Taxes and capital structure: evidence from firms' response to the Tax Reform Act of 1986

While the theoretical relation between taxes and capital structurehas been extensively analyzed, the empirical evidence on thisissue has thus far been inconclusive. One of the main difficultiesconfronting previous empirical studies of the cross-sectionalrelationship between taxes and leverage was the control of interveningvariables. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA), which drasticallychanged the tax regime, provides a unique opportunity to assessthe interaction between taxes and leverage decisions in a controlledenvironment. We test the relationship between leverage and certaintax-related variables for a large sample of companies in theyears surrounding the enactment of the TRA. The results supportthe tax-based theories of capital structure. The findings indicatethat there exists a substitution effect between debt and nondebttax shields, and that both corporate and personal tax ratesaffect leverage decisions.     

中国企业杠杆:一个周期性问题?

一直以来,企业部门杠杆率在中国宏观杠杆率中占有重要的地位。通过构建企业杠杆率的动态局部调整模型,本文区分了经济周期对企业杠杆率的直接和间接影响,并利用中国工业企业数据库对二者进行测算。结果显示,用观察经济周期哑变量估计系数的方式来判断经济周期对企业杠杆率的影响,会显著高估企业杠杆率顺周期调整的程度,因为这只捕捉了周期的直接影响。在同时考虑了经济周期对杠杆率的间接影响后,我们发现:第一,中国企业杠杆率总体仍具有顺周期性。这表明货币政策在维护物价水平、熨平经济周期波动时,能够对企业杠杆率稳定产生一定的正向溢出效应。因此,双支柱调控框架具有内在一致性,可以形成政策合力。第二,中国企业杠杆率变动的顺周期性较弱,尤其是国有企业。因此,想要在保持物价和经济增长稳定的同时实现稳杠杆,货币政策和宏观审慎政策需相互协调配合。本文的研究为思考双支柱调控框架的分工与协调提供了有益的微观基础。     

Corporate Disclosure Policy and the Informativeness of Stock Prices

We examine the association between voluntary corporate disclosure and the informativeness of stock prices. We measure corporate disclosure using the AIMR-FAF annual corporate disclosure ratings. We define price informativeness by the association between current stock returns and future earnings changes: more informative stock price changes contain more information about future earnings changes. To measure this association, we regress current returns against (current and) future earnings changes. The aggregated coefficient on the future earnings changes, which we refer to as the future ERC, is our measure of informativeness (association).We hypothesize and find that greater disclosure is associated with stock prices that are more informative about future earnings (i.e., higher future ERC). These results provide empirical support for the widely held, but heretofore empirically undocumented, belief that greater disclosure provides information benefits to investors.     

Voluntary disclosure,mandatory disclosure and the cost of capital

We examine the association between a firm's cost of capital and its voluntary and mandatory disclosures. We include two types of mandatory disclosure: those that are a function of periodic reports that are realizations of ex‐ante reporting systems and those that arise due to specific corporate events. To capture a firm's voluntary and event‐driven mandatory disclosures, we use information the firm provides via 8K filings. To capture periodic mandatory disclosures, we use earnings quality measures derived from the literature. Consistent with endogenous relations predicted by theory, we find that voluntary disclosure and both types of mandatory disclosure are correlated, although only event‐driven mandatory disclosures are significant in models that explain voluntary disclosure. We also find that the cost of capital is generally influenced by each of these disclosure types. We also find that controlling for periodic mandatory disclosure does not affect the relationship between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital, while controlling for event‐driven mandatory disclosure sometimes affects the relationship depending on the measures used. Our study suggests that a firm's disclosure environment includes the three types of disclosure examined, although the inclusion of mandatory disclosures does not affect the measured association between voluntary disclosure and the cost of capital.     

AN EMPIRICAL MODEL OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE: SOME NEW EVIDENCE

Using a general autoregressive distributed lag model, we estimate the longrun steady state determinants of corporate capital structure. We find that, in the long run, the leverage ratio is related positively to the corporate tax rate and firm size and negatively to future growth opportunities and stock returns. By contrast, there appears to be no relation between leverage and the corporate tax rate on a short-run year to year basis. Our results suggest that prior empirical evidence on capital structure is of questionable value precisely because of its failure to clearly separate the short-run relationship between leverage and its determinants from its long-run relationship.     

