融资约束、审计费用与现金持有价值

审计费用和现金持有价值是公司财务审计研究领域的两个重要话题。审计费用高低所隐含的公司风险程度影响着投资者对公司增加现金持有量将产生积极还是消极效应的判断,会导致公司股票超额回报率的变化,进而也可能影响其现金持有价值,目前尚无相关的研究。本文以现金持有的边际价值模型为基础,引入审计费用和融资约束变量,对融资约束条件下审计费用与公司现金持有价值的关系进行研究后发现,过高的审计费用会降低公司的现金持有价值,审计费用增加得越多,公司的现金持有价值越低。进一步的分析发现,相对于其面临较高程度的融资约束时,公司面临较低程度的融资约束时审计费用对其现金持有价值的负向影响更为显著。     

Institutional investors' holdings surrounding equity rights offerings

We examine shareholding surrounding Swedish rights offerings using detailed information on the ownership in firms. We analyze shareholding levels and their changes for domestic and foreign institutional investors. As institutional holdings change, domestic institutions increase their holdings more than foreign institutions. Our examination of low and high buying activities by institutional investors surrounding rights offerings shows no stock picking ability, thus not supporting the “smart-money hypothesis” (Gibson et al., 2004). We also find that investor domicile influences firm value following the offering. Overall, foreign investors exhibit a strong and opposite directional reaction to adverse selection costs than domestic investors.     

Does governance travel around the world? Evidence from institutional investors

We examine whether institutional investors affect corporate governance by analyzing portfolio holdings of institutions in companies from 23 countries during the period 2003–2008. We find that firm-level governance is positively associated with international institutional investment. Changes in institutional ownership over time positively affect subsequent changes in firm-level governance, but the opposite is not true. Foreign institutions and institutions from countries with strong shareholder protection play a role in promoting governance improvements outside of the U.S. Institutional investors affect not only which corporate governance mechanisms are in place, but also outcomes. Firms with higher institutional ownership are more likely to terminate poorly performing Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and exhibit improvements in valuation over time. Our results suggest that international portfolio investment by institutional investors promotes good corporate governance practices around the world.     

The Rise of Agency Capitalism and the Role of Shareholder Activists in Making It Work

The past 50 years have seen a fundamental change in the ownership of U.S. public companies, one in which the relatively small holdings of many individual shareholders have been supplanted by the large holdings of institutional investors, such as pension funds, mutual funds, and bank trust departments. Such large institutional investors are now said to own over 70% of the stock of the largest 1,000 U.S. public corporations; and in many of these companies, as the authors go on to note, “as few as two dozen institutional investors” own enough shares “to exert substantial influence, if not effective control.” But this reconcentration of ownership does not represent a complete solution to the “agency” problems arising from the “separation of ownership and control” that troubled Berle and Means, the relative powerlessness of shareholders in the face of a class of “professional” corporate managers who owned little if any stock. As the authors note, this shift from an era of “managerial capitalism” to one they identify as “agency capitalism” has come with a somewhat new and different set of “agency conflicts” and associated costs. The fact that most institutional investors hold highly diversified portfolios and compete (and are compensated) on the basis of “relative performance” provides them with little incentive to engage in the vigorous monitoring of corporate performance and investor activism that could address shortfalls in such performance. As a consequence, such large institutional investors—not to mention the large and growing body of indexers like Vanguard and BlackRock—are likely to appear “rationally apathetic” about corporate governance. But, as the authors also point out, there is a solution to this agency conflict—and to the corporate governance “vacuum” that has been said to result from the alleged apathy of well‐diversified (and indexed) institutional investors: the emergence of shareholder activists. The activist hedge funds and other specialized activists who have come on the scene during the last 15 or 20 years are now playing an important role in supporting this relatively new ownership structure. Instead of taking control positions, the activists “tee‐up” strategic business and financing choices that are then decided upon by the vote of institutional shareholders that are best characterized not as apathetic, but as rationally “reticent”; that is, they allow the activists, if not to do their talking for them, then to serve as a catalyst for the expression of institutional shareholder voice. The institutions are by no means rubber stamps for activists' proposals; in some cases voting for the activists' proposals, in many cases against them, the institutions function as the long‐term arbiters of whether such proposals should and will go forward. In the closing section of the article, the authors discuss a number of recent legal decisions that appear to recognize this relatively new role played by activists and the institutions that choose to support them (or not)—legal decisions that appear to confirm investors' competence and right to be entrusted with such authority over corporate decision‐making.     

