Bayesian learning with variable prior

How much can be learned from a noisy signal about the state of the world not only depends on the accuracy of the signal, but also on the distribution of the prior. Therefore, we define a general information system as a tuple consisting of both a signal technology and a prior. In this paper we develop a learning order for general information systems and characterize the order in two different ways: first, in terms of the dispersion of posterior beliefs about state quantiles and, second, in terms of the value of learning for two different classes of decision makers. The first class includes all agents with quasi-linear quantile preferences, and the second class contains all agents with supermodular quantile preferences.     

Common agency with risk-averse agent

In a common agency model with a risk-averse agent and private information distortion in the equilibrium policy from the first-best is greater compared to the case of a risk-neutral agent. The principals are unable to screen completely the agent’s preferences if he is sufficiently risk-averse: there is bunching in the contract. The contribution schedules keep track of informational externality. However, when the coefficient of risk-aversion goes to zero the contributions become truthful as in the complete information case.     

Attitude towards risk,uncertainty, and fixed investment

We explore the relevance of the risk attitude of managers to the investment-uncertainty relation. Higher moments of the distribution of net profits are used to measure the risk premium of the firm, from which we derive a proxy for the risk aversion of managers. Using an unbalanced panel of Dutch listed firms, we find that in general a low degree of risk aversion coincides with a positive impact of demand uncertainty on investment. More specifically, we find that risk-averse firms respond to demand uncertainty by cutting investment, while the investment undertaken by risk-taking firms responds to demand uncertainty positively.     

The revision frequency of earnings forecasts and firm characteristics

This study investigates how the revision frequency of earnings forecasts affects firm characteristics. Previous studies generally focus on the number of analysts following a firm to measure a firm's information environment. The frequency with which news is updated is often defined as an analyst's effort. Analysts provide more information to investors if they update news more frequently. This study examines whether the frequency of information updating for a particular firm affects the firm's performance. We apply three proxies for firm performance: stock liquidity, the cost of equity capital, and firm value. Our findings indicate that the analysts’ effort as measured by the frequency of news updating is effective in providing additional power beyond the number of analysts to represent the information environment of a firm. Therefore, this study suggests that combining both the number of analysts following a firm and the frequency of news updating can be a better proxy for assessing a firm's information environment.     

Benefits and Strategic Outcomes: Are Supplemental Retirement Plans and Safer Driving Related in the U.S. Trucking Industry?

We suggest that a firm's benefits can relate to important organizational outcomes that have strategic implications. We propose a number of mechanisms that could relate benefits to strategic outcomes, including the notion that benefits can help attract and retain the type of employees who are most likely to perform in ways consistent with the firms’ strategies. We illustrate this with the case of supplemental retirement benefits in an actual setting, the long‐haul trucking industry. We report positive organization‐level relationships associated with the management choice of offering these benefits. Our results show that firms offering supplemental retirement plans engage in significantly safer driving practices, as measured by the proxy of driver insurance costs, as hypothesized. These findings show that benefits can be related to outcomes that have strategic implications for the firm. By showing that retirement plans may be of value to organizations, we help to bridge the academic‐practitioner divide and provide motivation and guidance for additional work on this important but underresearched topic. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Economic Consequences of Increased Disclosure: Evidence from Cross-Listings of Chinese Firms

In this paper, we investigate the impact of cross‐listings on information asymmetry risk, the cost of capital and firm value of a group of cross‐listed Chinese companies. Our paper is the first to examine the effect of cross‐listing on information asymmetry risk. Because cross‐listed firms are subject to increased disclosure requirements, increased regulatory scrutiny and increased legal liability, we propose that Chinese cross‐listed firms have lower information asymmetry risk, lower cost of capital and higher firm value than their non‐cross‐listed counterparts. We find in both univariate and multivariate tests that cross‐listed firms enjoyed lower information asymmetry risk in the domestic market compared with the non‐cross‐listed firms. We also find that cross‐listed firms have lower cost of capital in the cross‐listing market than non‐cross‐listed firms in the domestic markets. Finally, we find that cross‐listed firms are associated with higher firm value as measured by Tobin's Q. These results have implications for international investors and companies seeking cross‐listing opportunities.     

The Boundaries of the Firm: The Choice Between Stand-Alone and Integrated Firms

This study presents a theory of corporate structure selection. It outlines when economic units should be structured as stand-alone firms versus an integrated firm (conglomerate). The theory suggests that an integrated firm better controls agency problems through yardstick competition between managers for project acceptance. However, this structure reduces the ability to receive division-specific project information from the market. Based on this trade-off, we show that divisions within a conglomerate have different characteristics and, thus, different valuations than "similar" stand-alone firms. Our theory also explains differences in the required rate of return between stand-alone firms and conglomerates and how they relate to relative valuations of conglomerates and "similar" stand-alone firm. It also predicts when stock price reaction to divestiture and merger announcements will be positive or negative.     

