The information search process of socially responsible investors

Largely fuelled by an increasing social and ethical concern among private investors, socially responsible investment (SRI) has, in many ways, gone from having a marginal role to becoming a ‘mainstream’ financial service in recent years. SRI is an investment process that, in addition to the ‘traditional’ financial objective of investment, also uses social, ethical or environmental (SEE) criteria when making investment decisions. However, despite the growth of the market for SRI profiled mutual funds, very little research has been carried out with the objective of understanding the decision-making process of private SR-investors. In order to address this gap in the literature, this article addresses one stage in the SR-investor decision-making process: consumer pre-purchase information search. Using a sample of 369 SR-investors, the results of the study indicate that SR-investors search more for SEE information, such as the criteria used for exclusion of stocks than for ‘regular’ financial information such as past financial return and level of risk. Moreover, the study also indicates that involvement and perceived knowledge with regard to both financial and SEE issues impact the nature of the information search process of private SR mutual fund investors.     

The impact of institutional investors on ESG: Evidence from China

This paper studies the influence of institutional ownership on the Chinese A-shares' ESG performance. Findings reveal the positive improvement from institutional investors, and this impact is stronger in firms with better-expected ESG performance and low initial ESG performance. Besides, heterogeneous institutional investors have different influences, and only a pressure-resistant institution plays the promotion role. Further studies based on the period following the financial crisis and when emphasising the environmental protection policy reveal that financial motivation and reputation motivation could be the reason for institutional holding. Our findings are robust after using the instrumental variable analysis, controlling for firm fixed effects, and replacing institutional holdings, and could be beneficial for the governance of firms in China.     

Risk-neutral investors do not acquire information

Give a risk-neutral investor the choice to acquire a costly signal prior to asset market equilibrium. She refuses to pay for the signal under general conditions. The reason is that a risk-neutral investor is indifferent between a risky asset or a safe bond in optimum and expects the same return to her portfolio ex ante, whether or not she acquires information. Risk neutrality thus implies the absence of costly information from asset price in competitive asset markets.     

The impact of institutional investors on mergers and acquisitions in the United Kingdom

In this paper we investigate the impact of institutional ownership on UK mergers and acquisitions. We employ a comprehensive sample of M&As conducted by UK acquirers from 2000 to 2010, thus including a full cycle of peak and trough in M&A waves. We find that institutional investors increase the likelihood of an M&A to be a large, cross-border deal, opting for full control. Moreover, institutional ownership concentration and foreign institutional ownership increase the likelihood of cross-border M&As. In addition, we assess the influence of institutional shareholders’ investment horizon and find that while investment horizon have a negative influence in encouraging cross-border M&As, the presence of long-term investors encourages larger M&As. Finally, even after controlling for the 2007–08 financial crisis the market reacts negatively to the announcement of cross-border M&As.     

Why do public firms go private in the UK? The impact of private equity investors,incentive realignment and undervaluation

This paper examines the magnitude and the sources of the expected shareholder gains in UK public to private transactions (PTPs) in the second wave from 1997 to 2003. Pre-transaction shareholders on average receive a premium of 40% and the share price reaction to the PTP announcement is about 30%. We test the sources of the anticipated value creation of the delisting and distinguish between: tax benefits, incentive realignment, control reasons, free cash flow reduction, transactions cost reduction, takeover defences, undervaluation and wealth transfers, The main sources of the shareholder wealth gains are undervaluation of the pre-transaction target firm, increased interest tax shields and incentive realignment. An expected reduction of free cash flows does not determine the premiums, nor are PTPs a defensive reaction against a takeover.     

Innovations in financing: The impact of anchor investors in Indian IPOs

In 2009, the Securities Exchange Board of India allowed qualified institutional investors to anchor initial public offerings (IPOs) by participating in the issue at a price and allocation publicly disclosed preceding the issue. We study anchor investors (AIs) in Indian IPOs during 2009–2017. We find the share allotment and the number of AIs separately have significant impacts on valuation and underpricing; however, the net effect is nonsignificant. Further, AIs significantly influence other institutional investors' participation in the IPO and induce lower aftermarket volatility. Overall, our evidence suggests that AIs boost demand for and mitigate ex ante information uncertainty of IPOs.     

