Valuation implications of pharmaceutical companies' R&D regulatory approval notifications

This paper examines shareholder wealth effects surrounding applications to, and approvals by, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for firms listed on the New York (NYSE) and London (LSE) stock exchanges. Applications to the FDA for drug approvals significantly increase shareholder wealth for NYSE firms only. The increase is driven by applications for enhancements to existing drugs, with the market anticipating the application, thus suggesting information leakage. FDA approvals also significantly increase shareholder wealth in both markets. However, there is no evidence of information leakage and the significant post-event abnormal returns support the attention-grabbing hypothesis. Enhanced drug approvals are value-relevant for both markets, which highlights the contribution of real-options to firm value.     

Synergy or New Information as a Source of Wealth Change in Acquisitions: The Case of Abandoned Bids

Potential sources of wealth change from acquisition are claimed to include both the opportunity for synergistic benefits and new information about the companies involved. New information may involve revaluation of previously undervalued or under-utilised assets. In the current study analysis is undertaken of the pattern of returns to targets in abandoned bids in the UK which were initiated during the period 1977–1986. The results provide evidence to support the view that acquisitions are undertaken not only for synergistic reasons but also to acquire previously under-utilised assets. The results also provide support for the hypothesis that the market for corporate control acts as one of the disciplinary mechanisms to improve corporate profitability.     

The Wealth Effects of Capital Investment Decisions: An Empirical Comparison of Korean Chaebol and Non‐Chaebol Firms

Abstract:   This paper investigates the capital investment decisions of Korean firms and their impact on shareholder wealth. Overall, we find positive abnormal returns surrounding the announcements of 697 cases of investment projects during the period 1992–1999. This paper also finds that the investment decisions of business group ( chaebol ‐affiliated) firms do not increase shareholder wealth, while the capital investment decisions of non‐ chaebol firms generate significantly positive abnormal returns. The multivariate tests provide consistent evidence that the announcement effects for chaebol firms are lower than for non‐ chaebol firms, after growth opportunities, investment size and firm size are controlled for. The findings support the view that the organizational structure of Korean chaebols creates an incentive for managers to make non‐value maximizing capital investment decisions.     

Diversification to mitigate expropriation in the tobacco industry

While it is well established that diversifying acquisitions by large, cash-rich firms destroy shareholder wealth, we document positive abnormal returns to such acquisitions in the tobacco industry. We show that these abnormal returns are associated with proxies for lower expected expropriation costs. Specifically, we show that wealth creation increases in the degree of domestic geographic expansion afforded by the acquisition (increasing tobacco firms’ influence in more political districts) and in the liquidity of tobacco firms’ assets (converting cash to harder-to-expropriate operating assets). We also show that the threat of expropriation constrains payments to shareholders before expropriation becomes certain in 1998.     

Who incentivizes the mutual fund manager,new or old shareholders?

This study tests whether mutual fund shareholders continue to trade in response to fund returns after they make their initial investment in fund shares. It decomposes the relationship between fund returns and shareholder flow in a large, proprietary panel of all shareholder transactions in one midsize no-load mutual fund family. Results show that both new and old shareholders buy shares during periods of good returns; however, shareholder outflow is essentially unrelated to fund returns. This lack of a return-sell relationship is not driven by locked-in pension assets, shareholders’ ignorance of ongoing fund returns, or embedded capital gains. However, there is evidence that exchanges between equity funds in the family are related more strongly to returns of the destination fund than to returns of the origination fund. This may indicate that flow between equity mutual funds is driven by shareholders buying new funds rather than selling old funds. Supermarket shareholders are smart insofar as they exchange into funds that subsequently outperform their prior funds during their individual holding periods.     

Limitation of Liability and the Ownership Structure of the Firm

This paper models the optimal choice of shareholder liability. If investors want managers to be monitored, the monitors should be residual claimants (shareholders), and monitoring and firm value will increase as shareholders commit more of their wealth to the firm. When liquidating wealth is costly, contingent liability dominates direct investment as a wealth commitment device; however, if wealth is unobservable, under this regime only relatively poor investors will hold shares in equilibrium. This may be prevented at a cost by verifying shareholder wealth and restricting stock transfers. Comparative statics on various liability regimes are used to motivate actual contractual arrangements.     

Capital gains taxation and shareholder wealth in takeovers

Before December 1999, the capital gains of shareholders who sold their shares into Australian takeovers have been taxable irrespective of payment method. Subsequently, shareholders can elect to rollover capital gains in equity takeovers. We examine the effect of this change on the association between target shareholder capital gains and bidder and target firm shareholder wealth. The results indicate that prior to the regulatory change, cash consideration results in higher target shareholder returns for non‐taxation reasons. After the introduction of capital gains tax rollover relief, we find that target and acquiring firm shareholders earn lower returns when cash consideration is offered to shareholders with greater capital gains.     