Increasing sales by introducing non‐salable items

Rationality implies that adding ‘irrelevant’ and, in particular, inferior alternatives to the opportunity set cannot increase the choice probability of some other alternative. In this study, we propose a novel approach that can rationalize an intended addition of such alternatives because it strictly increases the choice probability of some existing alternative. The driving force behind the existence and extent of such an increase is the random nature of individual preferences, that implies intransitivity, and the random nature of the applied choice procedures. We study the case of a firm interested in increasing the sales of some of its existing products by introducing a new and inferior (non‐salable) product. Our main results focus on the feasibility and potential advantage of a successful such strategy. We first establish necessary and sufficient conditions for an increase in the sale probability and then derive the maximal possible absolute and relative increase in this probability, when the firm has extremely limited information on the characteristics of the consumers. We then derive analogous results, assuming that the existing line of products consists of just two items and that the firm has accurate information on the consumers' stochastic preferences over the existing products. These later results are illustrated using some experimental evidence. The applicability of the approach is finally briefly discussed in the context of branding policy. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The moderating effects of knowledge characteristics of firms on the financial value of innovative technology products

The development of innovative technology products is both costly and risky, and their economic value is highly uncertain. Based on a sample of 312 innovative technology products introduced between 1987 and 2006 in the U.S. and a long-horizon event study with control firms, we study the impact of innovative technology products on the long-term financial performance of a firm. In particular, we examine how the knowledge characteristics of the firm, which embrace its knowledge absorptive capacity, knowledge impact, and knowledge diversity, moderate such an impact. We find that on average an innovative technology product increases the firm's return on assets (ROA) (relative to control firms) by 2.18% in the second year after product introduction. However, the value of an innovative technology product varies with the knowledge characteristics of the firm that invented it. We find that the financial impact of technology products is stronger when firms have higher knowledge absorptive capacity, and more impactful and less diversified knowledge (as measured by patents). We classify firms into three categories based on their knowledge characteristics. We find that firms with a high knowledge fit increase their ROA by 4.55% after product introduction, while those with a low knowledge fit receive no benefit from the innovative technology products at all.     

Value of supply disruption information and information accuracy

In this paper, we examine the factors that influence the value of supply disruption information, investigate how information accuracy influences this value, and provide managerial suggestions to practitioners. The study is motivated by the fact that although accurate disruption information creates benefits, fully accurate disruption information may be difficult and costly to obtain. Furthermore, inaccurate disruption information can decrease the financial benefit of prior knowledge and even lead to negative performance. To perform the analysis, we adopt a newsvendor model within a single product setting where the focal firm can source from a supply network and has a given resilience capacity. The results show that information accuracy, specifically information bias and information variance, plays an important role in determining the value of disruption information. This influence varies at different levels of disruption severity and resilience capacity, and our results imply that higher amounts of resilience capacity actually may be detrimental to a firm without accurate information about a disruption's influence. Thus, for companies with a high resilience capacity, obtaining quality information is critical for effectively coping with disruptions.     

Delegation in Multi‐Establishment Firms: Evidence from I.T. Purchasing

Recent contributions to a growing theory literature have focused on the tradeoff between adaptation and coordination in determining delegation within firms. Empirical evidence, however, is limited. Using establishment‐level data on decision rights over information technology investments, I find that a high net value of adaptation is strongly associated with delegation, as are local information advantages and firm‐wide diversification; in contrast, a high net value of within‐firm coordination is correlated with centralization. Variation across establishments within firms is widespread: most firms are neither fully centralized nor fully decentralized. Delegation patterns are largely consistent with standard team‐theory predictions; however, certain findings, such as a negative correlation between delegation and firm size, call for a consideration of agency costs as well.     

投资者认知、审计质量与公司价值

投资者认知是决定市场资源配置的重要因素,认知水平越高,公司价值越大。审计作为一种降低信息不对称的制度安排,能够影响公司信息传递,进而正向调节认知效应;审计还具有缓解代理冲突的功能,而代理成本与审计质量存在对应关系,因此审计质量也体现为对认知效应的负向调节。我国股市目前主要体现为后一种情况,表明审计提升公司价值的主要路径是缓解公司的代理冲突,公司对高质量审计的需求动机远比满足投资者信息需求的动机更为强烈。聘用大型事务所能够向市场投资者传递积极信号,对认知提升公司价值的效应有正向调节作用。审计模式选择需要考虑公司的信息传递特征,并与投资者对公司的认知水平相契合。     

International Expansion,Diversification and Regulated Firm Nonmarket Strategy

Previous studies have shown that regulated firms diversify for reasons that are different than for unregulated firms. We explore some of these differences by providing a theoretical model that starts by considering the firm–regulator relationship as an incomplete information issue, in which a regulated incumbent has knowledge that the regulator does not have, but the firm cannot convey hard information about this knowledge. The incumbent faces both market and nonmarket competition from a new entrant. In that context, we show that when the firm faces tough nonmarket competition domestically, going abroad can create a mechanism that makes information transmission to the regulator more credible. International expansion can thus be a way to solve domestic nonmarket issues in addition to being a catalyst for growth. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk aversion,forward markets and the competitive labor-managed firm under price uncertainty

This paper examines the behavior of a labor-managed co-operative firm which can sell its output in both spot and forward markets, where the random spot price varies between a price floor and a price ceiling but the forward price is a known parameter. We demonstrate that a risk-averse labor-managed firm will base its production decision on the forward market price, and that risk aversion is sufficient to give the direct relationship between a change in uncertainty and the amount hedged in the forward market.     

