Good for managers,bad for society? Causal evidence on the association between risk-taking incentives and corporate social responsibility

Using FAS 123R as an exogenous shock to stock options, I provide evidence that equity-based risk-taking incentives discourage corporate social responsibility (CSR). This finding suggests that compensation incentives can motivate managers not to pursue CSR strategies because CSR reduces firms’ risk and provides insurance-like benefits. Firms with a greater demand for CSR's risk reduction are more sensitive to changes in risk-taking incentives. I triangulate my results by confirming that CSR weaknesses are positively related to subsequent stock return volatility. Overall, using a robust empirical design, I find that risk-taking incentives are a determinant of firms’ CSR.     

Investor pricing of CEO equity incentives

The main purpose of this paper is to explore CEO compensation in the form of stock and options. The objective of CEO compensation is to better align CEO-shareholder interests by inducing CEOs to make more optimal (albeit risky) investment decisions. However, recent research suggests that these incentives have a significant down-side (i.e., they motivate executives to manipulate reported earnings and lower information quality). Given the conflict between the positive CEO-shareholder incentive alignment effect and the dysfunctional information quality effect, it is an open empirical question whether CEO equity incentives increase firm value. We examine whether CEO equity incentives are priced in the firm-specific ex ante equity risk premium over the 1992–2007 time period. Our analysis controls for two potential structural changes over this time period. The first is the 1995 Delaware Supreme Court ruling which increased protection from takeovers (and decreased risk) for Delaware incorporated firms. The second is the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act which impacted corporate risk taking, equity incentives, and earnings management. Collectively, our findings suggest that CEO equity incentives, despite being associated with lower information quality, increase firm value through a cost of equity capital channel.     

Managerial personal diversification and portfolio equity incentives

This paper examines the diversification choices of top managers and their implications for the levels of portfolio equity incentives as well as for firms' financial policies. Standard portfolio theory should also apply to corporate managers and therefore excessive risk exposures to the firm should create portfolio diversification incentives for the managers. We use a unique dataset from the Taiwan tax data center and construct the measures of the degree of diversification in a manager's equity portfolio that is made up of equities of other firms to capture his motives for diversifying his risk exposure to his own firm. We provide empirical evidence supporting the view that managers have a risk-reduction motive when they trade in the equities of other firms besides their own. Moreover, we document evidence that the degree of diversification in such equity portfolios also significantly affects managerial equity incentives as well as firms' financial policies. Overall, our findings confirm that managers' personal diversification can help make up for the diversification that the managers would otherwise have lost, thereby reducing the agency cost of equity incentive contracts.     

What drives the dating game of executive options exercise? Evidence from Taiwan

Examining Taiwanese firms from 2002 to 2008, this paper investigates the motivations behind backdating the exercising of executive stock options. The probability of suspect exercises (backdating) is positively related to the firm’s stock return, the value of the option, tax savings, institutional ownership and the extent of CEO equity ownership and negatively related to firm‐specific risk and the use of Big Four accounting firms. Tax incentives motivate executives to backdate the exercise date, implying that the greater the potential for larger tax savings, the greater the likelihood of backdating. Backdating usually occurs in firms that have heavy ownership by the CEO, have more claims to executive stock options and are not family‐run, confirming the presence of the agency cost problem.     

Corporate investment and stock market valuation

We study the driving forces behind the positive association observed between corporate investment and stock market valuation, and how they interact with managerial equity incentives and informativeness of investment. We build a dynamic model where managers use investment choices to influence investors' opinions about firms' future prospects and increase the market valuation. The incentives to manipulate the valuation processes increase with managerial equity incentives and informativeness of investment. Our empirical findings support the model's predictions that the tendency of using investment to boost market valuation is stronger when managerial stock ownership is high or when earnings quality is low (i.e., there is strong reliance on investment for information).     

Seasonality in Fund Performance: An Examination of the Portfolio Holdings and Trades of Investment Managers

Abstract:  This study examines the extent to which seasonal variation arises across calendar months in the performance of active Australian equity managers. While it is well documented that there is seasonality in equity market returns, it is unknown whether calendar month variation in managed fund performance exists. Employing a unique database of monthly stock holdings, we find evidence consistent with systematic variation in the risk-adjusted performance of active investment managers over the calendar year. Specifically, we find fund performance is higher in the months when corporate earnings are announced. We also document that the performance of fund managers is lower in the months preceding the tax year-end. Finally, we report evidence that investment manager performance is greater than normal in December, possibly due to both window dressing and the Christmas holiday effect. These findings have important implications for investors attempting to exploit anomalies in fund returns by timing their entry and exit points from active equity funds.     

