Targets' Accounting Conservatism and the Gains from Acquisition*

We present evidence on the effects of target firms' accounting conservatism in a merger and acquisition transaction. Conservatism is distinct from other accounting or accrual quality constructs examined in prior work. Its unique features can lead to potential benefits for both the targets and the acquirers. The use of conservatism by targets reduces acquirers' risks of acquiring underperforming assets or overpaying for well-performing assets. In addition, targets' conservatism results in greater production of verifiable information that can help the acquirers better estimate and realize synergies of the combined firm. Consistent with these arguments, we find that firms with greater accounting conservatism are more likely to receive a bid. We also find that targets' conservatism increases the deal premium and the announcement returns of both the targets and the acquirers, respectively. Overall, these results indicate that conservatism provides benefits to both sellers and buyers of equity in an acquisition transaction.     

Do Corporate Site Visits Impact Stock Prices?

We examine the stock price impact of corporate site visits using a unique data set of site visits to listed firms in China. Our main findings are as follows. First, the market reaction around corporate site visits is statistically and economically significant and is stronger for group visits, visits conducted by mutual fund managers, visits covering accounting and finance topics, visits to firms with poor information environments, and visits to manufacturing firms. Second, the stock returns around site visits are positively associated with firms’ future performance. Third, the changes in visiting funds’ holdings are more predictive of firms’ future performance than those of nonvisiting funds. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that site visits are important venues for investors to collect information about firms and make informed trades.     

民营企业家政治身份与经济收益

随着我国民营企业的兴起,民营企业家政治身份的相关研究也逐渐被学界所重视。结合民营企业家争相追逐政治身份的背景,探讨了企业家政治身份带来经济收益的现象,并提出民营企业家政治身份有利于民营企业突破行业壁垒实现行业多元化经营和进入战略性新兴产业,由此获得较好经济收益,从而构建了一个沟通和整合企业政治关联理论与进入壁垒理论的中介作用模型,并以第八次全国私营企业抽样调查的4098个企业为样本进行实证检验。研究结果表明,民营企业家政治身份能为企业带来显著的经济收益,民营企业多元化经营、进入战略性新兴产业与企业经济收益显著正相关,并且验证了多元化经营、进入战略性新兴产业是民营企业家政治身份带来经济收益的中介途径。     

The Effect of E-Business on Corporate Performance: Firm Level Evidence for Belgium

E-business offers buyers and sellers a new form of communication and provides an opportunity to create new marketplaces. In general it is suggested that the development of e-business results in higher firm productivity and efficiency as a result of lower search and transaction costs. However, there are a number of recent studies, which demonstrate that firms engaging in e-commerce need not perform better compared to more traditional enterprises. To date, there is little empirical evidence on the impact of information technology on corporate performance. This paper is the first that uses a large representative data set of Belgian firms to study empirically the impact of e-business on productivity and cost efficiency of firms. Our main conclusions can be summarised as follows: (1) The penetration of the Internet in Belgian firms is high; however, the use of e-business is still limited. (2) It is especially the large firms that engage in e-business and mostly in e-procurement. (3) E-business has no effect on total factor productivity in small firms; however, we find positive effects on performance of e-business in large firms.     

An experimental investigation of bilateral oligopoly in emissions trading markets

Market power in emissions trading has been extensively investigated because emerging markets for tradable emissions permits, such as the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), can be dominated by relatively few large sellers or buyers. Previous studies on market power in emissions trading have assumed the existence of a subset of competitive players. However, a key feature of emissions trading markets is that emissions permits are often traded by a small number of large sellers and buyers. Using a laboratory experiment, our objective in this paper is to test the performance of an emissions trading market utilizing a double auction in a bilateral oligopoly. Our results suggest that the theoretical bilateral oligopoly models can better describe market outcomes of emissions trading. The effects of the slope of the marginal abatement cost function on market power in laboratory experiments are found to be consistent with those predicted by the theoretical bilateral oligopoly model. How market power is exercised depends on the curvature of the abatement cost function. If the marginal abatement cost function of buyers (sellers) is less steep than that of sellers (buyers), the price of permits is lower (higher) than that under perfect competition. This is because the market power of buyers (sellers) exceeds that of sellers (buyers). The price of permits is close to the perfect competitive price when all traders have the sameslope of the marginal abatement cost function.     

