On derivatives and information costs

Information plays a central role in capital markets and in the process of asset pricing. The specific features of over-the-counter (OTC) markets require often an investment in information acquisition. Information costs can be defined in the context of Merton's [Merton, R. (1987). A simple model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information. Journal of Finance, 42, 483–510] model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information (CAPMI). In this context, hedging portfolios can be constructed and analytic formulas can be derived using the Black and Scholes technology or the martingale method. This paper presents a simple framework for the valuation of exotic derivatives and OTC traded securities in this context. We incorporate information costs into a model, and then use this new model to price a variety of exotic options using the general context in Bellalah [Bellalah, M. (2001). Market imperfections, information costs and the valuation of derivatives: Some general results. International Journal of Finance, 13, 1895–1928]. In each case, simple analytic formulae are derived.From a pedagogical viewpoint, we illustrate the methodology and propose simple analytic formulas for pay-on-exercise options, power derivatives, outperformance options, guaranteed exchange-rate contracts in foreign stock investments, equity-linked foreign exchange options and quantos in the same context. These formulae are simple and have the potential to explain some deviations with respect to the standard Black–Scholes model. We can use also stochastic volatilities and information costs to explain the smiles and skews found in options price data as in Bellalah, Prigent, and Villa [Bellalah, M., Prigent, J. L., & Villa, C. (2001). Skew without skewness: Asymmetric smiles, information costs and stochastic volatilitiy, International Journal of Finance, 2001, 1826, 1837] or Bellalah and Mahfoudh (2004) [Bellalah M. and Mahfoudh S. (2004). Option pricing under stochastic volatility with incomplete Information, Wilmott Magazine]. Our methodology can be applied for the valuation of several OTC and real options in the presence of incomplete information.     

Irreversible investment with regime shifts

Under the real options approach to investment under uncertainty, agents formulate optimal policies under the assumption that firms’ growth prospects do not vary over time. This paper proposes and solves a model of investment decisions in which the growth rate and volatility of the decision variable shift between different states at random times. A value-maximizing investment policy is derived such that in each regime the firm's investment policy is optimal and recognizes the possibility of a regime shift. Under this policy, investment is intermittent and increases with marginal q. Moreover, investment typically is very small but, in some states, the capital stock jumps. Implications for marginal q and the user cost of capital are also examined.     

Non-convexities in the adjustment of different capital inputs: A firm-level investigation

Recent developments in investment research have highlighted the importance of non-convexities and irreversibilities in firms’ adjustment of quasi-fixed inputs. Aggregation across capital goods may smooth out the discontinuities associated with the adjustment of individual assets. Lack of suitable data is one of the reasons why empirical work has typically relied on the assumption of capital homogeneity. In this paper we exploit a data set of 1539 Italian firms which allows us to disaggregate capital into equipment and structures, and purchases and sales of assets. We construct measures of fundamental Q to capture investment opportunities associated with each asset. We uncover the pattern of dynamic adjustment by using non-parametric techniques to relate each individual investment to its own fundamental Q.     

Influence and inefficiency in the internal capital market

I model inefficient resource allocations in M-form organizations due to influence activities by division managers that skew capital budgets in their favor. Corporate headquarters receives two types of signals about investment opportunities: private signals that can be distorted by managers, and public signals that are undistorted but noisy. Headquarters faces a tradeoff between the cost of attaining an accurate private signal and the value of the information the signal provides. In contrast to existing models of “socialism” in internal capital markets, I show that investment sensitivity to Tobin's Q is higher than first-best in firms where division managers hold equity (a result consistent with evidence presented in Scharfstein, 1998). When managers face high private costs from distorting information (equity holdings), headquarters may commit to investment contracts that place “too little” weight on private signals and “too much” weight on public signals (i.e. Q). This result has implications for managers in the design of capital budgeting processes and incentive compensation systems.     

