An analysis of factors influencing asset writedowns

This study investigates the magnitude of total asset writedowns for a random sample of Australian industrial companies. We adopt an income strategy approach in operationalising our magnitude of writedowns construct to consider the set of accounting policies and negative accruals potentially available to managers. Our focus is on the incentives for and constraints on management to make asset writedowns. We find that the magnitude of writedowns observed are associated with managers' incentives to writedown impaired assets that have declined in value, as well as the firm's capacity to absorb the financial statement effects of the writedown. The number of senior management changes found to be associated with greater writedowns in prior studies is also supported in this study when only writedowns taken to the income statement are considered. The quality of corporate governance mechanisms does not vary systematically with the magnitude of writedowns.     

平衡计分卡对中国企业财务绩效影响的研究(英文)

平衡计分卡(BSC)对中国企业财务绩效起什么作用,文献没有实证报导。本研究假设,使用平衡计分卡的企业获得更好的财务绩效,挑选25对中国大型企业,比对2008、2009年度的财务绩效数据,结果发现使用BSC的企业并不比未使用BSC的企业有更好的表现,也未发现BSC变量与企业财务绩效具有明显相关性。结论推翻了假设。     

Bank competition and corporate financial asset holdings

This paper investigates how bank competition measured by the geographical distribution of bank branches impacts the financial asset holdings of nonfinancial firms. By using a sample of listed nonfinancial firms in China between 2007 and 2019, we find that intensified bank competition caused by the increase in the number of bank branches around firms significantly increases their noncash financial asset holdings, especially for the firms with a higher level of credit constraints or a greater degree of information asymmetry. The result implies that achieving higher yields is the underlying motive for firms to hold noncash financial assets. Moreover, the competition among non-state-owned banks shows a greater impact on corporate financial asset holdings, and the impact of bank competition on noncash financial asset holdings is more pronounced for non-state-owned firms. Our findings provide insight into the determinants of noncash financial asset holdings of firms in a transitional economy.     

Asset Valuation: Recoverable Amount And Measurement Error

On 5 February this year CSR Limited announced that shareholders'funds "will be reduced by $372 million following an extensive review of the group's non-current asset values". This was the difference between an upward revaluation of land and buildings of $186 million and a writedown of $558 million on other non-current assets, net of tax and minority interests. Although not legally required to do so at the time, CSR became the first major group to report under the revised rules for the revaluation of non-current assets. The announcement drew attention in the financial press to the requirement that companies "write down (or write up) asset values that had obviously been affected by economic conditions" and the "expanded legal liabilities of directors under the national Corporations Law regime".' This article shows that compliance with the tests currently set out in AASB 1010 and the ASC's Practice Note 21 will result in measurement error and lead directors, in some cases, to make incorrect decisions about the writedown of asset values.     

Collateralizing liquidity

I develop a dynamic model of optimal funding to understand why financial assets are used as collateral instead of being sold to raise funds. Firms need funds to invest in risky projects with nonobservable returns. Since holding these assets allows firms to raise these funds, investing firms value the asset more than noninvesting ones. When assets are less than perfectly liquid and investment opportunities are persistent, collateralized debt minimizes asset transfers from investing to noninvesting firms and thus is optimal. Frictions in asset markets lead to an illiquidity discount and a collateral premium, which increase with the asset’s illiquidity.     

System-Wide Runs and Financial Collapse

This paper presents a model in which small shocks to asset values can trigger system-wide runs. When lenders cannot distinguish which financial institutions have suffered losses after an adverse shock to asset values, healthier institutions can differentiate themselves from weaker firms by offering to borrow less at more favorable prices. However, to successfully separate, the healthy institutions must liquidate a fraction of their portfolio causing asset fire sales. Fire sales worsen the balance sheet integrity of the firms and, if too severe, this leads to a complete collapse of the financial system: a system-wide run.     

Evidence on the Incremental Information Contained in the Components of Restructuring Charges

Among the new disclosures required by EITF 94–3 is the requirement that firms disclose the nature and amounts of the material components of a restructuring charge. The objective of this paper is to assess whether these components provide information to financial statement users beyond that contained in the aggregate charge. The evidence is consistent with the decomposition of the charge providing incremental information that would be lost if only the aggregate number is reported. The results also appear to suggest that analysts interpret restructurings as bad news and that inventory writedowns and employee terminations are interpreted as the most negative restructuring components.     

