How does the type of equity compensation of audit committee affect audit fees?

Based on agency theory, if equity compensation aligns audit committee members' interests with those of shareholders, the audit committee will provide effective oversight and demand more thorough audit coverage and scope. This will result in higher audit fees paid to the external auditor. This study specifically examines the associations between the types of equity compensation of audit committee members and audit fees. Our findings show differential impacts of equity compensation of audit committee in the forms of option grants and stock awards on audit fees. Specifically, equity compensation using stock awards is more effective than using option grants in aligning the interests of audit committee members with the interests of shareholders to provide better oversight of financial reporting.     

Does ETF trading affect the efficiency of the underlying index?

This study finds that both contemporaneous and lagged ETF trading volumes in both absolute and relative terms are significant contributors to the price efficiency of the underlying index. The variation in ETF shares outstanding is also positively associated with the index efficiency but it weakens the effect of ETF trading on the index efficiency. Moreover, the synthetic ETF price dominates the index in information share and the dominance increases in ETF trading. However, the relation between an individual ETF's information share and its trading volume varies, which is significantly positive for the leading ETF but ambiguous for other ETFs.     

How does economic policy uncertainty affect the bitcoin market?

This paper examines how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) impacts the Bitcoin (BTC) markets denominated in local currencies. We take BTC against British Pound (GBP) and the United States dollar (USD) as examples and construct the value-weighted BTC/GBP and BTC/USD composite indices. Our results show that the returns around the highest EPU days are significantly greater than those around the lowest EPU days. Further, the United States (US) EPU increases the volatility and trading volume of BTC after EPU spike days, whereas the United Kingdom (UK) EPU does not show such trends. Moreover, we observe a spillover effect for the US EPU to the UK BTC market. We further construct the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC)-GARCH model to test the dynamic correlation between EPU and BTC. Our results show that the effect of the US EPU on BTC/USD is greater than the effect of the UK EPU on BTC/GBP. Our empirical findings may provide insights for regulators to intervene in speculations in cryptocurrency markets effectively.     

How does news sentiment affect the states of Japanese stock return volatility?

This paper examines the impact of public news sentiment on the volatility states of firm-level returns on the Japanese Stock market. We firstly adopt a novel Markov Regime Switching Long Memory GARCH (MRS-LMGARCH), which is employed to estimate the latent volatility states of intraday stock return. By using the RavenPack Dow Jones News Analytics database, we fit discrete choice models to investigate the impact of news sentiment on changes of volatility states of the constituent stocks in the TOPIX Core 30 Index. Our findings suggest that news occurrence and sentiment, especially those of macro-economic news, are a key factor that significantly drives the volatility state of Japanese stock returns. This provides essential information for traders of the Japanese stock market to optimize their trading strategies and risk management plans to combat volatility.     

How does competition affect bank risk-taking?

A common assumption in the academic literature and in the supervision of banking systems is that franchise value plays a key role in limiting bank risk-taking. As market power is the primary source of franchise value, reduced competition in banking markets has been seen as promoting banking stability. A recent paper by Martínez-Miera and Repullo (MMR, 2010) shows that a nonlinear relationship theoretically exists between bank competition and risk-taking in the loan market. We test this hypothesis using data from the Spanish banking system. After controlling for macroeconomic conditions and bank characteristics, we find support for this nonlinear relationship using standard measures of market concentration in both the loan and deposit markets. When direct measures of market power, such as Lerner indices, are used, the empirical results are more supportive of the original franchise value hypothesis, but only in the loan market. Overall, the results highlight the empirical relevance of the MMR model, even though further analysis across other banking markets is needed.     

How does customer motivational orientation affect satisfaction?

This study examines the link between customer motivational orientation and customer satisfaction in the Chinese context. The customer motivational orientation–satisfaction model was tested on 349 Chinese bank customers in Macao, China. Results of structural equation modelling indicated that task-oriented and interaction-oriented customers were not equally responsive to the financial services provided. Specifically, task motivational orientation was directly and indirectly related to customer satisfaction through customer perceived service quality, whereas interaction motivational orientation only linked to customer satisfaction through customer perceived service quality as a mediator. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

How does long-term finance affect economic volatility?

