Turbulent firms, turbulent wages?

Has greater turbulence among firms fueled rising wage instability in the U.S.? We find strong support for the hypothesis that rising turbulence in the sales of large publicly-traded U.S. firms over the past three decades has raised their workers’ high-frequency wage volatility. Through controls and instrumental variable probes, we rule out straightforward compositional churning as an explanation for the link between firm sales and wage volatility. We also observe that the relationship between sales and wage volatility at the firm level is stronger since 1980, is present only in large companies and is stronger in services than in manufacturing companies.     

The business cycle implications of reciprocity in labor relations

A reciprocity-based model of wage determination is incorporated into a modern dynamic general equilibrium framework and estimated on U.S. data. The estimation reveals that rent-sharing (between workers and firms) and wage entitlement (based on past wages) are important determinants of wage setting for the model to fit the dynamic responses of output, wages and inflation to various exogenous shocks. Aggregate employment conditions (measuring workers’ outside option), on the other hand, are found to play only a negligible role for wage setting. These results are consistent with micro-studies on reciprocity in labor relations but contrast with traditional efficiency wage models which emphasize aggregate labor market variables as the determinants of wage setting.     

Minority shareholders’ wealth effects and stock market development: Evidence from increase-in-ownership M&As

This paper examines, using a global M&A data set, the relationship between the target firm’s minority shareholders’ returns and a country’s stock market development in deals in which large shareholders increase their ownership stakes. For the purpose of this study, we use two measures of stock market development: (1) turnover over GDP, and (2) turnover over market capitalization. We provide evidence supporting the view that minority shareholders in target firms gain significantly more in countries with high stock market development than their counterparts in less-developed markets. Our results are robust to several firm and deal characteristics and provide evidence to policy makers that the degree of stock market development is a key determinant in improving minority shareholders’ welfare.     

Trade Liberalization and Industry Wage Structure: Evidence from Brazil

Industry affiliation provides an important channel through whichtrade liberalization can affect worker earnings and wage inequalitybetween skilled and unskilled workers. This empirical studyof the impact of the 1988–94 trade liberalization in Brazilon the industry wage structure suggests that although industryaffiliation is an important component of worker earnings, thestructure of industry wage premiums is relatively stable overtime. There is no statistical association between changes inindustry wage premiums and changes in trade policy or betweenindustry-specific skill premiums to university graduates andtrade policy. Thus trade liberalization in Brazil did not significantlycontribute to increased wage inequality between skilled andunskilled workers through changes in industry wage premiums.The difference between these results and those obtained forother countries (such as Colombia and Mexico) provides fruitfulground for studying the conditions under which trade reformsdo not have an adverse effect on industry wage differentials.     

Internal promotion competitions in firms

Using a sample of skilled workers from a cross section of establishments in four metropolitan areas of the United States, I present evidence suggesting that promotions are determined by relative worker performance. I then estimate a structural model of promotion tournaments (treating as endogenous promotions, worker performance, and the wage spread from promotion) that simultaneously accounts for worker and firm behavior and how the interaction of these behaviors gives rise to promotions. The results are consistent with the predictions of tournament theory that employers set wage spreads to induce optimal performance levels, and that workers are motivated by larger spreads.     

City size and fund performance

The literature predicts that the average skill level and productivity are higher in larger cities. Prior studies use workers’ wage or education differentials to indirectly link city size and output. This article relates city size and productivity directly, using performance data of U.S. equity mutual funds. On average, funds in financial centers perform better than other funds in terms of both gross and risk-adjusted returns, but this difference is driven only by more experienced managers. Among funds in financial centers there is strong evidence of a positive relation between performance and manager experience in a given city, especially among New York funds. More importantly, we observe performance improvements of the same manager at the same fund in financial centers but not elsewhere. Our tests provide novel evidence of knowledge spillovers and learning in cities.     

The cyclicality of the user cost of labor

The user cost of labor is the expected difference between the present discounted value of wages paid to a worker hired in the current period and that paid to a worker hired in the next period. Analogous to the price of any long-term asset, the user cost, not wage, is the relevant price for a firm that is considering adding a worker. I construct its counterpart in the data and estimate that it is substantially more procyclical than average wages or wages of newly hired workers. I demonstrate an application of the finding using the textbook search and matching model.     

