Stock liquidity and managerial short-termism

We examine whether stock liquidity exacerbates or mitigates managerial short-termism. Utilizing earnings management as a proxy for managerial short-termism, we establish three major findings. First, firms with liquid stocks engage in less accrual-based and real earnings management. Second, the effect of stock liquidity on earnings management is amplified for firms with high levels of managerial pay-for-performance sensitivity. Third, the positive association between the intensity of earnings management and firm cost of capital is evident only for firms with low stock liquidity. Our findings are consistent with the threat of blockholder exit as the main governance channel through which stock liquidity discourages opportunistic earnings management and mitigates managerial short-termism.     

Capital disadvantage: America's failing capital investment system

The U.S. system of allocating investment capital is failing, putting American companies at a serious disadvantage and threatening the long-term growth of the nation's economy. The problem, says Michael Porter, goes beyond the usual formulation of the issue: accusations of "short-termism" by U.S. managers, ineffective corporate governance by directors, or a high cost of capital. The problem involves the external capital allocation system by which capital is provided to companies, as well as the system by which companies allocate capital internally. America's system is marked by fluid capital and a financial focus. Other countries--notably Japan and Germany--have systems with dedicated capital and a focus on corporate position. In global competition, where investment increasingly determines a company's capacity to upgrade and innovate, the U.S. system does not measure up. These conclusions come out of a two-year research project sponsored by the Harvard Business School and the Council on Competitiveness. Porter recommends five far-reaching reforms to make the U.S. system superior to Japan's and Germany's: 1. Improve the present macroeconomic environment. 2. Expand true ownership throughout the system so that directors, managers, employees, and even customers and suppliers hold positions as owners. 3. Align the goals of capital providers, corporations, directors, managers, employees, customers, suppliers, and society. 4. Improve the information used in decision making. 5. Foster more productive modes of interaction and influence among capital providers, corporations, and business units.     

Are non-family successors all the same? Inside-promoted vs. outside-sourced

This paper studies the differences in post-succession changes in managerial styles and operating performance among three types of successors, namely family successors, inside-promoted non-family successors and outside non-family successors. The data is drawn from Taiwan, where family firms dominate the domestic stock market and there exists a rich, lengthy data set available for analysis. We find that firms having undergone outside non-family successions increase operating performance. This result, however, comes with the cost of managerial short-termism, leading to a reduction in long-term investment. On the other hand, outside non-family successors also improve investor relationships while impairing employee and bank relationships. In contrast, inside-promoted non-family successors tend to increase long-term investment, which differentiates them from family successors who do not adjust investment policies after successions; elsewhere these two types of successors' managerial styles appear to be relatively similar.     

Short-termism,shareholder payouts and investment in the EU

Investor-driven 'short-termism' is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered—rising levels of repurchases and dividends—is incomplete and misleading: it ignores large offsetting equity issuances that move capital from investors to EU firms. We show that, over the last 30 years and the last decade, net shareholder payouts have been moderate and investment and cash balances have increased. In sum, the data provide little basis for the view that short-termism in the EU warrants corporate governance reforms.     

Institutional investor stability and crash risk: Monitoring versus short-termism?

This study tests two opposing views of institutional investors—monitoring versus short-termism. We present evidence that institutional investor stability is negatively associated with 1-year-ahead stock price crash risk, consistent with the monitoring theory of institutional investors but not the short-termism theory. Our findings are shown to be robust to alternative empirical specifications, estimation methods and endogeneity concerns. In addition, we find that institutional ownership by public pension funds (bank trusts, investment companies, and independent investment advisors) is significantly negatively (positively) associated with future crash risk, consistent with findings that pension funds more actively monitor management than other types of institutions.     

Riding the waves of technology through the decades: The relation between industry-level information technology intensity and the cost of equity capital

This paper examines the effect that information technology (IT) investments have on the industry cost of equity capital. We find that industry IT intensity, defined as the relative amount of IT investment to total fixed asset expenditures, is negatively related to the industry cost of equity capital. These results indicate that industries with higher levels of IT investment have lower cost of equity capital. We also find that the relation between IT intensity and cost of equity capital changes over time. Initially, investors viewed IT investments as risky ventures and demanded higher levels of cost of equity (or higher return on their investment) for those industries investing in IT. However, beginning in the 1980s, as IT became more reliable, more cost effective, and had the ability to transform businesses, investors viewed IT Intensity as a positive business strategy with less associated risks and reduced their required cost of equity capital (or lower return on their investment). Extrapolating from our industry results, IT investments allow firms to potentially raise capital at a lower price so they have more assets to employ, indicating that IT investments can be a key factor for business success.     