Systematic risk,the tradeoff of leverage and IPO first-day returns

In this paper, we investigate IPO first-day returns in French market. Our focus is to assess the relationship between equity risk, corporate leverage and IPO initial returns. Based on data of 254 French IPOs, traded on Euronext/Alternext markets over the period 2006 and 2016, we find that estimated beta and idiosyncratic volatility are strongly and negatively related to book and market net gearing ratios. We also find that the interaction terms between equity risk measures and corporate leverage ratios are inversely related to IPO first-day returns. In addition, we highlight that industry and macroeconomic environment variables are significant predictors of equity initial returns. Robustness check of our findings indicates less relevant results for corporate leverage when it is estimated as independent variable.

     

Does voluntary carbon disclosure reflect underlying carbon performance?

Carbon information is becoming more and more important in the decision making of stakeholders, but there is growing concern regarding the reliability of corporate carbon disclosure and a lack of empirical studies addressing this issue. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether voluntary carbon disclosure reflects firms’ true carbon performance. Level of carbon disclosure was measured based on content analysis of Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reports, and our carbon performance index focused on both carbon intensity of emissions and carbon mitigation. Based on a sample of 474 U.S., U.K., and Australian firms, our findings show a significant positive association between carbon disclosure and performance, suggesting that firms’ voluntary carbon disclosure in the CDP is indicative of their underlying actual carbon performance. This result is consistent with signalling theory. Our findings are useful for corporate stakeholders and governmental policymakers who are concerned about the quality of voluntary greenhouse gas disclosure.     

Determinants of corporate social disclosure: Empirical evidence from Bangladesh

We explore the potential firm and industry characteristics that determine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure practises by Bangladeshi listed firms. We use a CSR disclosure checklist to measure the extent of CSR disclosure in the annual reports and a multiple regression analysis to examine the determinants of CSR disclosure. Our study finds that CSR disclosure has positive and significant relationships with export-oriented sector, firm size and types of industries. We also find a negative relationship between CSR disclosure and family ownership. The overall findings of our study provide empirical evidence which suggests that a number of firm and industry characteristics are important determinants of the extent of CSR disclosures in a developing country like Bangladesh. Our findings can help the policy makers to adopt necessary regulatory reform to improve the CSR practises and enhance organisational legitimacy.     

Firm-level political sentiment and corporate tax avoidance

This paper examines how managers' tone on political issues in earnings conference calls relates to corporate tax avoidance. We find a positive relationship between managers' tone of using political linguistics and tax avoidance, while controlling for non-political tone. The relationship is more pronounced for firms with greater political exposure, higher lobbying expenditures, greater information asymmetry, and more risk-taking. The empirical results remain robust with various additional checks. Overall, our evidence suggests that managers employ the sentiment of political risk disclosure for aggressive tax purposes.     

Debt Dynamics

We develop a dynamic trade‐off model with endogenous choice of leverage, distributions, and real investment in the presence of a graduated corporate income tax, individual taxes on interest and corporate distributions, financial distress costs, and equity flotation costs. We explain several empirical findings inconsistent with the static trade‐off theory. We show there is no target leverage ratio, firms can be savers or heavily levered, leverage is path dependent, leverage is decreasing in lagged liquidity, and leverage varies negatively with an external finance weighted average Q. Using estimates of structural parameters, we find that simulated model moments match data moments.     

A New Perspective on the International Evidence Concerning the Book-Price Effect

Finance theory implies equity returns should be positively related to financial leverage. However, a recent article decomposes the book-price ratio into financing and operating components and report a negative association between financial leverage and returns. We shed new light on this puzzle by examining a region in which previous research has established that firms’ financial leverage choices are motivated by factors other than maximizing shareholders’ wealth: we hypothesize that this must be reflected in both how financial leverage is priced and the book-price ratio. We show that the relationship between equity returns and financial leverage for stocks in our sample is indeed very different to the findings of previous research, and this is reflected in the decomposed elements of the book-price ratio.     