Costly Buyer Search in a Differentiated Products Model: An Experimental Study

This study examines whether the content of buyer information and the timing of its dissemination affects seller market power. We construct laboratory markets with differentiated goods and costly buyer search in which sellers simultaneously post prices. The experiment varies the information on price or product characteristics that buyers learn under different timing assumptions (pre‐ and postsearch), generating four information treatments. Theory predicts that price information lowers the equilibrium price, but information about product characteristics increases the equilibrium price. That is, contrary to intuition, the presence of informed buyers may impart a negative externality on other uninformed buyers. Data support the model's negative externality result when sellers face a large number of robot buyers that are programmed to search optimally. Observed prices conform to the model's comparative statics and are broadly consistent with predicted levels. With human buyers, however, excessive search instigates increased price competition, and sellers post prices that are significantly lower than predicted.     

An Empirical Analysis of Legal Insider Trading in The Netherlands

In this paper, we employ a registry of legal insider trading for Dutch listed firms to investigate the information content of trades by corporate insiders. Using a standard event-study methodology, we examine short-term stock price behavior around trades. We find that purchases are followed by economically large abnormal returns. This result is strongest for purchases by top executives and for small market capitalization firms, which is consistent with the hypothesis that legal insider trading is an important channel through which information flows to the market. We analyze also the impact of the implementation of the Market Abuse Directive (European Union Directive 2003/6/EC), which strengthens the existing regulation in the Netherlands. We show that the new regulation reduced the information content of sales by top executives.     

Illustrating Adverse Selection in Health Insurance Markets with a Classroom Game

This paper describes a classroom game that illustrates the effects of asymmetric information and adverse selection in health insurance markets. The first part of this game simulates a market in which buyers can purchase insurance from sellers; in some periods, government regulation prevents sellers from using information about buyer type to determine premiums. The results demonstrate the classic prediction that asymmetric information will result in adverse selection. Here, low-risk buyers will forego the purchase of insurance at a measurable loss of potential earnings. In the second part of the game, sellers and buyers can trade two different types of health insurance policies, one moderate and another generous. Under government-mandated community rating and limits on premium increases, no buyers will purchase the generous plan. Questions are provided to stimulate discussion of the causes and consequences of adverse selection for consumers and insurers and possible solutions for employer- and government-sponsored programs.     

Injury Investigations in Antidumping and the Super-Additivity Effect: A Theoretical Explanation

Empirical evidence shows that in injury investigations in antidumping cases conducted by the United States International Trade Commission, the probability of a positive finding is higher when the number of defendant firms is larger, holding constant their total market share. In the paper we offer a theoretical explanation of this finding. We show that the presence of many exporters exacerbates the free-rider problem, which leads every firm to invest less on defense. Thus for the same market share, injury finding is more likely to be positive for many small sellers than a few large sellers. JEL no. F13, L13     

Professional Directors and Governance Quality

We examine professional directors—board members with no employment outside of serving as independent directors. We find that boards with a higher percentage of professional directors engage in more acquisitions, experience lower acquisition announcement returns, and exhibit lower performance‐turnover sensitivity and lower financial performance. We also examine the returns surrounding the appointment‐announcement dates of professional directors and find that firms experience significantly lower cumulative abnormal returns upon the appointment announcement of professional directors as compared to nonprofessional directors. The negative returns are primarily experienced by firms that face greater agency issues, suggesting that the market does not value professional directors for stricter monitoring. Overall, our findings do not lend support for calls to professionalize corporate boards.     