In an approach analogous to Rajan and Zingales (1998), we examine how the ability to access long-term debt affects firm-level growth volatility. We find that firms in industries with stronger preference to use long-term finance relative to short-term finance experience lower growth volatility in countries with better-developed financial systems, as these firms may benefit from reduced refinancing risk. Institutions that facilitate the availability of credit information and contract enforcement mitigate refinancing risk and therefore growth volatility associated with short-term financing. Increased availability of long-term finance reduces growth volatility in crisis as well as non-crisis periods.     

How does competition affect bank systemic risk?

Using bank level measures of competition and co-dependence, we show a robust negative relationship between bank competition and systemic risk. Whereas much of the extant literature has focused on the relationship between competition and the absolute level of risk of individual banks, in this paper we examine the correlation in the risk taking behavior of banks. We find that greater competition encourages banks to take on more diversified risks, making the banking system less fragile to shocks. Examining the impact of the institutional and regulatory environment on bank systemic risk shows that banking systems are more fragile in countries with weak supervision and private monitoring, greater government ownership of banks, and with public policies that restrict competition. We also find that the negative effect of lack of competition can be mitigated by a strong institutional environment that allows for efficient public and private monitoring of financial institutions.     

How does quasi-indexer ownership affect corporate tax planning?

We study whether, and more importantly, through what mechanisms, quasi-indexers affect portfolio firms’ tax planning by employing the discontinuity in quasi-indexer ownership around the Russell 1000/2000 index cutoff. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that higher quasi-indexer ownership leads to greater tax saving. With respect to the mechanisms, we find that the greater tax saving is a result of a focus on improved overall firm performance, not a specific focus on improved tax planning. We further find that the documented tax saving effect is partially due to quasi-indexers’ influences on executive equity incentives, corporate governance, and information environment.     

How does foreign entry affect domestic banking markets?

Using 7900 bank observations from 80 countries for the 1988–1995 period, this paper examines the extent and effect of foreign presence in domestic banking markets. We investigate how net interest margins, overhead, taxes paid, and profitability differ between foreign and domestic banks. We find that foreign banks have higher profits than domestic banks in developing countries, but the opposite is the case for developed countries. Estimation results suggest that an increased presence of foreign banks is associated with a reduction in profitability and margins for domestic banks.     

How does investor relations disclosure affect analysts' forecasts?

We study the relationship between investor relations disclosure and analyst forecast properties in Australian firms, a setting dominated by small firms with limited analyst coverage and requiring continuous disclosure of price sensitive information. We find increasing disclosure in the time period investigated is associated with greater accuracy in firms disclosing fewer items. Disclosure was unrelated to forecast dispersion, possibly due to the low analyst following. In periods of uncertainty, the investor relations awards effectively discriminated quality from quantity of disclosure. These findings highlight the importance of active communication with analysts, particularly in firms providing less disclosure and during periods of uncertainty.     

How does trading volume affect financial return distributions?

We assess investors' reaction to new information arrivals in financial markets by examining the relationships between trading volume and the higher moments of returns in 18 international equity and currency markets. Our volume-volatility results support extant information theories and further contribute new evidence of cross market relations between volume and volatility. We also find that the direct impact of volume on the level of negative skewness is less significant for more diversified regional portfolios. Furthermore, the negative interaction between volume and kurtosis can be explained by the differences of opinion in financial markets. We observe stronger interdependence among higher moments in reaction to significant events, but the strength is dampened by trading volume. This result is consistent with trading volume being a source of heteroskedasticity in asset returns.     

How does banking sector globalization affect banking crisis?

A key feature of financial services liberalization is increasing banking-sector globalization.Using different measures to capture this phenomenon, the present study examines its impact on banking crisis for a dataset of 138 nations spanning the period 1998–2013, while controlling for other banking-industry specific, macroeconomic and external factors. Employing different econometric models and several robustness checks, I find greater banking sector globalization to reduce the occurrence of banking crisis. Moreover, greater bank asset concentration, diversification, credit flows, real interest rates, inflation rates, M2-to-foreign exchange reserves and nominal exchange rate depreciations significantly increase the likelihood of banking crisis, while higher bank profits, real GDP growth, economic development and economic freedom lower such chances. The results are further examined for nations across different levels of economic development and with different degrees of foreign bank penetration. The findings underscore that foreign bank presence provides greater financial stability in the banking industry of host nations.     