Taxation and the stock market valuation of capital gains and dividends: Theory and emphirical results

Dividends seem to be more heavily taxed than capital gains. Why then do corporations pay dividends rather than repurchasing shares or retaining earnings? Either corporations are not acting in the interests of shareholders, or else shareholders desire dividends sufficiently for nontax reasons to offset the tax effect.In this paper, we measure the relative valuation of dividends and capital gains in the stock market, using a variant of the capital asset pricing model. We find that dividends are not valued differently systematically from capital gains. This finding is consistent with share price maximization by firms but inconsistent with the fact that most shareholderspay a heavier tax on dividends.We also show that the relative value of dividends provides an indirect measure of a marginal Tobin's q. The measured value of dividends relative to capital gains tends to be higher during prosperous periods, as is consistent with this interpretation. We hope that this time series on a marginal Tobin's q will prove to be useful in forecasting the rate of investment.     

Does the stock market affect investment by Chinese firms? Some new evidence

During the 1990s, the Chinese government increasingly relied on the stock market as the major tool for state‐owned enterprise (SOE) reform and for the allocation of investment resources. This paper investigates the impact of stock market development in China on firm‐level capital investment by using a panel data set constructed by the author of all Chinese listed firms for the period 1992 to 1999. The results show that stock market valuation, as measured by Tobin’s q, has a highly independent, significant and positive influence on listed firms’ investment decisions, particularly during the stock market boom from 1996 to 1999. Given the sizable real effects of the stock market, deviations of stock prices from fundamentals can have substantially negative consequences. As a result, this study suggests that sensible regulation of the Chinese stock market is needed in order to enhance the efficiency of stock prices and facilitate an effective channeling of investment funds.     

Financial frictions and investment: requiem in Q

Understanding the nature of financial frictions faced by firms is relevant for both monetary and fiscal policy experiments. Empirical investment studies commonly find that proxies for firms' internal funds are significant as explanatory variables, particularly in the Q-theory based regression framework. These findings are often interpreted as evidence of financial frictions. This paper investigates that inference by specifying and estimating a class of dynamic optimization models where imperfectly competitive firms face financial constraints. Market power induces the principal link between investment and internal funds. We find no evidence to support the argument that capital market imperfections contribute to the relationship between investment and profitability.     

资产定价泡沫对经济的影响

本文采用具有技术进步和随机实质资本投资收益率的跨时迭代模型 ,从理论上分析了资产定价泡沫对经济的影响 ,同时对我国转轨时期经济的动态效率进行了实证研究。结果显示 :我国转轨时期经济正从动态无效向动态有效转化 ,在实质资本收益率确定的情况下 ,适当的资产定价泡沫 (如果存在的话 )对我国经济有益 ,会增加人均消费 ,加快我国经济向动态有效转化 ,使资源配置达到Pareto最优 ;在实质资本收益率随机的情况下 ,资产定价泡沫对经济的影响是不确定的 ,其效果依赖于个人对未来投资实质资本收益率的预期 ,因而加强投资者对未来实质资本投资的收益率持乐观态度的信心是至关重要的。     

Currency crises and the stock market: empirical evidence for another type of twin crisis

We explore the dependency between currency crises and the stock market in emerging economies. Our focus is two-fold. First, the risk of a currency crisis rises as the foreign stake in the domestic stock market increases. Successful economies with high capital flows into their booming stock markets especially are prone to stock market-induced currency crises. Second, we apply the dividend growth model to show that stock markets crash in the run-up to a currency crisis. This new type of twin crisis is empirically tested by employing a logit framework using quarterly data for 33 emerging economies for 1994Q1–2007Q4.     