Managerial overconfidence and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from primary and secondary data

The corporate finance literature argues that overconfident managers tend to hold less cash, and this leads to a significant deviation from optimal cash levels. We analyse the impact of executive overconfidence on the corporate cash holdings of listed Vietnamese firms. To quantify managerial overconfidence, a novel core measure used in our analyses is voice pitch, which is obtained from interviews with top-line managers. Other measures of managerial overconfidence are also used to support the results and confirm the validity of the voice pitch measure. Our empirical evidence, with economically significant results, reveals that higher levels of overconfidence amongst managers are associated with lower cash holdings. Surprisingly, the findings show that overconfident managers tend to be associated with a low level of deviation from optimal cash holding levels. In addition, our findings also provide evidence that managerial overconfidence can increase cash levels and deviations from target cash holdings for overinvesting firms.     

Resuscitating the wage channel in models with unemployment fluctuations

Higher wages all else equal translate into higher inflation. More rigid wages imply a weaker response of inflation to shocks. This view of the wage channel is deeply entrenched in central banks’ views and models of their economies. In this paper, we present a model with equilibrium unemployment which has three distinctive properties. First, using a search and matching model with right-to-manage wage bargaining a proper wage channel obtains. Second, accounting for fixed costs associated with maintaining an existing job greatly magnifies profit fluctuations for any given degree of wage fluctuations, which allows the model to reproduce the fluctuations of unemployment over the business cycle. And third, the model implies a reasonable elasticity of steady state unemployment with respect to changes in benefits. The calibration of the model implies low profits, but does not require a small gap between the value of working and the value of unemployment for the worker.     

Accelerated investment effect of risky debt

In this paper we examine a new effect of risky debt on a firm’s investment strategy. We call this effect “accelerated investment”. It stems from a potential loss of investment option in the event of default. The possibility of default reduces the value of the option to wait and provides equity holders with an incentive to speed up investment. As a result, in the absence of wealth expropriation by a levered firm’s debt holders, its shareholders exercise their investment option earlier than the shareholders of an otherwise identical all-equity firm. This result is at odds with the generally accepted intuition that in the absence of potential wealth transfers and taxes the shareholders of a levered firm would follow the same investment policy as that of an unlevered firm. In addition to providing various illustrations of the accelerated investment effect, we relate its magnitude to the presence of competition for investment opportunities.     

Time-varying managerial overconfidence and pecking order preference

This paper examines whether managerial overconfidence enhances or weakens pecking order preference. We construct time-varying managerial words-based (i.e. tone of Chairman’s Statement) and action-based (i.e. firm investment and directors’ trading) overconfidence measures. Both optimistic tone and industry-adjusted investment have significant and negative impacts on the pecking order coefficient in the Shyam-Sunder and Myers (J Financ Econ 51:219–244, 1999) regression framework. Overconfident managers tend to use more equity than debt to finance deficits. This new evidence is consistent with the proposition that overconfident managers who underestimate the riskiness of future earnings believe that their debt (equity) is undervalued (overvalued) and therefore prefer equity to debt financing. Thus, managerial overconfidence can lead to a reverse pecking order preference. We also find that managerial overconfidence significantly weakens pecking order preference especially in firms with high earnings volatility and small firms.     

Employee Costs of Corporate Bankruptcy

An employee's annual earnings fall by 13% in the first full calendar year after her firm's bankruptcy, and the present value of lost earnings from bankruptcy to six years following bankruptcy is 87% of pre-bankruptcy annual earnings. More worker earnings are lost in thin labor markets and among small firms. Ex ante compensating wage differentials for this “bankruptcy risk” are up to 2% of firm value for a firm whose credit rating falls from AA to BBB, comparable in magnitude to debt tax benefits. Thus, wage premia for expected costs of bankruptcy are sufficiently large to be an important consideration in capital structure decisions.     

Labor market dynamics under long-term wage contracting

Recent research seeking to explain the strong cyclicality of US unemployment emphasizes the role of wage rigidity. This paper proposes a micro-founded model of wage rigidity—an equilibrium business cycle model of job search, where risk neutral firms post optimal long-term contracts to attract risk averse workers. Equilibrium contracts feature wage smoothing, limited by the inability of parties to commit to contracts. The model is consistent with aggregate wage data if neither worker nor firm can commit, producing too rigid wages otherwise. Wage rigidity does not lead to a substantial increase in the cyclical volatility of unemployment.     

Employability and Wage Compensation in an Asian Economy: Evidence for Female College Graduates in Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of employability skills on wage compensation for female college graduates in Taiwan. We find that employability skills can explain some variation in wage compensation whether we include conventional human capital variables or not. For example, the career management skills category exhibits a consistent and significant influence on wage compensation and could raise the earnings level by 5–6 percent. In addition, employability skills have more diverse effects on wage compensation across various occupations, while conventional human capital variables are shown to have more consistent effects on wage compensation across occupations.     