Corporate social responsibility and tax aggressiveness: An empirical analysis

This study examines the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate tax aggressiveness. Based on a sample of 408 publicly listed Australian corporations for the 2008/2009 financial year, our regression results show that the higher the level of CSR disclosure of a corporation, the lower is the level of corporate tax aggressiveness. We find a negative and statistically significant association between CSR disclosure and tax aggressiveness which holds across a number of different regression model specifications, thus more socially responsible corporations are likely to be less tax aggressive in nature. Finally, the regression results from our additional analysis indicate that the social investment commitment and corporate and CSR strategy (including the ethics and business conduct) of a corporation are important elements of CSR activities that have a negative impact on tax aggressiveness.     

Executive cash compensation and tax aggressiveness of Chinese firms

We examine the influence of corporate compensation policies on firms’ tax aggressiveness in an emerging market where executive compensation is primarily in cash form. Based on a hand-collected dataset of 958 firm-year observations of Chinese listed firms for the 2006–2012 period, we find that firms paying higher executive cash compensation are associated with lower tax aggressiveness. This relationship also holds for the excess cash compensation measures which control for executive shareholding, firm profitability, size, growth opportunity, and board independence. We further document that mutual funds ownership pressure firms paying higher compensation to reduce their tax aggressiveness, suggesting adverse selection by mutual funds on firms exhibiting risky tax avoidance activities. High leverage offsets the negative link between cash compensation and tax aggressiveness, indicating a complementary effect between debt and tax avoidance, and, hence, suggesting that creditor monitoring is weak. These results are robust to the system-GMM estimation, which simultaneously account for the endogeneity of executive compensation, tax aggressiveness, ownership and control, leverage, and corporate governance. Our findings on Chinese firms have important policy implications for developing countries around the world with concentrated ownership structure, weak institutional environment, widespread corruption, ineffective rule of law, and ongoing significant social and political transformation.     

What Drives CEOs to Take on More Risk? Some Evidence from the Laboratory of REITs

Many have pointed to excessive risk‐taking by the CEOs of financial firms as a contributor to the recent worldwide economic crisis. The same observers often blame questionable corporate governance structures and compensation practices for that risk‐taking. But is this perception correct? And what is the relationship between CEO incentives and risk‐taking outside of the financial industry, where the government guarantees provided by deposit insurance could have distorted incentives? In an attempt to answer these questions, the authors analyze the relationship between CEO incentives and corporate risk‐taking by 101 U.S. REITs during the period 2003 to 2007. Their main finding is that corporate risk‐taking, as measured by the growth rate in corporate debt (the only measure of risk that is completely under the control of the CEO), is inversely related to CEO stock ownership—that is, the larger the CEO's equity ownership stake, the slower the growth in debt financing and financial risk‐taking. At the same time, the authors find that financial risk‐taking is positively related to large cash bonuses for the CEOs and to situations in which the CEO is also chairman of the board of directors. Finally, the authors also report that CEOs who are relatively new to the job grow more slowly and borrow less, suggesting that boards of directors can temporarily contain risky expansion plans by the CEO. These results provide support for those corporate governance reformers who wish to cut cash bonus payments for CEOs in favor of long‐term stock ownership.     

期权激励与企业并购行为

本文以2006年至2015年我国上市公司为研究对象,考察了期权激励对企业并购行为的影响。研究发现:授予高管的期权激励显著提升了企业发起并购的可能性和并购规模。缓解代理问题和提升风险承担是潜在的作用渠道。进一步研究表明,激励对象异质性会影响期权激励的效果,期权激励对企业并购倾向和并购规模的提升作用在管理者年龄较高、管理者任期较长以及管理者相对薪酬水平较低的企业中更加明显。此外,期权激励对企业并购行为的影响在非国有企业中更加突出。最后,本文还发现期权激励提升了企业并购的财务业绩。本文的研究不仅丰富了有关期权激励效果方面的文献,而且对于理解企业并购行为具有一定的参考意义。     

Share‐pledging and the cost of debt

We examine how corporate insiders pledging their equity stakes to collateralise personal loans influences firm cost of debt. Pledging enables managers to diversify personal holdings, potentially increasing risk‐taking incentives. However, exposure to contingent risks creates potentially stronger risk‐reducing incentives. Using hand‐collected data with OLS, difference‐in‐differences, and instrumental variables models, we find significant decreases in yield spreads associated with executive share‐pledging. Reductions in spreads surrounding share‐pledge disclosures suggest investors update their risk assessment to reflect pledging managers’ risk‐taking incentives. Consistent with risk‐reducing incentives, firms with share‐pledging executives subsequently reduce leverage.     