How does deposit insurance affect bank risk? Evidence from the recent crisis

Deposit insurance is widely offered in a number of countries as part of a financial system safety net to promote stability. An unintended consequence of deposit insurance is the reduction in the incentive of depositors to monitor banks which lead to excessive risk-taking. We examine the relation between deposit insurance and bank risk and systemic fragility in the years leading up to and during the recent financial crisis. We find that generous financial safety nets increase bank risk and systemic fragility in the years leading up to the global financial crisis. However, during the crisis, bank risk is lower and systemic stability is greater in countries with deposit insurance coverage. Our findings suggest that the “moral hazard effect” of deposit insurance dominates in good times while the “stabilization effect” of deposit insurance dominates in turbulent times. The overall effect of deposit insurance over the full sample we study remains negative since the destabilizing effect during normal times is greater in magnitude compared to the stabilizing effect during global turbulence. In addition, we find that good bank supervision can alleviate the unintended consequences of deposit insurance on bank systemic risk during good times, suggesting that fostering the appropriate incentive framework is very important for ensuring systemic stability.     

How does law affect finance? An examination of equity tunneling in Bulgaria

We model and test the mechanisms through which law affects tunneling and tunneling affects firm valuation. In 2002, Bulgaria adopted legal changes which limit equity tunneling through dilutive equity offerings and freezeouts. Following the changes, minority shareholders participate equally in equity offerings, where before they suffered severe dilution; freezeout offer price ratios quadruple; and Tobin's q rises sharply for firms at high risk of tunneling. The paper shows the importance of legal rules in limiting equity tunneling, the role of equity tunneling risk as a factor in determining equity prices, and substitution by controlling shareholders between different forms of tunneling.     

Can utility optimization explain the demand for structured investment products?

In this paper, we first show that for classical rational investors with correct beliefs and constant absolute or constant relative risk aversion, the utility gains from structured products over and above a portfolio consisting of the risk-free asset and the market portfolio are typically much smaller than their fees. This result holds irrespectively of whether the investors can continuously trade the risk-free asset and the market portfolio at no costs or whether they can just buy the assets and hold them to maturity of the structured product. However, when considering behavioural utility functions, such as prospect theory, or investors with incorrect beliefs (arising from probability weighting or probability misestimation), the utility gain can be sizable.     

How does capital affect bank performance during financial crises?

This paper empirically examines how capital affects a bank’s performance (survival and market share) and how this effect varies across banking crises, market crises, and normal times that occurred in the US over the past quarter century. We have two main results. First, capital helps small banks to increase their probability of survival and market share at all times (during banking crises, market crises, and normal times). Second, capital enhances the performance of medium and large banks primarily during banking crises. Additional tests explore channels through which capital generates these effects. Numerous robustness checks and additional tests are performed.     

How does the call market method affect price efficiency? Evidence from the Singapore Stock Market

On August 21, 2000, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) adopted the call market method to open and close the market while the remainder of the day’s trading continued to rely on the continuous auction method. The call method significantly improved the price discovery process and market quality. A positive spillover effect is observed from the opening and closing calls. Day-end price manipulation also declined after the introduction of the call market method. However, the beneficial impact from the call market method is asymmetric, benefiting liquid stocks more than illiquid stocks.     

How does working in a finance profession affect mortgage delinquency?

This paper uses a dataset from a leading American subprime lender, which contains detailed information on borrower and loan characteristics. We find that financial professionals are less likely to become delinquent. This effect cannot be explained by borrower characteristics, such as income, education, loan terms, property characteristics, geographic effects, or strategic default. We also find variation in the effect of working in a financial profession across borrowers of different ages and income levels. We discuss explanations for these results.     

How does intellectual property protection in the host country affect outward foreign direct investment?

This paper empirically analyses the impact of a host country’s intellectual property (IP) protection on Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), employing panel data of 109 host countries’ FDI stocks and IP protection levels. Based on the regression results, it is concluded that the host country’s IP protection has a significant impact on Chinese OFDI. By including an interaction term into the regression, it can be seen that a host country’s trade openness enhances the influence of intellectual property protection on OFDI. Using subsample regressions, it was found that the positive effect of the protection of IP rights by the host country on China’s OFDI is stronger in the countries along China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. For a subsample of countries with a lower degree of IP protection than China, the positive effect of IP protection is weaker than in ones with a higher IP protection level. The results obtained through a threshold regression, show that host countries can be divided into three categories, based on gross domestic product per capita, namely low, medium and high development levels. The higher the level of economic development of the host country, the greater the impact of IP protection on China’s OFDI. The host countries are also categorised into low-, medium- and high-level IP protection levels. As the level of a host country’s IP protection improves, it promotes OFDI from China.