宏观审慎政策是否推动了企业去杠杆？——基于沪深A股上市公司的实证分析

依据2007—2019年中国沪深两市A股非金融上市公司年度财务数据,运用多元线性回归模型,考察宏观审慎政策和企业杠杆率之间的作用关系。结果表明：适度从紧的宏观审慎政策有利于降低企业杠杆率,受企业特征和地区金融结构异质性影响,非国有控股、规模较小、非过度负债状态企业及金融结构化程度较高地区更为明显;进一步分析发现,宏观审慎政策通过银行信贷渠道和资产价格渠道影响企业杠杆率,其中非国有控股及小规模企业受影响更深。因此,应优化宏观审慎政策对企业杠杆率的调节方式,加强宏观审慎政策结构性监管与跨部门监管,提高宏观审慎政策的有效性和针对性。     

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR CORPORATE RISK DISCLOSURE EMERGING FROM THE AGENDA FOR CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REFORM

During the last decade an implicit conceptual framework for internal control and corporate risk management has arisen from risk management practice and policy within UK companies. An explicit conceptual framework for risk management is now emerging and is expressed in the Turnbull Report. In this paper, we develop a diagrammatic representation for the conceptual framework for internal control, risk management and risk disclosure. We consider the recent practical and policy developments in the disclosure of risk-related information in order to establish the current state of the art of corporate risk disclosure. Thus, we focus only on the disclosure aspect of the conceptual framework for internal control. We use a questionnaire survey to canvas the attitudes of UK institutional investors towards risk disclosure in relation to their portfolio investment decisions. Our empirical findings indicate that institutional investors do not generally favour a regulated environment for corporate risk disclosure or a general statement of business risk. The respondents agree that increased risk disclosure would help them in their portfolio investment decisions. However, for other aspects of the risk disclosure issue they are more neutral in attitude. Further, we found that the variation in the attitudes of institutional investors appears to be associated with the characteristics of the funds they manage as well as with their investment horizons. Further, we find that institutional investors’ perceptions of corporate governance are related to their investment horizons, among other factors.     

上市公司社会责任信息披露影响因素研究

本文以在深圳证券交易所上市的公司为样本，对上市公司社会责任信息披露程度及其影响因素进行了实证研究。研究发现，我国上市公司社会责任信息披露的总体状况较差，公司绩效、行业属性及规模是影响我国上市公司社会责任信息披露的重要因素，而独立董事比例及董事长与总经理是否二职合一两个公司治理结构变量均末表现出对社会责任信息披露的显著影响．     

The effect of audit committee shareholding,financial expertise and size on interim financial disclosures

In recent years, corporate failures and accounting irregularities have led to concerns about the effectiveness of audit committees in the financial reporting process. In response, corporate governance committees in different countries have made specific recommendations designed to enhance the role of the audit committee in executing its financial reporting oversight duties. We investigate in this study, the effect of some of these recommendations by empirically examining the relationship between selected audit committee characteristics and the level of disclosure in interim reports of a sample of 262 UK listed companies. Specifically, the audit committee characteristics examined are shareholding of audit committee members (as a proxy for audit committee independence), audit committee size and audit committee financial expertise. Employing both a weighted and unweighted index to measure interim disclosure, the results indicate a significant negative association between shareholding of audit committee members and interim disclosure. Our results provide evidence of a significant positive association between interim disclosure and audit committee financial expertise. We find no significant relationship between audit committee size and the extent of disclosure in interim reports. Overall, however, our results suggest that audit committee characteristics have an impact on its monitoring effectiveness of the financial reporting process. These results have important implications for corporate governance policy-makers who have a responsibility to prescribe appropriate corporate governance structures to ensure that shareholders are protected.     

How much can illiquidity affect corporate debt yield spread?