中国上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性估计

企业投资对资本成本的敏感性是识别货币政策利率传导渠道是否畅通以及IS曲线斜率的重要参数。本文基于新古典投资模型框架,使用2004-2017年中国上市公司非平衡面板数据,估计了中国上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性,并侧重检验了融资约束对企业投资资本成本敏感性的影响。估计结果显示:(1)上市企业投资的加权资本成本弹性显著为负,且已具有较强敏感性(长期弹性系数为-0.16～-0.27),价格型货币政策工具的传导条件在上市公司投资环节正逐渐具备 ;(2)对加权资本成本的结构性估计显示,企业投资主要对债务资本成本的变动较为敏感且系数显著为负,而对股权资本成本的变动敏感程度较低且不稳定;(3)与传统观点相反的是,非国有控股上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性显著低于国有控股上市企业;较强的融资约束是导致非国有控股上市企业投资的资本成本敏感性较低的重要原因,应重视民营经济面临较强的融资约束对价格型货币政策工具传导机制的负面影响。本文的研究为中国货币政策框架的转型以及价格型货币政策传导机制的有效性提供了微观经验证据的支持。     

A theory of voluntary disclosure and cost of capital

This paper explores the links between firms’ voluntary disclosures and their cost of capital. Existing studies investigate the relation between mandatory disclosures and cost of capital and find no cross-sectional effect but a negative association in time-series. In this paper, I find that when disclosure is voluntary firms that disclose their information have a lower cost of capital than firms that do not disclose, but the association between voluntary disclosure and cost of capital for disclosing and nondisclosing firms is positive in aggregate. I further examine whether reductions in cost of capital indicate improved risk-sharing or investment efficiency. I also find that high (low) disclosure frictions lead to overinvestment (underinvestment) relative to first-best. As average cost of capital proxies for risk-sharing but not investment efficiency, the relation between cost of capital and ex ante efficiency may be ambiguous and often irrelevant.     

投资项目风险、外部性与投资资本内部定价

从业绩评价角度,以委托代理理论作为分析工具,研究投资项目风险、外部性对投资资本内部定价的影响。研究结论表明:投资资本的最优内部"价格"与用于决策的企业资本成本一般不同,投资项目风险、外部性对其有重要影响;当平均投资收益率等于边际投资收益率时,只有投资项目风险对投资资本内部定价有影响;投资失败的赔偿制相比有限责任制,会减弱投资项目风险和外部性对投资资本"定价"的影响。这一研究为正确地制定投资资本的内部价格和合理地评价投资业绩提供了理论基础。     

Insider Investment Horizon

We examine the relation between insiders’ investment horizon and the information content of their trades with respect to future stock returns. We conjecture that an insider's investment horizon establishes a benchmark for expected patterns of continued trading behavior and thus helps identify unexpected insider trades, which should be more informative in efficient markets. Consistent with this conjecture, the trades of short-horizon insiders are both more unexpected and more informed, on average, than those of long-horizon insiders. Short-horizon insiders and their firms also tend to display characteristics that are associated with a greater focus on short-termism.     

The balance sheet channel of monetary policy: the panel evidence of Egypt

This paper examines the effects of monetary policy on firms’ investments in Egypt using disaggregated data and generalized method of moments (GMM) technique. It develops the neoclassical investment model by adding the interaction between user cost of capital and cash flow (CF). Therefore, monetary policy affects investment through three effects: user cost of capital, CF and interaction between them. Using a sample of 124 firms, the empirical finding supports the relevance of balance sheet channel (BSC) and the heterogeneous effect of monetary policy on investment. This finding signals that monetary authority should take cognizance of the stability of interest rate to stabilize firm-level investment.     

Taxes and production: The case of Pakistan

This paper investigates the effectiveness of investment incentives and corporate income taxes in influencing production and investment decisions in the Pakistani wearing apparel and leather products industries. Three tax instruments are considered: the corporate income tax (CIT), the investment tax credit (ITC), and the capital cost allowance (CCA).The results show that since there are significant capital adjustment costs, it is important to distinguish between the short, intermediate, and long-run effects associated with the tax instruments. Production decisions are relatively more responsive to changes in the ITC rate compared to changes in either CCA or CIT rates in each run. However, only in the long run for the apparel industry are the ITC and CCA rates cost effective in stimulating investment. The CIT is never cost effective. Thus targeted instruments outperform the general CIT instrument. In addition, although the incentive to invest is enhanced, there is little effect on output. Therefore, tax incentives essentially make production techniques more capital intensive.     