The impact of information systems and non-financial information on company success

This study aims to develop and evaluate a model that seeks to measure the impact of Accounting Information System Quality, Internal Control System Quality and Non-Financial Information Quality on company success (Decision-Making Success and Non-Financial Performance). This model is empirically tested with data obtained from the managers of 381 Portuguese companies. We use structural equation modelling in the analysis of causal relationships between different constructs. The results show that information and control systems quality (accounting and internal control) have a direct impact on Non-Financial Information Quality and an indirect impact on Decision-Making Success. The results also indicate that Quality Non-Financial Information does not contribute directly to Non-Financial Performance but contributes indirectly via Decision-Making Success. The exploratory variables prove to be crucial for the companies’ Non-Financial Performance, accounting for its 62% variance. Previous research focuses primarily on financial information quality and financial performance. This study is the first to empirically prove that information and control systems contribute favourably to the transparency and value-relevance of non-financial information and, consequently, to business success.     

Dissemination of information for investors at corporate Web sites

We extend the limited prior research on Internet financial reporting by providing insights into dissemination of two types of financial information at corporate Web sites. One type consists of reports that already have been filed with the SEC (i.e. required filings). The second type is all other (voluntary) information for investors. In doing so we investigate whether Web-based dissemination of both types of data can be explained by theories of incentives to voluntarily disclose information via more traditional means such as meetings or conference calls with analysts. We use regression analysis to test hypotheses that link the variation in the information disseminated through corporate Web sites to factors thought to influence voluntary disclosure of financial information. Presence of required items is significantly associated only with size and a proxy for information asymmetry, while voluntary information item disclosure is associated with variables proxying for size, information asymmetry, demand for external capital, and companies’ traditional disclosure reputations. Our results confirm that incentives motivating initial voluntary disclosure also explain the subsequent dissemination of voluntary material.     

Attracting investors for public health programmes with Social Impact Bonds

ABSTRACT

Social impact bonds (SIBs) have emerged as an innovative financing mechanism. This paper explores how health SIBs align with investors’ expectations and the conditions required to attract investors. At present, health SIBs are unlikely to provide sufficient financial returns given their financial risk to attract mainstream investors, so may be better suited to investors who are prepared to accept lower financial returns blended with particular health impact returns.     

The cost of overconfidence in public information

We investigate the effects of investor overconfidence in public information on cross-sectional asset returns. The results show that investors in the US equity market are overconfident about public signals for mature firms that are relatively easy to price—old, large, and dividend-paying firms, value firms, and firms with a higher proportion of tangible assets, little external financing, and low sales growth. However, the effects of the overconfidence on cross-sectional stock returns are reversed quickly and comprise more than half of the short-term return reversals. The risk-adjusted cost of being overconfident about the noisy public signals, measured by return reversals of hedge portfolios formed on unexpected responses, is over 1.1% per month in the first month after portfolio formation, and is still significant despite the active arbitrage trading in the 2000s.     

The impact of Financial Times Deutschland news on stock prices: post-announcement drifts and inattention of investors

In this paper, we analyze the impact of Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) news on stock prices and trading volumes. Based on a sample of all news about German DAX, MDAX, and SDAX companies published in the news section of the FTD between 2006 and 2010, our results show that articles that contain positive (negative) information are associated with significantly positive (negative) abnormal returns and abnormal trading volumes around their publication. Furthermore, our results show an initial underreaction to these articles and subsequent post-publication drift. Based on the inattention hypothesis, we show that high-attention news (proxied by abnormal trading volume) almost instantaneously moves stock prices to their new valuation levels, whereas the price adjustment process takes much longer following low-attention news. Our results also hold within multivariate regressions where we additionally control for stock-specific characteristics (e.g., institutional ownership, size, and price-to-book ratio) as well as other attention-grabbing events (as measured by ad hoc announcements and cover-page news articles). Finally, we show that results primarily hold in the non-crisis period.     

The impact of health information technology on hospital productivity

Health information technology (IT) has been championed as a tool that can transform health care delivery. We estimate the parameters of a value‐added hospital production function correcting for endogenous input choices to assess the private returns hospitals earn from health IT. Despite high marginal products, the total benefits from expanded IT adoption are modest. Over the span of our data, health IT inputs increased by more than 210% and contributed about 6% to the increase in value‐added. Not‐for‐profits invested more heavily and differently in IT. Finally, we find no compelling evidence of labor complementarities or network externalities from competitors' IT investment.     

