Venture capitalist participation and the post-issue operating performance of IPO firms

Previous studies have identified the value-added potential of venture capitalist monitoring in the initial public offering (IPO) market. We test this proposition by comparing the post-issue operating performance of venture capitalist-backed IPOs with a matched sample of non-venture capitalist-backed IPOs. We find that venture capitalist-backed IPO firms exhibit relatively superior post-issue operating performance compared to non-venture capital-backed IPO firms. Further, the market appears to recognize the value of monitoring by venture capitalists as reflected in the higher valuations at the time of the IPO. Finally, we find that proxies for the quality of venture capitalist monitoring are positively related to post-issue operating performance.     

Role of the intellectuals in governance

Environmental degradation and lack of social cohesion are rooted in bad governance, which, in turn is rooted in the inability of the modern civilization to understand the nature of differences in human psychology and their relationship with governance. The key to good governance in future will lie in invigorating such individuals to ‘speak’ who have transcended their desires of money and power and are able to take a dispassionate view of the problems in the larger social good. Multiple networks of persons who speak the truth have to be formed for this purpose.     

Reforming Food Subsidy Schemes: Estimating the Gains from Self-targeting in India

The paper uses the theoretical framework of the theory of tax reform to analyze whether a “small” change in an existing food subsidy program can be both welfare‐improving and revenue‐neutral. It shows how existing econometric methods can be adapted to estimate demand parameters even when household‐level data exhibit little price variation because the government controls food prices. The methodology is used to estimate welfare changes from shifting a rupee of subsidy on existing commodities to coarse cereals in the Indian public distribution system.     

Evaluating Efficiency of Personnel in Nepalese Commercial Banks

The failure of large and reputable banks is creating a potential threat to depositors’ hard-earned money deposited in commercial banks (CBs). Therefore, evaluation of the risk-adjusted efficiency of CBs is crucial. This study evaluates the relative efficiency of CBs personnel with an unbalanced panel dataset of 21 Nepalese CBs based on their remunerations, financial performances, and risky behaviors using data envelopment analysis, the Malmquist productivity index, and simple regression analysis. In the first step analysis, various financial ratios regarding the firm performance were considered. In the second step analysis, efficiency scores estimated in the first step analysis were adjusted by risk variables. The study shows that relatively large banks were exploiting personnel expenses, but smaller-sized banks, recently established banks, and banks with fewer branches gained more efficiency from their size. Personnel efficiency had a positive influence on the market price of stock, but it also increased the volatility of stock prices. Negative growth of both productivity indices (i.e., with and without risk adjustment) suggests poor agency services delivered by personnel and decreasing healthy conduct of Nepalese CBs.     

Industry clustering of initial public offerings

Extant empirical evidence has documented both a temporal variation in the number of initial public offerings (IPOs) and an industry clustering effect in these offerings. This article attempts to provide insights into this phenomenon by: (i) identifying industry conditions that influence IPO clustering, (ii) analyzing differences in characteristics of clustered versus non‐clustered IPOs, and (iii) studying the impact of IPO clustering on long‐run operating performance. We find that IPO clustering is more likely to occur in high‐growth fragmented industries that are characterized by strong investment opportunities, favorable investor sentiment, and which require high levels of investments in R&D. Further, we document a negative relation between post‐IPO operating performance and whether the IPO firm goes public in its industry cluster period. We conclude that the relatively poor post‐IPO operating performance of firms that go public in industry cluster periods likely reflects industry overinvestment arising from too many firms within that industry chasing the same investment opportunities. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Group lending and individual lending with strategic default

Papers that compare group lending and individual lending in the presence of strategic default suggest that unless group members can impose costly social sanctions on one another, or unless the bank uses cross-reporting mechanisms group lending may do worse than individual lending. In this paper, we show that if, (1) the amount that a successful borrower owes for his defaulting partner is optimally determined, and (2) the penalty is allowed to vary across group members, then even in the absence of any social sanctions or cross-reporting, (1) expected borrower welfare is strictly higher with group lending when both group lending and individual lending are feasible and (2) group lending is feasible for a greater range of opportunity cost of capital. These results are robust to collusion between borrowers.