盈余质量与企业投资现金流敏感度分析

本文借鉴Biddle和Hilary（2006）衡量投资-现金流敏感度的方法，具体考察了中国上市公司盈余质量与企业投资-现金流敏感度之间的关系，发现高质量会计信息通过减少管理者和股东之间的信息不对称提高了投资效率，对于代理问题的发生有一定缓解作用；随着盈余质量的提高，内部现金流与企业投资之间的关系变弱，高质量会计信息降低了企业投资一现金流敏感度。     

银行系基金持股、贷款融资与投资-内部现金流敏感度

本文基于股东与债权人利益冲突的视角,研究银行系基金持股对上市公司贷款融资、投资-内部现金流敏感度的影响.研究发现银行系基金持股水平与上市公司银行贷款规模、贷款期限之间具有显著正相关关系,与上市公司的投资-内部现金流敏感度显著负相关.本文的研究结论对于我国资本市场、商业银行和基金行业改革具有重要的启示与意义.     

上市公司高级管理层报酬业绩敏感度与风险之间关系的实证检验

本文以中国上市公司2002-2004年度的高管人员报酬数据为基础,对高管人员的报酬业绩敏感度与风险之间的关系进行了实证分析。结果表明,中国上市公司高管人员的报酬与公司绩效、股东财富存在正相关关系,其报酬业绩敏感度与风险之间如经典代理理论所预测的那样存在负相关关系,但显著性较弱。进一步分析发现,对于那些增长机会很小或没有增长机会的公司,报酬业绩敏感度与风险存在负相关关系,而对于那些增长机会大的公司,报酬业绩敏感度与风险之间存在正相关关系,这在一定程度上拓展了经典代理理论的预测。     

股权制衡对自由现金流及投资效率的影响

通过我国上证和深证上市企业披露的2006年-2012年的数据可以看出,我国上市公司普遍存在股权高度集中的现象,第一大股东处于控股地位,并存在过度投资的行为。对于自由现金流影响企业投资行为的原因存在两种不同的解释,即对应过度投资的自由现金流假说和对应投资不足的信息不对称理论。     

上市公司现金流分析的侧重点

现金流分析是以现金流量表为主要依据，利用对比分析、结构分析、比率分析等分析方法，揭示企业现金流信息，并从现金流角度对企业的财务状况和经营业绩作出评价。作为投资，无论是个人投资还是机构投资，也无论是现实的投资还是潜在的投资，现金流分析都是投资决策的重要依据。对于上市公司的现金流分析，除了一般的偿债能力分析、支付能力分析等重点外，还应当侧重于如下三个方面：     

现金质量、内部现金流与投资效率

本文主要研究现金质量对内部现金流与投资效率之间关系的影响。研究结果发现,我国上市公司中,高现金质量有利于抑制内部现金流富余的公司进行过度投资,低现金质量会抑制内部现金流不足的公司的投资不足行为。     

过度自信、风险厌恶与我国上市公司经理薪酬激励

经理风险厌恶会增加股东使用业绩薪酬激励的成本,然而通过对我国上市公司高管的经验研究发现,如果经理过度自信,则会减弱风险厌恶带来的负面影响,表现为其薪酬中的报酬业绩敏感度更高,且其与风险之间的负相关关系减弱。同时研究还发现,非系统风险所占总风险比重较大的公司,相比系统风险所占比重较大的公司,会给予过度自信的高管更高的报酬业绩敏感度,这意味着高管的过度自信主要源于其对公司非系统风险认知的偏差。     

上市公司现金流管理研究——以日上集团为例

基于资本市场中对企业价值准确评估的需求,现金流作为决定企业价值的重要因素,受到企业主体、投资者以及监管各方的不同程度的重视。在现实中,现金流对企业的投融资决策以及股票价格都发挥着显著的影响,而管理层披露的现金流则由于是对其业绩的直接反映,会受到其一定的管理操作。因此,在我国资本市场的上市公司中,基于现金流信息传递的功效,其是否也类似于盈余管理,受到了不同频率和幅度的管理,值得学界深入的探讨。     