个人教育投资的均衡分析

人力资本投资的关键形式是教育投资。文章认为,个人教育投资的均衡条件是边际成本等于边际收益。因为个人教育投资的边际成本递增,边际收益递减,所以必须采取多种措施刺激个人教育投资的积极性,才能促进我国教育事业的大发展。     

Disequilibrium Structures and Financing Decisions in the Firm

The business firm confronts interdependent decision problems in production, investment, and finance. Emphasis is here placed on the firm's decision criteria in disequilibrium situations or at infra-optimum structural planning and decision points. The operative cost of capital is shown to be 'the full marginal cost of relaxing the money capital availability constraint'. The popular 'weighted average cost of capital' is shown to be an 'equilibrium datum' which has operative significance only at optimum structural positions. It does not offer adequate guidance to financing and investment decisions in disequilibrium situations.     

Firm-specific information and the efficiency of investment

In the three-year period following stock market liberalizations, the growth rate of the typical firm's capital stock exceeds its pre-liberalization mean by an average of 4.1 percentage points. Cross-sectional changes in investment are significantly correlated with the signals about fundamentals embedded in the stock price changes that occur upon liberalization. Panel-data estimations show that a 10-percentage point increase in a firm's expected future sales growth predicts a 2.9- to 3.5-percentage point increase in the growth rate of its capital stock. Country-specific changes in the cost of capital drive changes in investment but firm-specific changes in the cost of capital do not.     

The Corporate Cost of Capital and the Return on Corporate Investment

We estimate the internal rates of return earned by nonfinancial firms on (i) the initial market values of their securities and (ii) the cost of their investments. The return on value is an estimate of the overall corporate cost of capital. The estimate of the real cost of capital for 1950–96 is 5.95 percent. The real return on cost is larger, 7.38 percent, so on average corporate investment seems to be profitable. A by-product of calculating these returns is information about the history of corporate earnings, investment, and financing decisions that is perhaps more interesting than the returns.     

资本投向与控制权私有收益攫取的实证研究

文章基于资本投资形成控制性资源，为获取控制权私有收益创造基础的理论阐述，以2005—2007年在沪深两市A股市场的公司为样本，对我国上市公司投资决策中资本投向与控制权私有收益的关系进行了实证检验。研究结果表明：（1）不同投向的资本投资与控制权私有收益攫取水平正相关。（2）就固定资产、股权并购、无形资产三种资本投向而言，股权并购方式取得控制权私有收益的代价较低，但控制性股东占有被并购公司控制权私有收益的比例也较低。（3）不同投向下的资本投资，在形成控制权私有收益的同时并没有通过提高公司业绩而增加控制权共有收益，很大程度上是形成控制权私有收益的自利行为。     

再融资监管促进企业理性投资了吗？——来自中国上市公司的证据

本文以2007-2016年的A股上市公司为样本,实证检验中国再融资监管制度是否促进了企业的理性投资行为。研究发现:上市企业投资决策符合资本成本约束的理性准则,表明中国权益市场中存在普遍的市场约束力量;但企业再融资后投资理性程度明显降低;对监管失效的原因分析表明,企业投资理性程度下降受到事前融资动机和事后募资投向变更的影响:监管规则对事前再融资动机缺乏有效把控,导致再融资资格出现错配;而对事后募资用途的监管不严,则导致部分企业对募集资金的用途进行随意变更,使得企业投资理性程度降低。研究结论为完善企业投资决策自治机制、优化权益再融资监管、促进资本市场改革提供了实证依据和一定的现实启示。     

Net working capital investment and capital budgeting analysis: Some pedagogical insights

Net working capital (NWC) investment, as a factor in discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, receives little attention in the capital budgeting literature and accounting textbooks. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which this important component of the analysis can be intregrated into the classroom and thus add to the student's overall understanding of capital budgeting. Four areas are discussed: (1) the significance of NWC investment in capital budgeting analysis, (2) the opportunity cost nature of the NWC investment, (3)measurement of the components of the NWC investment, and (4) use of the NWC investment to help restore the bottom line in DCF analysis to a pure cash flow basis. Integration of the fourth point into the topic of capital budgeting is found to be a convenient way to reinforce the student's understanding of the statement of cash flows.     

Risk Management and the Cost of Capital for Operating Assets

This article attempts to clarify the effect of risk management on a company's cost of capital in the spirit of the traditional M&M/CAPM model. The traditional cost of capital model can and should be used to find the hurdle rate for a company's operating assets, since it can be applied regardless of the composition of the firm's non‐operating assets or its risk management policy. The author's main message is that if a firm manages idiosyncratic risk, the correct cost of capital for the operating investment is not the firm's enterprise WACC, but rather the required return on the assets being funded. Using the case of a company with a single line of business that is evaluating an investment opportunity, the author demonstrates how to adjust the firm's overall WACC to find the cost of capital for the operating assets to be acquired.