投资者情绪、会计应计与超额回报——基于中国上市公司的实证分析

以我国上市公司1999至2007年的数据为样本,从行为金融学中投资者情绪的角度,深刻剖析投资者情绪对基于会计应计投资策略获得超额回报的影响。研究发现:1、持有会计应计比例低公司的股票,在投资者情绪低迷时期获得的超额回报会大于投资者情绪高昂时期;同样的,持有会计应计比例高公司的股票,在投资者情绪高昂时期产生的投资亏损要大于投资者情绪低迷时期;2、机构投资者持股比例小的公司的股价,更容易受投资者情绪的影响,因而,基于会计应计策略的超额回报在不同情绪下的差异要大于机构持股比例大的公司。本文试图从投资者情绪的角度,分析其对"应计异象"的影响,并且进一步证明,机构持股大小会干扰其影响的程度。     

The Effect of Environmental Risk on the Efficiency of Negotiated Transfer Prices

This study investigates whether environmental risk affects the efficiency of negotiated transfer prices. We analyze a setting where the buyer faces environmental risk but the seller does not. From the risk‐neutral firm's perspective, the transfer should be made in our setting because the expected value of the buyer's profit is greater than the certain opportunity cost of the seller from the transfer. We develop hypotheses to predict that, as environmental risk increases, it becomes more difficult for buyers and sellers to reach agreement. Such difficulty reduces efficiency in terms of both firm profit and negotiation time. We test our hypotheses via an experiment in which buyer and seller dyads negotiate over the transfer of a resource at six levels of environmental risk. Results show that, as predicted, environmental risk decreases efficiency. Specifically, as environmental risk increases, the frequency of agreement decreases, thereby reducing expected firm profit. Further, environmental risk increases negotiation time for those dyads that are able to reach an agreement. Data suggest that the cause of the decreased efficiency is that buyers and sellers use different reference points for determining a fair transfer price and environmental risk exacerbates the effects of such differences.     

Pricing of Initial Audit Engagements by Large and Small Audit Firms*

We investigate the extent to which auditors of U.S. companies reduce fees on initial audit engagements (“fee discounting”). We hypothesize that rivalries among sellers, in terms of client turnover and price competition, are more intense among small audit firms. The data support this hypothesis. New clients account for 34 percent of all clients for small audit firms, but only 9 percent of all clients for large audit firms. We theorize that differences in client turnover rates between large and small audit firms can be explained by the market structure of the audit industry, which consists of an oligopolistic segment dominated by a few large audit firms and an atomistic segment composed of many small audit firms. We further hypothesize and confirm that fee discounting is more extensive in the atomistic sector, and our results confirm this hypothesis. Our analysis of audit fee changes indicates that clients who switch auditors within the atomistic sector receive on average a discount of 24 percent over the prior auditor's fee. However, clients who switch auditors within the oligopolistic sector receive on average a discount of only 4 percent. Given that price competition is known to be less intense in oligopolistic markets than in atomistic markets, we believe that market structure theory can explain why fee discounting is lower when larger audit firms compete for clients.     

Short Sellers and Long-Run Management Forecasts

We examine how short sellers affect long-run management forecasts using a natural experiment (Regulation SHO) that relaxes short-selling constraints on a group of randomly selected firms (referred to as pilot firms). We find that compared to other firms, the pilot firms issue more long-run good news forecasts but do not change the frequency of long-run bad news forecasts. The increase in good news forecasts is greater when the pilot firms have higher-quality forecasts, greater uncertainty about firm value, or higher manager equity incentives. Overall, these results and the results of additional analyses indicate that the reduction in short-selling constraints and the increase in short-selling threat induce managers to enhance disclosures through more long-run good news forecasts to discourage short sellers.     

COMPETITION BETWEEN INTERMEDIATED AND DIRECT TRADE AND THE TIMING OF DISINTERMEDIATION

This paper analyses how intermediation by a middleman who buysfrom sellers and sells to buyers is affected if direct tradebetween buyers and sellers becomes possible. Without coordinationamong sellers and buyers, disintermediation may not occur whenit would be welfare-improving. With such coordination, disintermediationmay occur too early. If direct trade is active, the supply anddemand for intermediation become interdependent: an increasein the bid price thus increases both supply and demand. Thisprocess of interdependence by which the two trade mechanismscompete for trade is a feature of competing markets generally.     