Unexpected Share Repurchase Announcements

Abstract

Open-market stock repurchase announcements are generally perceived by the stock market as a signal of firm undervaluation. Our study shows that repurchase announcements that were preceded by SEOs of other firms in the same industry within the prior six months (namely SEO-RPs) are more likely the result of lacking investment opportunities than signaling undervaluation, especially in concentrated industries. Specifically, we find investors response negatively to SEO-RP announcements while react positively to regular repurchase announcements. The higher the intensity of SEO activities in the industry, the more negative market reaction to SEO-RP announcements. We argue that the market doesn’t expect a repurchase announcement when other rival firms are raising more capital via SEOs. These SEO-RPs represent a negative surprise to the market and lead to a downward adjustment in value of the repurchasing firms in the announcement window. In the three-year post-announcement periods, the SEO-RP firms underperform regular repurchasing firms in both stock return and operating performance. Moreover, while regular repurchasing firms gradually increase their capital expenditures, SEO-RP firms significantly reduce their capital expenditures. These findings support our arguments that repurchase announcements that immediately follow SEOs of rival firms (SEO-RPs) more likely indicate the announcing firms entering a slower growth rate with fewer investment opportunities than signal the undervaluation problem. The underperformance in stock return and operation combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditures in the post-announcement periods are consistent with this logic and also explain why the market reacts negatively to SEO-RP announcements.     

Innovation, cycles and growth

The purpose of this paper is to present a model of growth with endogenous fluctuations. The main feature of our model is that it throws light on the relationships between long waves and business cycles in the economy. The driving forces in the model work in this way: endogenous R&D investment creates new cumulative knowledge. When this knowledge reaches a threshold H*, radical innovations occur which generate productivity growth via the substitution of old capital with new capital. These disruptive events appear recurrently, generating long waves and revitalizing the growth process. Short-term cycles in the model come from the interactions between these innovation-driven transformations and certain prey-predator mechanisms that involve the labor market. We find that our model presents excellent properties: the model generates endogenous cyclical growth as a disequilibrium process; persistent and irregular short cycles appear interwoven with the long waves; and there is a strong significant interaction between both kinds of fluctuations.     

控股股东股权质押、控制权转移风险与广告投入

股权质押使控股股东面临控制权转移风险,其有动机进行市值管理。本文以2011-2019年中国A股上市公司为样本,考察股权质押情境下控股股东是否存在调整广告投入的行为。研究结果发现,控股股东进行股权质押后,公司广告投入水平显著提高,说明股权质押情境下控股股东会通过策略性地增加广告投入进行信息管理,而非通过削减广告投入进行向上盈余管理,证实广告具有短期股票回报效应;控制权转移风险较大时,控股股东股权质押对广告投入的正向影响更明显,说明股权质押情境下控股股东增加广告投入是出于缓解控制权转移风险的动机。进一步研究发现,在散户规模较大和产品直接与消费者接触的企业,广告更容易吸引投资者注意力,此时控股股东增加广告投入的动机更强,该行为短期内可以提振股价,但没有起到改善经营业绩的作用且加剧了股价波动。本文为资本市场和产品市场的联系提供了证据,且对相关部门加强上市公司广告费用监管具有一定的政策参考价值。     

对我国交通建设投融资政策的探讨

通过对我国交通建设投融资政策的研究和探讨,提出拓宽交通建设融资渠道,除了财政拨款、征收费税和银行贷款之外,可视情况适当采用通过资本市场发行企业债券、引入外资投资或参股、交通基础设施经营权有偿转让和在证券市场发行股票等融资方法,以提高我国交通建设的规模.     

股指期货对股票市场投资主体的影响分析

股指期货的推出是我国资本市场壮大发展的推动力,也是我国资本市场的一场革命。它的推出对股票市场投资主体的投资理念、投资结构、投资策略和投资行为等方面都会产生巨大的影响,研究这些影响对于投资者在新环境下转变投资理念、投资策略等具有一定的理论价值和现实意义,对进一步完善我国资本市场体系也有着积极的作用。     

EXCHANGE RATE,EXPECTED PROFIT AND CAPITAL STOCK ADJUSTMENT: JAPANESE EXPERIENCE

This paper empirically investigates the impact of exchange rate shocks on capital stock adjustment in the Japanese industry. An intertemporal optimization model is developed, in which an individual corporation in an open economy adjusts its capital stock according to Tobin's q. By explicitly considering the marginal q, the transmission mechanism from real exchange rate shocks to investment dynamics is examined based on the Vector Autoregressive model. Empirical evidence suggests that the depreciation of the Japanese yen increases the expected profitability of the firm and stimulates investment, especially in the machinery sector.     