The impact of competition and information on intraday trading

In a dynamic model of financial market trading multiple heterogeneously informed traders choose when to place orders. Better informed traders trade immediately, worse informed delay – even though they expect the market to move against them. This behavior generates intraday patterns with decreasing spreads, decreasing probability of informed trading (PIN), and increasing volume. We predict that policies that foster market entry improve the welfare of uninformed traders and lead to increased market participation by incumbent traders. Technological advances that lead to better signal processing also encourage market participation and increase volume but at the expense of uninformed traders’ welfare.     

The impact of confidence interval information on probability judgements

Previous efforts to demonstrate the value of confidence interval financial statements for credit evaluation and investment decisions have met with limited success. The present study examined the impact of nonfinancial confidence interval reports on predecisional behavior. A Bayesian revision task was used to investigate the impact of report type, information system uncertainty and decision problem uncertainty on the accuracy of probability judgements. All three variables influenced task performance. Moreover, subjects given confidence interval reports outperformed those who were given single-figure reports when significant information system and decision problem uncertainties were present. The results obtained here suggest several facets of the decision setting which may influence the value of confidence interval financial statements.     

Local institutional investors,information asymmetries,and equity returns

We examine the informational role of geographically proximate institutions in stock markets. We find that both the level of and change in local institutional ownership predict future stock returns, particularly for firms with high information asymmetry; in contrast, such predictive abilities are relatively weak for nonlocal institutional ownership. The local advantage is especially evident for local investment advisors, high local ownership institutions, and high local turnover institutions. We also find that the stocks that local institutional investors hold (trade) earn higher excess returns around future earnings announcements than those that nonlocal institutional investors hold (trade).     

Institutional investors,intangible information,and the book-to-market effect

This paper establishes a robust link between the trading behavior of institutions and the book-to-market effect. Building on work by Daniel and Titman (2006), who argue that the book-to-market effect is driven by the reversal of intangible returns, I find that institutions tend to buy (sell) shares in response to positive (negative) intangible information and that the reversal of the intangible return is most pronounced among stocks for which a large proportion of active institutions trade in the direction of intangible information. Furthermore, the book-to-market effect is large and significant in stocks with intense past institutional trading but nonexistent in stocks with moderate institutional trading. This influence of institutional trading on the book-to-market effect is distinct from that of firm size. These results are consistent with the view that the tendency of institutions to trade in the direction of intangible information exacerbates price overreaction, thereby contributing to the value premium.     

An examination of the effect of international investors on accounting information quality in Russia

This paper investigates the impact of international investors on the quality of financial accounting information in Russia. I hypothesize that international stock ownership leads to enhanced quality and adoptions or intentions to adopt IFRS by Russian firms. Data was gathered through face-to-face interviews with 100 Saint-Petersburg firms randomly selected from the INFOWAVE data base. The results are consistent with the hypotheses.     

投资者对管理层监督约束才是关键

正因为股权投资基金以私募方式募资设立,所以,防范风险机制的建设重在自律。自律分两个层次：首先,是投资者对管理者的制约,构成股权基金内部制约机制,这点最为重要;其次,是行业协会组织对股权投资机构的行业约束,行业内建立自律守则和公约是件好事,     

The heterogeneous impact of macroeconomic information on firms' earnings forecasts

This paper re-examines the role of macroeconomic information in forecasting firm earnings. We adopt a Fama–MacBeth regression model with the important extension of including information from over 140 macroeconomic variables that enter into the model in a reduced dimension form as a consequence of common factor analysis. The resulting factor-augmented model is then used to evaluate the importance of macroeconomic information on earnings forecasts for U.S. firms from 1962 to 2009. The same model is also examined for each individual time window and industry subsample. The results reveal a clear and heterogeneous impact of macroeconomic information on firm-specific earnings forecasts, and that these effects differ markedly during certain periods and across industries. In addition, when compared to analyst forecasts, we show that our model is generally more accurate over longer forecast horizons. The results of the identified heterogeneous impacts are used to define the conditions under which macroeconomic information becomes important for the firm.