The role of cross-listing,foreign ownership and state ownership in dividend policy in an emerging market

In this paper, we investigate if dividend policy is influenced by ownership type. Within the dividend literature, dividends have a signaling role regarding agency costs, such that dividends may diminish insider conflicts (reduce free cash flow) or may be used to extract cash from firms (tunneling effect) – which could be predominant in emerging markets. We expect firms with foreign ownership and those that are listed in overseas markets to have different dividend policies and practices than those that are not, and firms with more state ownership and less individual ownership to be more likely to pay cash dividends and less likely to pay stock dividends. Using firms from an emerging economy (China), we examine whether these effects exist in corporate dividend policy and practice. We find that both foreign ownership and cross-listing have significant negative effects on cash dividends, consistent with the signaling effect and the notion of reduced tunneling activities for firms with the ability to raise capital from outside of China. Consistent with the tunneling effect, we find that firms with higher state ownership tend to pay higher cash dividends and lower stock dividends, while the opposite is true for public (individual) ownership. Further analysis shows that foreign ownership mediates the effect of state ownership on dividend policy. Our results have significant implications for researchers, investors, policy makers and regulators in emerging markets.     

Foreign shareholders,relative foreign policy uncertainty and corporate cash holdings

Studies have shown that foreign investors hedge risks stemming from economic and political uncertainty in the home country through outward investment. This paper studies how foreign investors' home country risk affects their overseas investment and the host country firms' corporate cash holdings. We find that relative foreign EPU, defined as the difference between foreign investors' home country EPU and the host country of investment EPU, negatively impacts the host country firms' cash holdings through their influences on managerial decision-making. This negative relationship arises from firms' precautionary and transaction motives as foreign investors perceive lower corporate risk and better investment opportunities in the host country firms. Good corporate governance is also instrumental in yielding this negative relationship. The reduction in cash holdings due to high relative foreign EPU is more pronounced if foreign investors' home country legal environment is weaker, the two countries are further apart, and there is little trade partnership between them.     

The colors of investors’ money: The role of institutional investors around the world

We study the role of institutional investors around the world using a comprehensive data set of equity holdings from 27 countries. We find that all institutional investors have a strong preference for the stock of large firms and firms with good governance, while foreign institutions tend to overweight firms that are cross-listed in the U.S. and members of the Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index. Firms with higher ownership by foreign and independent institutions have higher firm valuations, better operating performance, and lower capital expenditures. Our results indicate that foreign and independent institutions, with potentially fewer business ties to firms, are involved in monitoring corporations worldwide.     

Foreign ownership and the enforcement of corporate governance reforms

This study examines whether a stronger corporate governance enforcement regime influences the investment decisions of foreign portfolio investors in an emerging market context. Using a natural experiment provided by an Indian corporate governance regulatory reform introduced in 2000, but for which stricter sanctions for non-compliance were imposed in 2004 our results provide strong evidence that governance reforms that include stricter sanctions for non-compliance lead to higher foreign ownership. Depending on specifications, the difference-in-differences estimates show that, on average, the effect is up to 2.8% increased foreign ownership post regulatory reform of 2004. The paper adds to the debate on simultaneity between foreign ownership and corporate governance as we show that in the context of an emerging market corporate governance regulations are extremely important in attracting foreign investors. In the context of prevalence of weak enforcement (of existing regulations) in emerging markets, this study provides empirical support to the notion that strictly enforcing the existing governance regulations has the potential to attract higher level of foreign investment. The results suggest that policy measures aimed at attracting foreign investors in emerging markets should not only concentrate on adopting the best international corporate governance practices but should also signal strong enforcement of these regulations by assigning significant penalties for non-compliance.