社保基金投资组合的 定价效率和投资风险研究 基于股价同步性的实证检验

笔者利用2007年到2013年各个季度我国沪深两市A股交易数据,以股票价格收益率与沪深300指数收益率的同步性衡量股票的定价效率,通过实证模型分析社保基金投资对股票定价效率的影响。研究表明,当市场处于金融危机前后的牛市和熊市时,社保基金投资对股票定价效率无显著影响,当市场处于较平稳的阶段时,社保基金能显著提高股票的定价效率并降低了投资风险。这说明社保基金参与资本市场投资能提高我国资本市场的有效性。     

The equity price channel in a New-Keynesian DSGE model with financial frictions and banking

This paper studies the role of the equity price channel in business cycle fluctuations, and highlights the equity price channel as a different aspect to general equilibrium models with financial frictions and, as a result, emphasizes the systemic influence of financial markets on the real economy. We develop a canonical dynamic general equilibrium model with a tractable role for the equity market in banking, entrepreneur and household economic activities. The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques using U.S. data over the sample period 1982Q01–2015Q01. We show that a dynamic general equilibrium model with an equity price channel well mimics the U.S. business cycle. The model reproduces the strong procyclicality of the equity price. The equity price channel significantly exacerbates business cycle fluctuations through both financial accelerator and bank capital channels. Our results support the increasing emphasis on common equity capital in Basel III regulations. This is beneficial in terms of financial stability, but amplifies and propagates shocks to the real economy.     

Bargaining power and enforcement in credit markets

In a credit market with enforcement constraints, we study the effects of a change in the outside options of a potential defaulter on the terms of the credit contract, as well as on borrower payoffs. The results crucially depend on the allocation of “bargaining power” between the borrower and the lender. We prove that there is a crucial threshold of relative weights such that if the borrower has power that exceeds this threshold, her expected utility must go up whenever her outside options come down. But if the borrower has less power than this threshold, her expected payoff must come down with her outside options. In the former case a deterioration in outside options brought about, say, by better enforcement, must create a Lorenz improvement in state-contingent consumption. In particular, borrower consumption rises in all “bad” states in which loans are taken. In the latter case, in contrast, the borrower's consumption must decline, at least for all the bad states. These disparate findings within a single model permit us to interpret existing literature on credit markets in a unified way.     

Capital markets and capital allocation: Implications for economies in transition*

Recent work showing that a sounder financial system is associated with faster economic growth has important implications for transition economies. Stock prices in developed economies move in highly firm‐specific ways that convey information about changes in firms’ marginal value of investment. This information facilitates the rapid flow of capital to its highest value uses. In contrast, stock prices in low‐income countries tend to move up and down en masse, and thus are of scant use for microeconomic capital allocation. Some transition economy markets are coming to resemble those of developed economies, others those of low‐income countries. Stock return asynchronicity is highly correlated with the strength of private property rights in general and public shareholders’ rights in particular. Other recent work suggests that small entrenched elites in low‐income countries preserve their sweeping control over the corporate sectors of their economies by using political influence to undermine the financial system and deprive entrants of capital. The lack of cross‐sectional independence in some transition economies’ stock returns may be a warning of such economic entrenchment. Sound property rights, solid shareholder rights, stock market transparency, and capital account openness appear to check this, and thus contribute to efficient capital allocation and economic growth.     

Private capital inflows and stock market interface in sub-Saharan Africa

The financial market school of thought argues that financial market plays a key role in facilitating capital flows to less developed countries of the world. This school considers stock market a strong and potent channel of attracting and mobilizing capital for development across the globe. The study in this paper is therefore undertaken to determine the validity of this argument, by investigating how the stock market interfaces with other variables to influence capital flows to sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical evidence clearly validates the importance of stock market by showing its direct positive impact on all the components of private capital inflows, an impact that is significantly enhanced by return on investment in the market. The stock market is also revealed to have a maximum threshold that suggests it possesses the capacity to channel a significant proportion of potential capital inflows. These findings point to the importance of raising the level of stock market development in order to attract more capital flows to the region, and indeed the less developed regions of the world.