new debt if the expected cash flow in default is small and full seniority if it is large. With regard to dividend convenants, we show that their effect depends on whether or not dividend payments are conditioned on future investments. When they are unconditioned, allowing more dividends increases the under-investment incentive. In contrast, conditional dividends decrease the underinvestment incentive and increase the over-investment incentive.     

社会信任与企业劳动投资效率

本文从非正式制度的视角,研究了社会信任与企业劳动投资效率的关系。研究发现,社会信任有助于提高企业劳动投资效率。进一步研究表明,社会信任与企业劳动投资效率的相关关系在融资约束越强以及代理冲突更严重的企业中更显著。同时,随着信息不对称程度的加大,社会信任对企业劳动投资效率的提升作用更显著。此外,社会信任对企业劳动投资效率的改善主要表现为降低劳动投资不足,且对雇佣不足与解雇过度两个方面都存在抑制作用。本文丰富了社会信任的经济后果和企业投资效率影响因素的研究,对于揭示社会信任在企业劳动投资中的作用以及提高劳动投资效率具有一定启示意义。     

媒体新闻报道的声誉溢出效应

本文聚焦于公司违规曝光这一特定事件,使用三重差分的计量分析方法,探讨了媒体的事前新闻报道是否会影响其在投资者群体中的声誉,即是否存在声誉溢出效应。结果表明媒体对违规公司的事前新闻报道越正面(负面),其日后针对非涉案公司发布的新闻报道的市场反应就越弱(强),即存在双向声誉溢出效应。然而该效应存在不对称性,表现为负面报道带来的正向溢出效应明显强于正面报道带来的负向溢出效应。进一步研究发现,声誉溢出效应取决于投资者对于媒体声誉的主观感知以及对于违规事件的信息解读能力。当媒体的既有声誉水平较低、违规案件较为严重,或非违规公司机构投资者比例较高时,媒体的声誉溢出效应更加明显。本文论证了媒体客观公正性对于声誉积累的重要性,为媒体是否应当以及如何维护在投资者群体中的声誉形象提供了经验证据。本文对投资者如何判断和使用媒体发布的信息,进而做出正确投资决策也具有重要意义。     

Does media coverage deter firms from withholding bad news? Evidence from stock price crash risk

Spurred by the informational and disciplinary roles that the media fulfils, this study provides initial evidence on how higher media coverage is associated with a lower tendency of firms withholding bad news, proxied by stock price crash risk. Our main findings are robust to a battery of tests that account for endogeneity concerns including a difference-in-differences analysis based on newspaper closures that exogenously reduce media coverage and a regression-discontinuity design analysis based on the top band of Russell 2000 and lower band of Russell 1000 index stocks. Additional tests reveal that the negative relation between media coverage and stock price crash risk is concentrated within firms with more negative and novel news coverage and firms with higher litigation or reputation risks. We also find that media plays an important role in reducing future stock price crash risk when there is reduced monitoring by other external monitoring mechanisms such as external auditors, financial analysts, and institutional shareholders.     

The influence of the media on government decisions: Evidence from IPOs in China

In contrast to most developed countries that use registration systems, China has implemented an approval system for initial public offering (IPO) applications. As this IPO approval system involves more than a compliance test, the process allows regulators to exercise a large degree of discretion, which provides an opportunity to observe regulators' decision making in capital markets. We examine the outcomes of firms' IPO applications from 2008 to 2014 and find evidence that the media influence regulators' decisions on IPO applications. Specifically, firms that experience negative news coverage are more likely to have their IPO applications rejected. Negative news influences government decisions via both information and monitoring roles. The political connections of a firm can alleviate an adverse outcome from negative news. Moreover, negative news predicts a higher probability of committing fraud as well as lower earnings persistence in the post-IPO period. The evidence from the post-IPO period suggests that the media help improve the efficiency of regulators' decision making. Our results are robust to controlling for endogeneity issues and to adopting alternative measures of news negativity and an alternative sample.     

地方上市公司数量、经济影响力与过度投资

本文以地方上市公司数量、上市公司对地方经济的影响力作为政企关系的替代变量,探讨上市公司的政企关系如何影响企业投资行为。结果表明,在控制企业内部因素与其它政企关系变量的影响后,地方上市公司数量越少,上市公司的经济影响力越大,上市公司越容易过度投资,过度投资程度越高。     

注册制改革会产生溢出效应吗?——基于企业投资行为的视角北大核心

提高资本市场资源配置效率是注册制推行的重要目标之一,本文以此为出发点,构建了多期倍分法(DID)模型,探究了科创板(试点注册制)公司信息披露对同行业公司的溢出效应。研究发现,科创板公司信息披露会促使同行业公司提高研发投入,且该效应随着信息披露内容的丰富、精确度的增加而有所提高。机制分析表明,该溢出效应源自信息不确定性的降低和竞争压力的产生。同时,创板信息披露提高了同行业公司管理层对创新的认知程度以及增加了媒体关注度,进而促进公司研发投入。进一步研究发现,同行业公司研发投入受到正向溢出效应影响的同时,固定资产投入有所降低,投资结构的改变最终导致投资效率提升,显著抑制了过度投资。本文为强制性信息披露的溢出效应研究提供了因果证据,也为注册制改革政策效果的全面评估提供了支持。     

Analyst Impartiality and Investment Banking Relationships

This study examines whether investment banking ties influence the speed with which analysts convey unfavorable news. We hypothesize that affiliated analysts have incentives to respond promptly to good news but prefer not to issue bad news about client companies. Using duration models of the time between an equity issue and the first downgrade, we find affiliated analysts are slower to downgrade from Buy and Hold recommendations and significantly faster to upgrade from Hold recommendations, in both within‐analyst and within‐issuer tests. We also find affiliated analysts issue recommendations sooner and more frequently after an offering than unaffiliated analysts, and that unaffiliated analysts are more likely than affiliated analysts to drop coverage of sample firms. Our findings indicate that banking ties increase analysts' reluctance to reveal negative news, and that reform efforts must carefully consider the incentives of affiliated and unaffiliated analysts to initiate coverage and convey the results of their research.