     

Grabbing hand or financial constraint mitigation effect? A reexamination of the relationship between institutional development and cash holdings

This study reexamines the impact of institutional development on corporate cash holdings. Our findings confirm that institutional development has a negative effect on corporate cash holdings, which may be partially explained by the financial constraint mitigation effect of institutional development. Our empirical evidence also shows that the corruption index, used as a proxy for the grabbing hand effect, does not mediate the negative effect of institutional development on corporate cash holdings. Furthermore, the impact of institutional development on corporate cash holdings is not significant for large firms and state-owned enterprises. These results are robust to different measures of cash holdings.     

Corporate Control and the Choice of Investment Financing: The Case of Corporate Acquisitions

We test the proposition that corporate control considerations motivate the means of investment financing—cash (and debt) or stock. Corporate insiders who value control will prefer financing investments by cash or debt rather than by issuing new stock which dilutes their holdings and increases the risk of losing control. Our empirical results support this hypothesis: in corporate acquisitions, the larger the managerial ownership fraction of the acquiring firm the more likely the use of cash financing. Also, the previously observed negative bidders' abnormal returns associated with stock financing are mainly in acquisitions made by firms with low managerial ownership.     

The Level and Stability of Institutional Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from Taiwan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of shareholding stability of institutional investors on firm performance. We analyze 647 sample companies listed in the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009 using the coefficient of variance of institutional holding proportion as the measure for ownership stability. The empirical results show that increasing stability of institutional holdings is related to better firm performance. The low-risk and younger firms with higher CEO incentive compensation, larger insider holdings, and higher growth usually have better performance. Furthermore, when the long-term institutional shareholdings, particularly of foreign institutions, are higher, the firm performance is better.     

决定现金持有量：技术还是制度

本文以2003—2008年上海证劵交易所501家上市公司的数据为样本,从技术（企业成长性）和制度（公司治理机制）两个角度出发,实证研究其对企业现金持有量的影响。实证结果表明：企业成长性与现金持有量正相关;股权集中度与现金持有量负相关;股权制衡度与现金持有量正相关。     

机构投资者能抑制上市公司商誉减值风险吗？——基于中国A股市场的经验证据

巨额商誉减值风险是资本市场系统性风险的重要诱因之一。本文以2011—2018年中国A股上市公司为样本,检验机构投资者持股对上市公司商誉减值风险的影响。研究发现,机构投资者持股能够显著抑制上市公司计提商誉减值的风险。分类来看,相比非独立机构投资者,以证券投资基金、社保基金及QFII为代表的独立性机构投资者持股对商誉减值风险的抑制作用更显著。机制检验发现,机构投资者通过提供并购前咨询服务和改善公司并购后绩效来抑制商誉减值风险。本文研究揭示了机构投资者发挥了有效的监督治理功能,对防范商誉减值风险具有一定的启示意义。     

Foreign Ownership and Firm Value: Evidence from Australian Firms

The paper employs various measures of foreign ownership and investigates impact of foreign ownership on value of firms in Australia. We find that both, traditional measure and free float measure of foreign ownership has a positive and significant impact on firm value. We also find that foreign institutional holdings in Australian firms’ have a significant and positive impact on firm value. Results are robust to various econometric estimation techniques. Our results have implications for investors and corporate financial policies.     

Zero-leverage policy and stock price crash risk: Evidence from Korea

This study examines the difference in stock price crash risk between zero-leverage and non-zero-leverage firms. We find that zero-leverage firms have a significantly higher future stock price crash risk than non-zero-leverage firms. Next, we find that the positive relation between zero-leverage policy and future stock price crash risk is more pronounced when firms have higher controlling shareholders' ownership and foreign ownership. We also find that the positive relation is more pronounced for firms with low cash holdings than for those with high cash holdings. Further, we find that the positive relation is stronger for dividend-paying firms than non-dividend-paying firms. Our results are robust to alternative estimation specifications and endogeneity concerns. Overall, our findings shed light on the extent to which extreme corporate financial policy has an impact on future stock price crash risk. Our empirical evidence also provides meaningful implications for how stakeholders (especially investors) predict stock price crash risk in the context of extremely conservative capital structure.     