Government lending in a crisis

The economic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic prompted governments around the world to initiate an unprecedented number of temporary lending and tax deferment programs. Which firms will benefit from these programs? What are the implications for firm balance sheets and post-crisis survival? We provide some novel insights on these questions by studying one of the first government programs of this type, which Sweden launched at the height of the 2008–2009 financial crisis. The Swedish program allowed firms to temporarily suspend payment of all labor-related taxes and fees, treating these deferred amounts as a short-term loan from the government. Firms participating in the program are younger, less profitable, hold fewer cash reserves, are more leveraged, and have less unused slack in their credit lines when the crisis hits. Given the structure of the Swedish program, it provided more liquidity to firms with relatively larger ex ante wage bills. Exploiting this feature of the policy, we find that firms use the program to increase overall debt levels rather than to substitute for other borrowing. The leverage increase is due entirely to higher levels of non-bank debt. Firms use the funds to avoid making even deeper cuts to current assets. Despite the increase in leverage, access to the lending program is unrelated to the likelihood a firm files for bankruptcy and is negatively related to the likelihood a firm encounters severe financial distress in the years immediately following the crisis.     

Self‐Serving Attribution Bias,Overconfidence, and the Issuance of Management Forecasts

Prior studies document that managers consider a variety of costs and benefits when deciding whether to issue earnings forecasts. Using an abstract experiment and a survey of experienced financial managers, we provide evidence that managerial overconfidence may also contribute to this decision. Our experiment shows that participants engage in self‐serving attribution, giving greater weight to internal than external factors as explanations for good performance. This increases confidence in improved future performance, which increases their willingness to issue forecasts. Two facets of the stable individual trait overconfidence, dispositional optimism and miscalibration, also contribute to confidence in improved future performance and willingness to issue forecasts. Consistent with these results, experienced financial manager survey participants believe other managers are likely to overestimate the extent to which they contribute to positive firm performance, and both overoptimism about firm performance and overconfidence in their ability to predict future firm performance contribute to issuance of earnings forecasts.     

The effects of audit firm rotation on perceived auditor independence and audit quality

Our study explores loan officers’ perceptions of auditors’ independence and audit quality under three experimental audit firm rotation scenarios. We use a case experiment with a between-subjects design to determine whether rotation of the audit firm impacts financial statement users’ perceptions of auditor’s independence and quality. Findings based on 212 useable responses indicate that loan officers do perceive an increase in independence when the company follows an audit firm rotation policy. However, the length of auditor tenure within rotation fails to significantly change loan officers’ perceptions of independence. Findings also indicate that neither the presence of a rotation policy nor the length of the auditor tenure within rotation significantly influences the loan officers’ perceptions of audit quality.     

Overconfidence,CEO Awards,and Corporate Tax Aggressiveness

Theory and prior research suggest that overconfidence leads managers to overestimate their own ability to generate returns, leading to riskier corporate policies. We use a novel dataset of media awards as an exogenous shock to overconfidence to test whether award‐winning CEOs adopt more aggressive corporate tax policies. Using propensity score matching and a difference‐in‐difference design, we find strong evidence that firms with an award‐winning CEO exhibit significantly greater tax aggressiveness following the award. Overall, our results suggest that CEO overconfidence has a meaningful impact on corporate tax policy.     

CEO Pay-For-Performance Heterogeneity Using Quantile Regression

We provide some examples of how quantile regression can be used to investigate heterogeneity in pay‐firm size and pay‐performance relationships for U.S. CEOs. For example, do conditionally (predicted) high‐wage managers have a stronger relationship between pay and performance than conditionally low‐wage managers? Our results using data over a decade show, for some standard specifications, there is considerable heterogeneity in the returns‐to‐firm performance across the conditional distribution of wages. Quantile regression adds substantially to our understanding of the pay‐performance relationship. This heterogeneity is masked when using more standard empirical techniques.     

How should firms selectively hedge? Resolving the selective hedging puzzle

We provide a model of intertemporal hedging consistent with selective hedging, a widespread practice corroborated by recent empirical studies. We argue that the optimal hedge is a value hedge involving total current value of future earnings. More importantly, the hedging decision is independent of risk preferences of the firm or agent. Our closed-form solutions imply several implications for the risk management policy in a firm. In order to lock in profits a hedge increase is recommended in favorable states of nature, while in bad states the firm should decrease the hedge and wait. Our main new empirical implication is that selective hedging should be more prevalent in industries where managers are exposed to convex cash flow structures and are more likely to “value hedge” their exposures.