Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures

Numerous measures have been proposed to gauge the performanceof active management. Unfortunately, these measures can be gamed.Our article shows that gaming can have a substantial impacton popular measures even in the presence of high transactionscosts. Our article shows there are conditions under which amanipulation-proof measure exists and fully characterizes it.This measure looks like the average of a power utility function,calculated over the return history. The case for using our alternativeranking metric is particularly compelling for hedge funds whoseuse of derivatives is unconstrained and whose managers' compensationitself induces a nonlinear payoff.     

Performance Measures in Supply Chains

Interest in supply chain management (SCM) has increased as organisations seek opportunities to improve performance. Monitoring plays a key role in enhancing supply-chain performance by highlighting opportunities for improvements. However, evidence on the use of performance measures in SCM is scant. This paper explains the role of performance measures in SCM, and the difficulties in their design and implementation. The paper discusses frameworks for the development of supply chain performance measures, and presents case studies of performance measurement in Australian supply chains.     

Nonfinancial Performance Measures and Promotion-Based Incentives

In this paper, I examine the sensitivity of promotion and demotion decisions for lower‐level managers to financial and nonfinancial measures of their performance and investigate the extent to which the behavior of lower‐level managers reflects promotion‐based incentives. Additionally, I test for learning versus effort‐allocation effects of promotion‐based incentives. I find that promotion and demotion decisions for store managers of a major U.S.‐based fast‐food retailer (QSR) are sensitive to nonfinancial performance measures of service quality and employee retention after controlling for financial performance. The likelihood of demotion in this organization is also sensitive to nonfinancial performance on the dimension of service quality, while the probability of exit is primarily sensitive to financial performance measures rather than nonfinancial performance measures. I also find evidence that the behavior of lower‐level managers is consistent with the incentives created by the weighting of nonfinancial performance measures in promotion decisions. Managers in locations where there is a higher ex ante probability of promotion and a higher potential reward upon promotion demonstrate significantly higher levels and rates of performance improvement in service quality. Finally, consistent with promotion‐based incentives inducing both effort‐allocation and learning effects, I find that performance‐improvement rates for service quality: (1) are higher in prepromotion periods in markets where promotions occur, (2) decrease immediately after the occurrence of a promotion in the same market area, and (3) remain higher than in markets where promotions do not occur. These findings provide some of the first empirical evidence on an alternative to the explicit weighting of nonfinancial metrics in compensation contracts as a mechanism for generating improvements in nonfinancial dimensions of performance.     

An Interpretation of SDF Based Performance Measures

This note discusses stochastic discount factor (SDF) measuresof mutual fund performance. It shows that the most common SDFperformance measures can be interpreted as Jensen's "alphas".JEL Classification Numbers: G11, G12, G23     

An Interpretation of SDF Based Performance Measures

This note discusses stochastic discount factor (SDF) measures of mutual fundperformance. It shows that the most common SDF performance measures can beinterpreted as Jensen's ``alphas'.     

市场竞争程度、评价指标与公司业绩

本文通过对158家中国企业的问卷调查,研究了市场竞争程度对企业内部管理中评价指标采用程度的影响,以及企业内部管理中评价指标采用程度与公司业绩的关系,对我国企业采用评价指标提出了很有意义的启示。研究发现,市场竞争程度与企业对财务指标的采用程度相关,而与对非财务指标的采用程度不相关。但是有趣的是,增加财务指标的采用并不能带来公司业绩的增长,而增加非财务指标的采用才能带来公司业绩的增长。特别是,越是在竞争激烈的情况下,增加财务指标的采用,会带来较差的业绩后果。     

Benchmark Invariancy,Seasonality and APM-Free Portfolio Performance Measures

The Jobson-Korkie (1981) Z score and the positive period weighting (PPW) score of Grinblatt and Titman (1989) are applied to various benchmarks of market and mimicking portfolios to study the benchmark invariancy problem. Significantly different portfolio performance inferences are found for a sample of 146 equity mutual funds depending on the mean-variance efficiency of the portfolio benchmarks (mimicking portfolios versus market indices). Portfolio performance inferences are affected significantly by the number of factors, nonsynchronous trading adjustment, and the sizes of the firms used for factor extraction. The returns of the portfolio benchmarks exhibit significant monthly seasonalities, which, in turn, significantly influence mutual fund performance inferences.     

Multinational Performance Measures and Their Association with Contextual Variables

Demirag (1986, 1987) has shown that UK multinational corporations (MNCs) are ‘local currency oriented’ in evaluating their foreign subsidiary operations and their managers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between the foreign currency orientation of UK MNCs in their internal performance measures, and a number of contextual variables. The contextual variables examined include: the size of the firm, organisational structure, the locus of decision making, the industry groups and the operating environments of the firms. The results of this study fail to confirm the expectations derived from the literature and prior research.     

Agent Employment Horizons and Contracting Demand for Forward-Looking Performance Measures

In this paper, the principal rewards an agent's farsighted effort both in the short and long term, with the short-term reward based on a noisy, forward-looking performance measure and the long-term reward based on a potentially less noisy, trailing performance measure. The main result is that optimal contracting weights depend on the agent's employment time horizon: the shorter the agent's employment horizon the greater the emphasis on the forward-looking performance measure and vice versa. This implies that contracting on forward-looking performance measures can be valuable in mitigating any adverse long-term effects of employees myopically focusing on short-term trailing performance measures.     