Social trust and corporate financial asset holdings: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of social trust on firms’ holdings of non-currency financial assets using a large sample of firms in China’s real sector. We find that firms in regions of the high social trust hold fewer financial assets, consistent with the notion that credibility in high-trust regions reduces information asymmetry and transaction cost among market participants. This leads to better access to formal and informal financing and higher profitability for the real economy, eventually depressing firms’ financial asset allocations. We also find that the negative effect of social trust on financial asset holdings is more prominent for private firms and firms with weak internal monitoring from large shareholders, suggesting that corporations rely more on trust in these cases; it is less pronounced when firms are in regions with good legal systems, proving social trust to be a substitute for formal institutions.     

Precautionary Savings with Risky Assets: When Cash Is Not Cash

U.S. industrial firms invest heavily in noncash, risky financial assets such as corporate debt, equity, and mortgage‐backed securities. Risky assets represent 40% of firms’ financial portfolios, or 6% of total book assets. We present a formal model to assess the optimality of this behavior. Consistent with the model, risky assets are concentrated in financially unconstrained firms holding large financial portfolios, are held by poorly governed firms, and are discounted by 13% to 22% compared to safe assets. We conclude that this activity represents an unregulated asset management industry of more than $1.5 trillion, questioning the traditional boundaries of nonfinancial firms.     

Financial Expert CEOs and Earnings Management Around Initial Public Offerings

This study examines the association between financial expert CEOs and earnings management (EM) around initial public offerings. We identify financial expert CEOs as those having past experience in either banking or investment firms, large auditing firms, or finance-related roles. We find strong evidence that newly listed firms with financial expert CEOs are less likely to engage in either accrual-based or real EM in the offering year than those with non-financial expert CEOs. In particular, our results are robust after controlling for the potential selection issue that occurs due to non-random matching of CEOs to firms. In addition, we employ alternative measures of financial expertise, including past experience in a CFO position, financial experience variety, and professional qualifications. We document that CEOs who used to work as CFOs and those who gained varied financial experience are less likely to manage earnings through both accruals and real activities. Moreover, CEOs who have a professional qualification in finance and/or accounting are also associated with lower accrual-based EM.     

融资约束会导致劳动收入份额下降吗?——基于世界银行提供的中国企业数据的实证研究

本文考察了融资约束对劳动收入份额的影响。首先基于文献提出了一个假说,面临融资约束的企业,通过信贷获得流动资本的能力受到限制,它们倾向于减少劳动雇用或降低工资水平,从而对劳动收入份额产生负面影响。通过对世界银行提供的中国企业数据进行系统GMM估计和稳健性分析,我们找到了这一命题的支持性证据:私人企业的负债资产比(融资约束的代理变量)与劳动收入份额显著负相关,而国有企业和外资企业则没有类似的结论。出现这一差异的关键原因是,在中国,只有私人企业面临着融资约束的困扰。     

Corporate financial structure,misallocation and total factor productivity

This paper studies the quantitative relevance of the cross-sectional dispersion of corporate financial structure in explaining the intra-industry allocation efficiency of productive factors. I solve a heterogeneous firms model with financial constraints and distortions to the marginal rental-rate of capital, and develop a measure for the intra-industry misallocation of factors of production. The distribution of capital rental rate and two types of firm-level balance sheet characteristics (pledgeability and liquid asset positions) determine the extent of misallocation and industry level total factor productivity (TFP). I calibrate the model using firm-level balance sheet data from seven major industry clusters of the US economy. The counterfactual policy experiments show that weakening the observed balance sheet positions for financially constrained firms leads to a reallocation of production factors from firms with high cost distortions to firms with low cost distortions and cause quantitatively important industry level TFP losses.     

Leverage and preemptive selling of financial institutions

In our model, financial firms’ leverage choices and asset sales impose negative externalities on other financial firms. This means that individual firms cannot determine their optimal capitalizations in isolation, but have to take the aggregate financial sector characteristics into account. In particular, they become more aggressive when their peers are more conservative. Furthermore, financial firms over-consume liquidity in equilibrium. For some parameter regions, small parameter changes can induce large differences in the equilibrium allocation of risk. Historical experience is not necessarily a good guide as to whether the prevailing equilibrium is fragile or not.     