Brand Equity and Firm Risk: An Empirical Investigation in an Emerging Market

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between brand equity and firm risk in Turkey using a sample of 254 firm-year observations for the period 2009–2014. Our findings suggest that brand equity is an important determinant of equity risk in addition to conventional firm-specific variables. In particular, after controlling for firm-specific variables, the results reveal that firms with high brand equity experience lower volatility in stock returns. We also find that enhancing brand equity is an important tool for firms in reducing unsystematic and downside systematic risk in their stock prices. Our findings are robust to different valuation models of domestic and global investors as well as different methods of estimations. The results are encouraging for both marketing managers and investors, particularly those in emerging markets where stock price volatility is relatively higher than in developed markets.     

SIX CHALLENGES IN DESIGNING EQUITY-BASED PAY

The past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the equitybased pay of U.S. corporate executives, an increase that has been driven almost entirely by the explosion of stock option grants. When properly designed, equity‐based pay can raise corporate productivity and shareholder value by helping companies attract, motivate, and retain talented managers. But there are good reasons to question whether the current forms of U.S. equity pay are optimal. In many cases, substantial stock and option payoffs to top executives–particularly those who cashed out much of their holdings near the top of the market–appear to have come at the expense of their shareholders, generating considerable skepticism about not just executive pay practices, but the overall quality of U.S. corporate governance. At the same time, many companies that have experienced sharp stock price declines are now struggling with the problem of retaining employees holding lots of deep‐underwater options. This article discusses the design of equity‐based pay plans that aim to motivate sustainable, or long‐run, value creation. As a first step, the author recommends the use of longer vesting periods and other requirements on executive stock and option holdings, both to limit managers' ability to “time” the market and to reduce their incentives to take shortsighted actions that increase near‐term earnings at the expense of longer‐term cash flow. Besides requiring “more permanent” holdings, the author also proposes a change in how stock options are issued. In place of popular “fixed value” plans that adjust the number of options awarded each year to reflect changes in the share price (and that effectively reward management for poor performance by granting more options when the price falls, and fewer when it rises), the author recommends the use of “fixed number” plans that avoid this unintended distortion of incentives. As the author also notes, there is considerable confusion about the real economic cost of options relative to stock. Part of the confusion stems, of course, from current GAAP accounting, which allows companies to report the issuance of at‐the‐money options as costless and so creates a bias against stock and other forms of compensation. But, coming on top of the “opportunity cost” of executive stock options to the company's shareholders, there is another, potentially significant cost of options (and, to a lesser extent, stock) that arises from the propensity of executives and employees to place a lower value on company stock and options than well‐diversified outside investors. The author's conclusion is that grants of (slow‐vesting) stock are likely to have at least three significant advantages over employee stock options:

• ? they are more highly valued by executives and employees (per dollar of cost to shareholders);
• ? they continue to provide reasonably strong ownership incentives and retention power, regardless of whether the stock price rises or falls, because they don't go underwater; and
• ? the value of such grants is much more transparent to stockholders, employees, and the press.

     

Are financial derivatives related to intra-entities' tax aggressiveness? UK evidence

This study investigates the effect of hedged versus nonhedged financial derivative instruments on the intra-entities' tax aggressiveness. Our findings provide evidence that multinational enterprises manage derivatives instruments to avoid their tax expenses aggressively. Specifically, nonhedged derivatives are an excellent determinant of the tax aggressiveness practices of corporate groups. Besides, this study speaks to the central role of governance quality in mitigating this aspect of tax aggressiveness and provides practical guidance to tax authorities and regulators for establishing new policies for governing financial derivative instruments and preventing tax aggressiveness from negatively affecting firms and society.     

Taxes, Leverage, and the Cost of Equity Capital

We examine the associations among leverage, corporate and investor level taxes, and the firm's implied cost of equity capital. Expanding on Modigliani and Miller [1958, 1963] , the cost of equity capital can be expressed as a function of leverage and corporate and investor level taxes. Based on this expression, we predict that the cost of equity is increasing in leverage, and that corporate taxes mitigate this leverage‐related risk premium, while the personal tax disadvantage of debt increases this premium. We empirically test these predictions using implied cost of equity estimates and proxies for the firm's corporate tax rate and the personal tax disadvantage of debt. Our results suggest that the equity risk premium associated with leverage is decreasing in the corporate tax benefit from debt. We find some evidence that the equity risk premium from leverage is increasing in the personal tax penalty associated with debt.     