Social trust and foreign ownership: Evidence from qualified foreign institutional investors in China

We investigate the effects of social trust on foreign institutional investors’ equity holdings in listed Chinese firms from 2005 to 2011. We find that social trust embedded in the regional environment is an important factor for the investment decisions of foreign institutional investors. We also find that the proportion and likelihood of foreign ownership increases with the level of social trust. The results support the notion that social trust and trust-related information help mitigate informational barriers in international equity investments. Our results are robust to alternative measures of social trust and a range of model specifications, including instrumental variable estimation. We document that the effects of social trust on foreign ownership diminishes in the presence of organizational learning, better formal institutional development, conservative financial reporting, and asset transparency. We also show that foreign institutional investors from countries with a common law origin are more likely to incorporate trust-related information in their investment decisions.     

Agency Conflicts and Cash: Estimates from a Dynamic Model

Which agency problems affect corporate cash policy? To answer this question, we estimate a dynamic model of finance and investment with three mechanisms that misalign managerial and shareholder incentives: limited managerial ownership of the firm, compensation based on firm size, and managerial perquisite consumption. We find that perquisite consumption critically impacts cash policy. Size‐based compensation also matters, but less. Firms with lower blockholder and institutional ownership have higher managerial perquisite consumption, low managerial ownership is a key factor in the secular upward trend in cash holdings, and agency plays little role in small firms' substantial cash holdings.     

Corporate codes of ethics and cash holdings: International evidence

In the presence of agency costs, managers retain cash for their own benefit at the expense of shareholder wealth. Extending prior literature on the role of corporate governance in mitigating the effects of agency conflicts on corporate cash holdings, we study a governance mechanism that has largely been overlooked, namely, corporate codes of ethics. We find a negative association between code of ethics quality and cash holdings, which suggests that managers hold less cash when the firm has a strong code of ethics in place. The effect is greater when agency costs are elevated due to weaker country-level investor protections. We also find that payouts and the marginal value of cash holdings to investors are increasing in code quality. Overall, our results are consistent with codes of ethics helping to limit opportunistic behaviour from managers when determining the firm's level of cash holdings.     

The role of institutional investors in the inventory and cash management practices of firms in Asia

This paper examines the role of a particular class of institutional investors, domestic and foreign banks, in corporate decisions that have liquidity implications such as inventory and cash management. Using a sample of 256 non-financial listed firms in six Asian countries over the period of 2002–2005, this paper shows that foreign banks improve inventory and cash management practices, due to their superior monitoring of the managers. The disproportionate numbers of the institutional investors across industrial sectors in these Asian countries seem to suggest that some industrial sectors have stable demand of their products, such as in consumer goods sector, which is an attraction, for these institutional investors. Furthermore, the paper finds that forward-looking government policies are crucial to entry of these institutional investors in the developing countries. The research findings have implications for board structure and corporate governance standards.     

Heterogeneous institutional investors and CEO compensation

This paper examines the relationship between institutional ownership and executive compensation by taking into account the heterogeneity of institutional investors. The paper finds that ownership by transient institutional investors, who have short investment horizons and active trading, is positively related to the performance sensitivity of option grants for CEOs. However, no significant relationship holds for other types of institutions, including those dedicated institutional investors, who have longer horizon and concentrated holdings. Further tests suggest that the positive relationship between transient institutional ownership and the CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity is not driven by the trading behavior of transient institutional investors when stock performance is good. Instead, the paper documents preference of transient institutional investors for greater performance sensitivity of option grants for CEOs. After using an instrument approach to control for preference and endogeneity, transient institutional ownership is no longer significantly related to the CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity. Additionally, the paper does not find dedicated institutional investors serve a monitoring role in correcting overcompensation paid to CEOs. After controlling for preference and endogeneity, neither the level of salary nor the level of total direct compensation for CEOs is significantly related to dedicated institutional ownership. The findings suggest that on average the influence of institutional investors on CEO compensation occurs indirectly through their preference in line with their different investment types.