Resolution of financial distress: A theory of the choice between Chapter 11 and workouts

We model the reorganization decision of distressed firms. One of the novel features of our paper is that we examine the asset and liability side restructuring decisions jointly to resolve financial distress. Secondly, we model several institutional features of coping with financial distress such as debtor-in-possession financing, prepackaged bankruptcies, and asset sales. In our model, asset liquidity, indirect costs of financial distress, and the option value of equity are the determinants of the choice between Chapter 11 reorganizations and workouts. The model develops several testable predictions, some of which are novel and others of which are able to explain previously documented empirical results.     

Enforceability and the effectiveness of laws and regulations

A major threat to the development of financial markets in emerging markets is “tunneling.” In China, this took on the form of controlling shareholders diverting assets from listed firms or coercing firms to serve as guarantors on questionable loans. A new set of rules enacted in 2005 prohibited asset diversion for “non-operational” purposes. Firms complying with these rules have experienced a reduction in related party transactions, an increase in investment, and better performance. In contrast, another set of contemporary rules, which aimed to standardize the practice of firms providing loan guarantees, has had very little impact. We attribute the contrasting design, implementation, and effectiveness of these two sets of rules to the difference in enforcement costs of the two types of tunneling activities. Relative to loan guarantees, it is much easier for a third party to determine (ex ante) whether a particular form of diversion destroys firm value, and to verify (ex post) that the losses to the firm resulted from the diversion. Our results highlight the importance of enforceability—laws and regulations that can be enforced at lower costs are more likely to succeed, especially in countries with underdeveloped formal institutions.     

Stiffing the creditor: Asset verifiability and bankruptcy

Evidence suggests that asset pledgeability, debt complexity, and control rights of dispersed debt influence financial distress resolution. We model how courts’ imperfect verifiability of assets and valuable control of misaligned creditors shape firms’ debt structure and create coordination problems that determine distress outcomes and financing. A key result is that an increase in verifiability allows financially constrained firms to fund projects by pledging more assets to misaligned creditors, making contract renegotiation in distress times more difficult and increasing the probability of bankruptcy. Since equity receives less in the event of distress, constrained firms choose riskier projects with higher returns. Consistent with our model, bankruptcy filings increase after the U.S. Supreme Court decision imposing a “market test” to assess the value of stockholders’ interest in debtor proposals. The effect is stronger for firms with low asset verifiability. These firms also experienced an increase in recovery rates, debt capacity, and risk-taking. Our findings suggest that reforms improving the verifiability of assets substantially impact credit access. However, our results also point out that improving asset verifiability may be insufficient for constrained firms with aligned creditors. Therefore, complementary reforms that facilitate firms’ access to creditors from different market segments may be necessary.     

财政转移支付如何影响了地方政府债务?

本文以地方融资平台公司发行的城投债为样本,研究来自中央政府的财政转移支付对于地方城投债发行的影响。研究发现,来自中央政府的人均财政专项转移支付每增加1元,会导致地方融资平台公司城投债发行增加人均0.312元,而包括税收返还和一般性转移支付在内的非专项转移支付对城投债的发行并无显著影响。并且,专项转移支付对城投债发行的显著正影响只在中西部省份存在,东部地区并未发现这一机制。本文的进一步研究表明,地方政府债务的借新还旧现象也正在显现,并且变得越来越严重。     

Minimal Settlement Assets in Economies with Interconnected Financial Obligations

A model is developed where firms belonging to a group are obliged to make payments to one another by using a liquid asset. The paper studies the exogenous endowments of this asset that are necessary to assure that all obligations are met. Conditions are presented under which the degree to which firms are interconnected (so that each creditor has more debtors and each debtor has more creditors) increases the number of firms that must be endowed with the liquid asset. Interconnectedness then makes payment defaults more likely. By acquiring too many payment obligations, firms may also become too interconnected.     

The profitability of asset sales as an explanation of asset divestitures

Using Korean fixed asset divestiture data, I extend the investigation of the financing hypothesis of divestitures proposed by Lang et al. (Lang, L., Poulsen, A., Stulz, R., 1995. Asset sales, firm performance, and the agency costs of managerial discretion, Journal of Financial Economics 37, 3.37). In particular, I take into account the profitability of announced asset divestitures and I employ a unique sample constructed to avoid effects that might confound the results. I also take into account the financial condition of the selling firms. The results are consistent with the financing hypothesis proposed by Lang et al. and show that the financing hypothesis of divestitures is robust to controls for the profitability of asset sales and the financial condition of selling firms.