What Do Bettors Want? Determinants of Pari‐Mutuel Betting Preference

A bstract .   This paper is an analysis of the demand for thoroughbred racetrack wagers, examining evidence that would support the existence of two types of bettors: the risk-averse informed bettor versus the uninformed bettor. Looking at 12 major racetracks over the fall of 2002, we undertake an empirical examination of the determinants of bettors' preferences for particular wagers on specific races. The goal is to try to determine what individual aspects of a race (conditions, surface, participants, etc.) will encourage increased wagering dollars. With the advent of simulcasting, the competition for the wagering dollar is fierce, as the bettor can choose from more than 100 races daily, each race offering numerous betting options. We find for most wagers that higher quality participants, larger and more competitive fields, and turf races increase betting volume while higher pari-mutuel takeout, poor track conditions, and other races run concurrently reduce volume. However, more competitive fields reduce betting volume in the show and trifecta pools. Optimal field size is determined to be between 10 and 12 betting interests. Overall, we find support for the existence of a significant share of risk-averse informed bettors.     

Investments in flexible production capacity

We examine the technology and capacity choice problem of a multi-output firm facing stochastic demands in a continuous-time framework. The firm can install output-specific capital, or, at greater cost, flexible capital that can be used to produce different outputs. Investment is irreversible. The firm must choose a technology and decide how much capital to install, knowing it can add more later as demand evolves. We formulate the capacity choice problem as a singular stochastic control problem, show that the value of the firm equals the value of its installed capital plus the value of its options to add capacity in the future, and derive an optimal investment rule that maximizes the firm's market value. We also address the analogous problem for a multi-input firm that faces stochastically evolving factor costs, and can install input-specific or flexible capital.     

A model of intersectoral flow of technology using technology and innovation flow matrices

This paper builds a simple general equilibrium model that sheds new light on the mechanism of intersectoral flows of technology. It explicitly models the production of technology using diverse technology components as inputs. The model shows that demand shocks do not cause innovation while technology shocks as deviations from a balanced growth path induce asymmetric productivity changes across sectors. We also conduct a simple quantitative analysis using recent Japanese R&D data, which shows that most productivity effects remain within the bounds of the sector. We find some important exceptions to this rule, however, in particular for shocks occurring in information technology and precision instruments.     

Social preferences for health states: An empirical evaluation of three measurement techniques

Health state preferences measured on the general public provide useful information in their own right as well as being necessary data for the application of many health status index models. But, how should the preferences be measured? This paper reports the results of an empirical investigation in which three measurement techniques are applied to several samples of the general public to measure the social preferences for ten different health states. The standard gamble technique by von Neumann-Morgenstern, a time trade-off technique by the author, and a category scaling method are analyzed with respect to their feasibility, reliability, validity and comparability.     

How to Measure Analyst Forecast Effort

Abstract

We introduce a new way to measure the forecast effort that analysts devote to their earnings forecasts by measuring the analyst's general effort for all covered firms. While the commonly applied effort measure is based on analyst behaviour for one firm, our measure considers analyst behaviour for all covered firms. Our general effort measure captures additional information about analyst effort and thus can identify accurate forecasts. We emphasise the importance of investigating analyst behaviour in a larger context and argue that analysts who generally devote substantial forecast effort are also likely to devote substantial effort to a specific firm, even if this effort might not be captured by a firm-specific measure. Empirical results reveal that analysts who devote higher general forecast effort issue more accurate forecasts. Additional investigations show that analysts' career prospects improve with higher general forecast effort. Our measure improves on existing methods as it has higher explanatory power regarding differences in forecast accuracy than the commonly applied effort measure. Additionally, it can address research questions that cannot be examined with a firm-specific measure. It provides a simple but comprehensive way to identify accurate analysts.     

Are risk disclosures an effective tool to increase firm value?

The objective of this paper is to test the effect of risk disclosures on firm value. The results show that the disclosure of information on risks is positively associated with the value of a firm. In addition, our findings highlight that this association is mediated by corporate reputation, which improves for enhanced risk disclosure practices. This evidence is particularly important to understand the usefulness of the disclosure of information on risks in the dialogue between a firm and its stakeholders. Managers and regulators can better understand the consequences of the communication of information on risks.