家族管理、二代涉入、超额控制与融资约束——基于我国家族上市公司的研究

本文以现金现金流敏感度作为检验融资约束的依据,研究家族参与、二代涉入、超额控制对家族企业现金现金流敏感度的影响。研究发现我国家族上市公司现金持有量与内部现金流之间存在显著的正相关关系,即存在现金现金流敏感度,证明了我国家族上市公司普遍面临融资约束问题,但家族参与企业管理与家族二代涉入降低了企业的现金现金流敏感度,即家族参与、二代涉入实际上降低了企业的融资约束。同时,研究还证明了家族超额控制增加了企业的融资约束。     

公司治理结构、市场环境与自由现金流

目前,自由现金流已成为考察上市公司治理质量的重要指标,为此,本文选取A股和香港上市公司的数据对治理结构与自由现金流的关系作了比较研究。实证结果表明,控制股东持股与自由现金流存在正相关关系,A股公司控制股东比H股和香港非中资公司控制股东更倾向于将自由现金流留在公司内部;除香港非中资公司外,其他类型的公司中机构投资者没有发挥对自由现金流代理问题的抑制作用;独立董事在减少自由现金流方面发挥了积极作用,香港非中资公司独立董事在抑制自由现金流的代理问题中发挥的作用大于H股和A股独立董事。     

Determinants of Investment Cash Flow Sensitivity

I classify firms into groups of high, low, and negative sensitivity. I find that investment-cash flow sensitivity is nonmonotonic with respect to financial constraints, cash flows, and growth opportunities. Firms classified as negative cash flow sensitive have the lowest cash flows, highest growth opportunities, and appear the most financially constrained. Cash flow insensitive firms have the highest cash flows, lowest growth opportunities, and appear the least financially constrained. To a large extent, the negative relationship between cash flow and investment is driven by the opposite trends followed by investment and cash flow, as firms grow through stages of their life cycle.     

Agency cost,top executives' overconfidence,and investment-cash flow sensitivity — Evidence from listed companies in China

We examine the effect of agency cost on the relation between top executives' overconfidence and investment-cash flow sensitivity using the data from Chinese listed companies. We find that on average top executives' overconfidence leads to increased investment-cash flow sensitivity. However, this relation holds only for companies with state-owned entities as controlling shareholders. In contrast, the relation is not significant for non-state controlled firms. We construct proxy for agency cost and find that state-controlled companies have significantly greater agency cost than non-state controlled companies. Results on sub-samples sorted by agency cost again show that the positive effect of top executives' overconfidence on investment-cash flow sensitivity holds only for companies that exhibit high agency cost. Our results therefore suggest that agency cost has a significant impact on the relation between top executives' overconfidence and investment-cash flow sensitivity, and the investment distortion due to top executives' overconfidence behavior may be alleviated by reducing agency cost through elevated supervision.     

IFRS adoption in Europe and investment-cash flow sensitivity: Outsider versus insider economies

We examine the economic consequences of the mandatory adoption of IFRS in EU countries by showing which types of economies have the largest reduction in investment-cash flow sensitivity post-IFRS. We also examine whether the reduction in investment-cash flow sensitivity depends on firm size as well as economy type.We find that the investment-cash flow sensitivity of insider economies is higher than that of outsider economies pre-IFRS and that IFRS reduces the investment-cash flow sensitivity of insider economies more than that of outsider economies. Also, we find that small firms in insider economies have the highest sensitivity of investment to lagged cash flow pre-IFRS, and that they are no longer sensitive to lagged cash flow post-IFRS. Overall, our results suggest that IFRS adoption might have improved the functioning of capital markets in relation to small firms in insider economies.     

Is Investment‐Cash Flow Sensitivity Caused by Agency Costs or Asymmetric Information? Evidence from the UK

We investigate the investment‐cash flow sensitivity of a large sample of the UK listed firms and confirm that investment is strongly cash flow‐sensitive. Is this sensitivity a result of agency problems when managers with high discretion overinvest, or of asymmetric information when managers owning equity are underinvesting if the market (erroneously) demands too high a risk premium? We find that investment‐cash flow sensitivity results mainly from the agency costs of free cash flow. The magnitude of the relationship depends on insider ownership in a non‐monotonic way. Furthermore, we obtain that outside blockholders, such as financial institutions, the government, and industrial firms (only at high control levels), reduce the cash flow sensitivity of investment via effective monitoring. Finally, financial institutions appear to play a role in mitigating informational asymmetries between firms and capital markets. We corroborate our findings by performing additional tests based on the stochastic efficient frontier approach and power indices.     

The Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash

We model a firm's demand for liquidity to develop a new test of the effect of financial constraints on corporate policies. The effect of financial constraints is captured by the firm's propensity to save cash out of cash flows (the cash flow sensitivity of cash). We hypothesize that constrained firms should have a positive cash flow sensitivity of cash, while unconstrained firms' cash savings should not be systematically related to cash flows. We empirically estimate the cash flow sensitivity of cash using a large sample of manufacturing firms over the 1971 to 2000 period and find robust support for our theory.     

Information Production, Insider Trading, and the Role of Managerial Compensation

We analyze the information production decision of a manager who can trade on this information and whose compensation is increasing in the stock price. The amount of information produced increases with the stock's volatility and liquidity and decreases with the manager's pay-performance sensitivity. Insider trading regulations that symmetrically inhibit the manager's ability to buy and sell stock cause her to produce less information. But asymmetric insider trading regulations like the short sales prohibition have an ambiguous effect inducing her to produce more or less information depending on her pay-performance sensitivity. This contradicts the standard argument made by opponents of insider trading regulations that such regulations always reduce information production.     

The impact of labor unions on investment-cash flow sensitivity

This paper empirically examines how labor unions affect investment-cash flow sensitivity using samples from the US covering the period of 1984–2009. We find a significant positive union effect using a q model of investment. The capital expenditures of firms are 1.71 times more sensitive to internal cash flows when unionization rates increase one standard deviation from the mean. This effect holds when we control for other proxies of financial constraints. In addition, unionized firms are associated with lower cash–cash flow sensitivity, which suggests that the higher investment-cash flow sensitivity in unionized firms is primarily driven by the incentive of these firms to reduce liquidity and enhance bargaining power against the union. We also show that the above union effects become more pronounced during labor contract negotiation years.     

Idiosyncratic Cash Flows and Systematic Risk

We show that unpriced cash flow shocks contain information about future priced risk. A positive idiosyncratic shock decreases the sensitivity of firm value to priced risk factors and simultaneously increases firm size and idiosyncratic risk. A simple model can therefore explain book‐to‐market and size anomalies, as well as the negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. Empirically, we find that anomalies are more pronounced for firms with high idiosyncratic cash flow volatility. More generally, our results imply that any economic variable correlated with the history of idiosyncratic shocks can help to explain expected stock returns.     

Managerial incentives and risk-taking

We provide empirical evidence of a strong causal relation between managerial compensation and investment policy, debt policy, and firm risk. Controlling for CEO pay-performance sensitivity (delta) and the feedback effects of firm policy and risk on the managerial compensation scheme, we find that higher sensitivity of CEO wealth to stock volatility (vega) implements riskier policy choices, including relatively more investment in R&D, less investment in PPE, more focus, and higher leverage. We also find that riskier policy choices generally lead to compensation structures with higher vega and lower delta. Stock-return volatility has a positive effect on both vega and delta.     

The effect of financial reporting quality on CEO compensation structure: Evidence from accounting comparability

This study examines the effect of accounting comparability on the design of CEO compensation structure. After controlling for firm-specific attributes, we find that accounting comparability is positively associated with CEO equity-based compensation intensity and pay-performance sensitivity. This suggests that the improved comparability increases the usefulness of equity-based compensation and a firm is willing to offer more equity-based compensation contracts to CEOs and increase their pay-performance sensitivity. Further, we find that the impact of comparability on the CEO’s compensation contract increases with information asymmetry, which is consistent with the notion that accounting comparability is a quality of financial reporting that facilitates the use of equity-based compensation in a poor information environment. Our analysis also reveals that the effect of accounting comparability on CEO compensation structure is greater when a firm’s corporate governance is strong, consistent with the complementary relation between comparability and the exiting corporate governance in determining CEO compensation schemes. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms utilize more equity-based compensation as a proportion of total compensation under greater accounting comparability and enhance the alignment between equity-based compensation and firm performance.