The Information Content of Nonfinancial Performance Measures in the Airline Industry

This research extends the literature on nonfinancial performance measures (NFPMs) by assessing (1) the information content of a broader set of NFPMs and (2) whether NFPMs provide information not provided by financial performance measures (FPMs) from all previously identified FPM categories, rather than just earnings and book value. Specifically, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results presented in this paper demonstrate that nineteen NFPMs of major airlines capture seven underlying constructs not captured by eighteen common FPMs. Additionally, this research develops reliable composite measures of the identified performance measure constructs, which prior research argues are superior to individual performance measures.     

鸽迪平衡术

焦作鸽迪新材料有限公司(以下简称"鸽迪")是一家集高温新材料产品研发、生产、经营为一体的高新科技企业。鸽迪诞生不到10年,它最大的愿景,就是做中国高温材料有价值和影响力的企业。企业价值目标的实现离不开财务战略的选择,对财务战略的选择决定着企业财务资源分配的取向和模式,影响着企业财务活动的行为和效率。就如何实现企业目标价值的问题,《新理财》采访了鸽迪主管财务的副总经理王广成。     

Predictive Performance Evaluation Measures: Field Study of a Multi-Outlet Business

It is frequently suggested that accountants need to develop more comprehensive predictive measures of performance. In response, several predictive deterministic models have been proposed in the literature. This paper explores the feasibility of developing predictive statistical models of performance for revenue and profit centres. A large national retail organisation was selected to field test the applicability of such a model. The results indicate that a statistical model can detect significant differences in outlet performance in a multi-outlet firm, providing performance information useful for managerial evaluation. The methodology developed can be applied to performance evaluations in many retail firms.     

IFRS and the Use of Accounting-Based Performance Measures in Executive Pay

We examine the effect of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) on the type of performance measures firms use to evaluate and reward their managers. We show that post-IFRS firms decrease the weight of Earnings-per-Share (EPS)-based performance measures in CEO pay contracts. We argue that IFRS add “noise” to accounting numbers which, based on optimal contracting theory, makes reported earnings less useful for evaluating managerial performance. Our findings suggest that while under IFRS accounting earnings could be more informative for valuation purposes, this might be achieved at the expense of other purposes that accounting serves, i.e., stewardship/performance contracting.     

Executive Compensation and Financial Performance Measures: Evidence from Significant Financial Institutions

We survey the use of financial performance measures in determining executive pay among significant Australian financial institutions. We document evidence of the pervasiveness with which externally disclosed non‐GAAP (non‐Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) financial measures are also used internally to determine variable remuneration, with the apparent popularity of cash profit after tax in short‐term incentives plans. Our evidence also highlights the increasing use of peer group‐adjusted measures (e.g., relative cash earnings per share and return on equity ranking against a peer group) in determining longer‐run incentives, despite the fact that members of the peer group do not measure financial performance in a directly comparable manner. Detailed analysis of the four major trading banks (Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank and Westpac) reveals differences in the way non‐GAAP earnings measures are calculated across the major banks, as well as some variation over time in the way individual banks measure performance. We also document evidence of non‐GAAP earnings restatements, with around 25% of non‐GAAP results subsequently being restated. These restatements are more likely to result in a downward revision of the initially reported non‐GAAP result than an upward revision. We therefore conclude that existing measures of financial performance used to determine senior executive compensation are not as ‘objective’, as might be assumed.     

中国反倾销影响企业绩效的实证分析

基于2012年中国化工行业对外反倾销数据,运用倾向评分匹配法,实证分析中国反倾销对受保护企业绩效的影响.结论显示,中国反倾销对企业劳动生产率和盈利绩效有显著的正面影响;通过提升企业工业销售产值以提高劳动生产率亦可提高盈利绩效.对此,构建了我国企业对外反倾销战略的总体框架,为我国政府和企业在申诉战略设计、决策和执行提供智力支持.     

Performance Measures in Earnings‐Based Financial Covenants in Debt Contracts

This paper examines how performance measures are defined in major earnings‐based financial covenants in loan contracts to shed light on the economic rationales underlying the contractual use of performance measures. I find an earnings‐based covenant is typically based on a performance measure close to earnings before interest, tax, amortization, and depreciation expenses (EBITDA). However, my empirical analyses show that EBITDA is less useful in explaining credit risk than earnings before interest and tax expenses (EBIT) and even the bottom‐line net income. Thus, measuring credit risk cannot fully explain the choice of accounting performance measures in earnings‐based covenants. I conjecture that contracting parties choose an EBITDA‐related measure, instead of a measure calculated after depreciation and amortization expenses (e.g., EBIT), to make the performance measure less sensitive to investment activities, which can be controlled through other contractual terms, such as a restriction on capital expenditure, and provide empirical evidence consistent with this conjecture.     

Corporate Social Performance and Stock Returns: UK Evidence from Disaggregate Measures

This study examines the relation between corporate social performance and stock returns in the UK. We closely evaluate the interactions between social and financial performance with a set of disaggregated social performance indicators for environment, employment, and community activities instead of using an aggregate measure. While scores on a composite social performance indicator are negatively related to stock returns, we find the poor financial reward offered by such firms is attributable to their good social performance on the environment and, to a lesser extent, the community aspects. Considerable abnormal returns are available from holding a portfolio of the socially least desirable stocks. These relationships between social and financial performance can be rationalized by multi-factor models for explaining the cross-sectional variation in returns, but not by industry effects.