Does the cost of capital differ across countries? An agency perspective*

In this keynote speech, I ask the question: Does the cost of capital differ for firms located in different countries? I argue that there are two ways to look at the cost of capital. First, there is the neoclassical perspective, which assumes that there are no agency problems. In integrated markets, the neoclassical cost of capital is the same in every country. Second, there is the agency perspective. Agency costs increase the cost of capital understood as the expected rate of return necessary for an investment to leave the value of the firm unaffected. Adjusting the cost of capital for agency costs, I argue that it differs across countries because of differences in corporate governance. I then provide a comparison of the agency-adjusted cost of capital between Japan and the US.     

基于EVA的股票期权激励机制探讨

在委托代理关系中，企业所有者和经营者的目标函数存在差异，由此产生代理成本，需要对经营者进行相应的激励。然而，基于传统业绩评价而实施的股票期权存在一些弊端。本文探索将股票期权嫁接到EVA（经济附加值）平台之上，提出了基于EVA的经理人股票期权激励方案，以期能更有效地解决激励问题。     

战略采购的过程模型及其作用模式

基于交易成本／交易效益双边动态理论，本文发展了战略采购的过程模型，提出战略采购是一个由市场替代企业、优化网络节点、固化网络联结和整合网络能力四个环节构成的过程．目的是推动企业和市场向网络变迁以获得交易成本的持续降低和交易收益的持续创造。文中还指出了不同条件下的战略采购作用机理。在买方优势条件下．采购战略贡献高的能力可以通过发展单联网络来实现．而采购战略贡献低的能力可以通过发展并联网络来实现；在供方优势条件下，采购战略贡献高的能力可以通过发展外拓网络来实现．而采购战略贡献低的能力可以通过发展外联网络来实现。最后，根据我国战略采购实践和理论现状提出提高我国战略采购水平的对策和进一步理论研究的建议。     

A counter-example to an option pricing formula under transaction costs

In the paper by Melnikov and Petrachenko (Finance Stoch. 9: 141–149, 2005), a procedure is put forward for pricing and replicating an arbitrary European contingent claim in the binomial model with bid-ask spreads. We present a counter-example to show that the option pricing formula stated in that paper can in fact lead to arbitrage. This is related to the fact that under transaction costs a superreplicating strategy may be less expensive to set up than a strictly replicating one.     

Industry Costs of Equity: Incorporating Prior Information

I examine whether incorporating economically motivated prior information yields more accurate forecasts of industry costs of equity. I find that incorporating the long‐run mean of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) parameters and the industry characteristics in the cross section produces more accurate parameter estimates, which subsequently translate into more accurate out‐of‐sample forecasts of industry costs of equity. The outperformance of this method over rolling‐window estimates becomes larger as the forecast horizon extends into the future. These findings provide evidence that the CAPM parameters have a long‐run mean‐reversion property and correlate with the industry characteristics in a systematic way.     

Annual report readability and corporate agency costs

Annual reports are the main sources of information for outside investors’ investment decisions and enable shareholders to supervise the management. Difficulties with the readability of these reports may therefore have serious consequences. Using 19,221 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2001 to 2015, we investigate the association between annual report readability and corporate agency costs, where readability is proxied by report file length and/or file size. We find that firms with better annual report readability experience lower agency costs, and the negative association between readability and agency costs is more pronounced in firms with higher external audit quality, internal control quality or analyst coverage. These results hold after several robustness checks. The positive effect of annual report readability is stronger in private firms than in state-owned enterprises, and becomes stronger after the implementation of new accounting standards in 2007. Readable annual reports can help in monitoring corporate insiders’ opportunistic behavior and thus reduce agency costs.     

Shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales in the valuation of the firm and its assets

This paper presents a simple framework for the valuation of compound options within shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales. The shadow cost includes two components. The first component is the product of pure information cost due to imperfect knowledge and heterogeneous expectations. The second component represents the additional cost caused by the short-selling constraint. Information costs are linked to Merton's (1987. Journal of Finance 42, 510) model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information, CAPMI. This model is extended by Wu et al. (1996. Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, 7, 136) who propose an incomplete-information capital market equilibrium with heterogeneous expectations and short sale restrictions, GCAPM. This model is used in our paper to provide for the first time in the literature analytic solutions for derivatives in the presence of both shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales.When deriving the compound call option formula, we consider a call option on a stock, which is itself an option on the assets of the firm. Our methodology incorporates shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales on the firm's assets as well as the effects of leverage in the capital structure. The formula can be useful in the valuation of several corporate liabilities in the presence of information uncertainty and short sales constraints about the firm and its cash flows. Our analysis can be used for the valuation of several real options.     

Effectiveness of independent boards of UCITS funds

In order to protect fund investors against conflicts of interest with fund management companies, US funds have mandatory independent directors, but this obligation is not required under the European Union Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive. Nevertheless, a considerable number of UCITS funds do have independent directors. Whether independent directors should also be mandatory in Europe has been a topic of ongoing debate. Using a sample of Luxembourg UCITS, we test the hypothesis that more independent boards add value for investors through lower costs and/or better investment performance, but we fail to find supporting evidence, even for funds with a higher risk of conflicts of interest. Oversight by independent depositaries and institutional shareholders does not seem to be effective either. It appears that board attitude and the sponsor distribution model are more important since we find evidence that boards that prioritise cost monitoring have lower costs and that independent sponsor funds have better performance. These results question the effectiveness of self-regulation or formal regulation requiring independent board members.     

Identifying airline cost economies: An econometric analysis of the factors affecting aircraft operating costs

This paper provides the results of an econometric analysis of the influences of airline characteristics on the average operating costs per aircraft movement. The analysis combines a comprehensive selection of airline-output variables, airline-fleet variables, and airline-market variables. The results confirm the existence of economies of density, economies of load factor, economies of aircraft utilisation and economies of aircraft size. The paper does not provide evidence of economies of scale, economies of stage length or economies of fleet commonality. Furthermore, airlines that additionally operate full freighters, airlines that are members of a worldwide alliance and airlines that operate a multi-hub system face higher average operating costs per aircraft movement. Surprisingly, the regression results demonstrate that airlines that use newer aircraft have higher average operating costs per aircraft movement, suggesting that ownership costs (depreciation and leasing costs) of new aircraft outweigh the increasing maintenance costs of old aircraft. Finally, the results show that airlines that have a dominant position at their hubs or bases have higher operating costs per aircraft movement, implying that the absence of serious competitive pressure enables airlines to charge higher ticket prices and, with that, leads to a limited focus on cost savings.     

“暴力征地”现象的产权经济学解释

文章认为国内出现的大量的"暴力征地"现象是由两个原因造成的:一个是中国土地产权的残缺,尤其是土地使用权和转让权的限制,另一个是交易费用,包括量度费用和信息费用,在此基础上推出的两个含义都得到了事实的验证。