We present a structural method for measuring the upper bound for the illiquidity risk of liabilities issued by a levered firm. The method calculates the upper bound of illiquidity spread of a corporate bond given its duration and the issuing firm’s asset risk and leverage ratio. Consistent with the empirical literature the illiquidity spread is positively related to the issuing firm’s asset risk and leverage ratio and the illiquidity component increases with a bond’s credit quality. The term structure of illiquidity spread has a humped shape, where its maximum level depends on the firm’s leverage ratio. Finally, we demonstrate how the method’s implied restricted trading period can be used as a measure for illiquidity in the bonds’ market.     

储蓄率与杠杆率:一个U型关系

近年来,中国呈现典型的“高储蓄—高杠杆”特征,高储蓄率也被认为是中国杠杆率偏高的主要原因之一。能否通过降低储蓄率的方式来去杠杆成为了广泛讨论的问题。为此,本文构建了一个含有融资约束的动态宏观模型,研究了储蓄率对杠杆率的影响机理。并且,基于41个代表性经济体1966-2017年的面板数据,对储蓄率与杠杆率之间的关系进行了实证分析,主要有两点研究发现:(1)虽然高储蓄率会导致高杠杆率,但是储蓄率与杠杆率不是简单的正相关关系,而是呈现显著的U型关系。结合测算的U型曲线拐点值与中国实际情况,预计储蓄率下降在降低杠杆率方面的作用效果有限。(2)高杠杆下,较高的储蓄率可以有效降低发生金融危机的概率,而储蓄率下降则会加大发生金融危机的概率。基于此,本文认为中国不能通过降低储蓄率的方式来降低杠杆率,反而需要对近年来储蓄率下滑的现象予以高度重视,从而更好地守住不发生系统性金融风险的底线。     

Corporate carbon assurance and the quality of carbon disclosure

Based on an international sample, this study examines the association between corporate carbon assurance and carbon disclosure. We find that companies that adopt carbon assurance tend to have better carbon disclosure quality than their unassured peers. Cross-sectional analyses demonstrate that the positive relationship is stronger in stakeholder-oriented countries. We also document that carbon assurance plays a substitutive role for country-level carbon regulation and social trust. Further analyses suggest that carbon assurance has differential impacts on specific types of carbon disclosure and the quality of carbon disclosure increases with the percentage of reported emissions assured and the level of carbon assurance.     

Shareholders' control rights,family ownership and the firm's leverage decisions

We investigate the association between controlling shareholders' ownership (CS_Own) and firms' leverage decisions in the Singaporean context. We examine whether the impact of ownership concentration on leverage differs across excess and lower control. We report that shareholders with excess control prefer leverage financing for an optimal capital structure and focus on value maximisation rather using leverage as a tool of minority shareholders' expropriation. Our analysis shows that firms capital structure significantly influences by the coalition of shareholders particularly decisions about leverage financing in addition to the firms' specific characteristics and institutional arrangements. Our empirical evidence shows that controlling shareholders with a lower fraction of equity are more concerned about limited holding thus prefer leverage over equity financing to inflate their equity stake to protect them from the potential takeovers and mergers. We report that capital structure decisions in Singapore are linked with the trade-off between the controlling shareholders' target of mitigating firm risk and their non-dilution entrenchment needs. Further, we found an inverted U-shaped association between control ownership and leverage financing. In terms of moderating effect of family-controlled ownership, our findings exhibit that leverage financing is less pronounced for family firms in Singapore due to the under-diversified investment portfolio.     

债务结构优化与企业创新——基于企业债券融资视角的研究

本文在我国保持宏观杠杆率基本稳定及实施创新驱动发展战略的现实背景下,从债券融资的视角,探讨债务结构优化对企业创新的影响。研究发现,债券融资与企业创新之间显著正相关,表明债券融资优化企业债务结构、提升企业创新能力的积极作用占据主导地位。进一步研究表明:(1)债券融资能够通过降低整体债务融资成本并延长整体债务期限促进企业创新;(2)债券融资对于银行贷款存在溢出效应,即企业通过债券融资,还能降低银行贷款利率、延长银行贷款期限,进而促进企业创新;(3)产品市场竞争和代理问题会在一定程度上削弱债券融资对企业创新的促进作用;(4)不同类型的债券对企业创新能力的作用存在异质性,债券发行的便利性是其影响企业创新的一个重要因素。