How Firms Make Capital Expenditure Decisions: Financial Signals, Internal Cash Flows, Income Taxes and the Tax Reform Act of 1986

This paper empirically assesses the determinants of future net capital expenditures for a broad cross-section of COMPUSTAT firms from 1973 to 1989. We explore three general categories of factors expected to affect investment: (1) external equity financing, (2) internally generated accounting information, and (3) tax incentives. We find that external financing and information plays a role in that both positive stock returns and equity issuances indicate future increases in investment. The results suggest that high stock prices not only lower the cost of capital, but also signal good investment opportunities. Accounting information about internal sources and uses of funds are also important in the investment decision. In particular, net income and depreciation are positive indicators of future investment while there is a tradeoff between the payment of dividends and investment. Further, positive changes in available cash liquidity also motivate future investment. While taxes are not important in the investment decision on average, we find that firms with previously higher income taxes invested substantially more in 1985 and 1986. This coincides with the repeal of the investment tax credit and the accelerated depreciation schedules in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. We view this as evidence that federal tax policy in the 1980's induced firms with high income tax obligations to accelerate capital expenditures just before the favorable tax treatment of capital expenditures was eliminated.     

Optimal strike prices of stock options for effort-averse executives

This paper evaluates the common practice of setting the strike prices of executive option plans at-the-money. Hall and Murphy [Hall, Brian, Murphy, Kevin J., 2000. Optimal exercise prices for executive stock options. American Economic Review 90 (2), 209–214] claim this practice to be optimal since it maximizes the sensitivity of compensation to firm performance. However, they do not incorporate effort and the possibility that managers are effort-averse into their model. We revisit this question while explicitly introducing these factors and allowing the reward package to include fixed wages, options, and stock grants. We simulate the manager’s effort choice and compensation as well as the value of shareholders’ equity under alternative compensation schemes, and identify schemes that are optimal. Our simulations indicate that, when abstracting from tax considerations, it is optimal to award managers with options that will most likely be highly valuable (i.e., substantially in-the-money) on their expiration date. Prior to 2006, the tax code and financial reporting standards provided incentives to award options that are closer to the money when issued than the options that were optimal in the absence of these considerations. Recent tax and reporting changes voided these incentives and thus we predict that these changes will induce firms to issue options with lower strike prices than those that were issued prior to 2006.     

工薪所得税筹划与企业创新

本文结合我国工薪所得税税负较重及实施创新驱动发展战略的现实背景,探讨工薪所得税筹划是否以及如何对企业创新产生影响。研究发现:(1)工薪所得税筹划程度与企业创新显著正相关;(2)员工应税压力越大,二者正相关关系越显著,且2011年个人所得税税制改革会抑制二者之间的正向关系,表明纳税筹划主要通过降低工薪税负的不利影响,强化薪酬的激励效应,进而促进企业创新;(3)当公司为国有企业或公司处在税收征管强度较大的地区时,二者的正向关系更强;(4)当企业人均薪酬波动较大时,二者的正向关系削弱;(5)当创新员工更有可能是避税行为的受益者时,二者的正相关关系更强。本研究对于降低工薪阶层税负,以及如何提高企业创新意愿,实现创新驱动发展战略,具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

Government policy and ownership of equity securities

Since World War II, direct stock ownership by households across the globe has largely been replaced by indirect stock ownership by financial institutions. We argue that tax and retirement policies are among the factors behind these changes. We develop empirical measures of two tax incentives of holding stocks inside tax-deferred plans, tax-free investment income and the smoothing benefit. Using long time-series from eight countries, we show that the fraction of household ownership decreases with these measures of the tax benefits. This finding contributes to policy debates on effective taxation and to financial economics research on the long-term effects of taxation on corporate finance and asset prices.     

Convertible calls and corporate taxes under asymmetric information

This paper develops a signalling model of call of convertible securities (bonds or preferred stock) in the presence of corporate taxes and asymmetric information about future earnings. In equilibrium, managers with relatively unfavorable information call to force convertible holders to convert to common stock (in spite of the loss of corporate tax benefits if the convertibles are bonds), while those with relatively favorable information do not call. The model predicts that the announcement period common stock returns are more negative at the call of convertible bond than at the call of convertible preferred stock. Furthermore, we predict that when the importance of the tax deductibility of interest differs among firms, so does the stock price reaction to the announcement of convertible debt call. Specifically, the loss of equity value at the announcement decreases with the amount of non-debt tax shield that the calling firm owns, decreases with the book value of convertible debt called, and increases with corporate taxes.