OFDI and stock returns: Evidence from manufacturing firms listed on the Chinese A-shares market

Using data for manufacturing firms listed on the Chinese A-shares market over the 2000−16 period, this paper studies the impact of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on stock returns using the propensity score matching. It shows that when firms carry out OFDI for the first time, they have to deal with the risks of the overseas market; therefore, the OFDI firms show significantly higher returns. Furthermore, OFDI affects stock returns through the risk channel rather than the diversification channel; the risks OFDI firms are exposed to are mainly demand and political risks. OFDI firms face different risks than non-OFDI firms, thus investors can obtain diversification benefits by purchasing stocks of OFDI firms. In addition, investors can make diversified investments based on the seven dimensions of the nature of firms and OFDI to increase the opportunity to obtain stock returns. For firms, they can conduct on-site inspections before conducting OFDI, becoming familiar with the host country market, laws and regulations. Firms should try to choose politically and economically stable countries to invest in.     

Information Conveyed in Announcements of Analyst Coverage*

This paper examines the security market response to the announcement of sell-side analysts' decisions to initiate coverage of a firm. We examine the market reaction to the initiation announcement and the accompanying investment recommendation, by disaggregating our sample based on existing analyst coverage at the announcement date. We find, on average, a significantly larger, positive stock price reaction to buy recommendations conveyed in announcements of coverage initiation for firms with a small existing analyst following compared to such announcements for firms receiving no prior analyst coverage. Tests show that the relation between the extent of preexisting analyst coverage and market response is nonlinear and concave down in shape. Specifically we find that lightly followed firms, on average, experience larger price reactions to announcements of coverage initiations than either previously uncovered firms or more heavily followed firms. We test for and find that this result holds over a range of definitions of light coverage and is not attributable to the presence of an underwriting relationship existing between the analyst's employer and the firm receiving coverage. We do find that initiations by analysts named to Institutional Investor magazine's “All-American Research Team” produce a significantly larger market reaction than do initiations by non-All-American security analysts. In addition, similar to the market response associated with other types of information events, we observe that proxies for the richness of the initiated firms' preannouncement information environment are associated with event-day average abnormal returns.     

Seller Beware: Supply and Demand Reduction and Price Manipulation in Multiple‐Unit Uniform Price Auctions

We experimentally compare under‐revelation of supply and demand across alternative variations of ascending and descending two‐sided price clock auctions. We find that buyers reduce demand more when the price is ascending but sellers’ behavior is consistent across clock directions. As a result, the clock price rule has empirical effects on efficiency even though it is theoretically neutral.     

机制设计视角的O2O模式科学性分析

O2O模式的升级与转型是目前电商行业的热点问题。运用机制设计理论,分析O2O不同经营类型的科学性,验证不同O2O类型与盈利模式间的关系。理论分析发现:相对于独立型与复合型团购,平台型团购能够较好地处理传统营销中买卖双方的信用关系,具有机制设计上的优势性。实证分析显示:平台型团购的盈利模式侧重于新型的增值业务收入,独立型与复合型团购侧重于商品的进销差价等传统盈利模式,消费者投诉绝大部分集中在独立型与复合型团购。     

Supply Chains in Times of Crisis: Evidence from Kenya’s Production Network

Trading relationships between suppliers and buyers play a key role in transmitting both local and international shocks. We use transaction-level data from Kenya to study the relevance of a firm’s domestic network position and links to international supply chains in determining its trajectory during the COVID-19 crisis. We document that firms with high exposure to import and export markets tend to be larger, older, and employ more workers. The specialisation of direct importers, often intermediaries, on international markets made them very vulnerable to the initial COVID-19 shock. Exporters, one-third of whom operate in primary sectors, experienced a less severe decline in sales. We find that both importers and exporters adjust their domestic supply chains in response to international trade shocks — before and during the crisis alike. Sourcing from international markets does not crowd out domestic purchases, while sales abroad and at home can act as substitutes. Diversified domestic supply chains helped firms to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and recover more strongly.