Monetary-fiscal policy interactions and the price level:Background and beyond

The paper presents the fiscal theory of the price level in a variety of models, including endowment economies with lump-sum taxes and production economies with proportional income taxes. We offer a microeconomic perspective on the fiscal theory by computing a Slutsky-Hicks decomposition of the effects of tax changes into substitution, wealth, and revaluation effects. Revaluation effects arise whenever tax changes alter the value of outstanding nominal government liabilities by changing the price level. Under certain assumptions on monetary and fiscal behavior, the revaluation effect reflects the fiscal theory mechanism. When taxes distort, two Laffer curves arise, implying that a tax increase can lower or raise the price level and the revaluation effect can be positive or negative, depending on which side of a particular Laffer curve the economy resides. Jel Code: E31 · E52 · E62     

Liquidity Risk and the Dynamics of Arbitrage Capital

We develop a continuous‐time model of liquidity provision in which hedgers can trade multiple risky assets with arbitrageurs. Arbitrageurs have constant relative risk‐aversion (CRRA) utility, while hedgers' asset demand is independent of wealth. An increase in hedgers' risk aversion can make arbitrageurs endogenously more risk‐averse. Because arbitrageurs generate endogenous risk, an increase in their wealth or a reduction in their CRRA coefficient can raise risk premia despite Sharpe ratios declining. Arbitrageur wealth is a priced risk factor because assets held by arbitrageurs offer high expected returns but suffer the most when wealth drops. Aggregate illiquidity, which declines in wealth, captures that factor.     

Leverage,governance and wealth effects of asset purchasers

We examine a sample of 670 firms that announce asset purchases. We hypothesize that buyer announcement returns should be higher in the presence of better monitoring and better governance. Consistent with the monitoring hypothesis, we find that buyers with higher private debt make purchase decisions that increase shareholder value. Consistent with the governance hypothesis, we find that returns are higher for buyers that have lower antitakeover provisions in place. Consistent with the managerial discretion hypothesis, buyer announcement-period returns increase with buyer leverage. Consistent with the liquidity hypothesis, we find that announcement-period returns decrease with the seller's Z-score, suggesting that buyers benefit from the lower liquidity of assets sold by sellers with lower debt capacity and higher financial distress. We also find that buyer announcement-period returns are directly related to their operating performance in the post-purchase year.     

A nonlinear wealth transfer from shareholders to creditors around Chapter 11 filing

Past literature has assumed that negative stock returns around Chapter 11 filing are solely due to new adverse information about firm value. This paper argues that there is also a nonlinear wealth transfer from shareholders to creditors causing shareholder loss. The magnitude of the wealth transfer can be quantified in a setting where equity is a call option on firm assets as in the Merton (1974) model. The wealth transfer originates from maturity shortening of the call option as a result of Chapter 11 filing. I present a parsimonious model to explain why Chapter 11 can be voluntarily filed by managers acting in the interest of shareholders with the existence of the wealth transfer. The model-predicted stock return has comparable magnitude as observed stock returns around filing, and explains the cross-sectional variation of the latter.     

Do corporate governance characteristics influence tax management?

This paper investigates how corporate governance plays a role in long-run tax management and contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, we add insight into the horizon problems related to executive and director compensation and show that incentive compensation provides long-term incentives to improve performance by establishing a link between higher pay-performance sensitivity and lower taxes. Second, this is one of the first papers, to our knowledge, to empirically examine the role of governance in corporate tax management from a long-term perspective in order to better understand the lasting effects of governance. We find that incentive compensation drives managers to make investments into longer-horizon pay outs such as tax management. Furthermore, we find that this investment into tax management benefits shareholders; better tax management is positively related to higher returns to shareholders. We also address the endogeneity issues of corporate governance and performance measures. Finally, our paper is unique in examining which type of tax management strategy (domestic or foreign) different firms focus on. Our results shed light into how governance can improve firm performance and increase shareholder value in the long run.     

Investigating the Valuation Effects of Announcements of Voluntary Corporate Selloffs

While there has been an abundance of empirical research on the subject of mergers and acquisitions, little research exists on a closely related topic—voluntary corporate selloffs. This study examines the effect on shareholder wealth of the announcement by management of an investment decision to voluntarily sell part of its operations to another firm. Positive abnormal returns are found to occur on the announcement date. However, it is found that such selloffs generally occur after a period of abnormally negative returns, suggesting the announcement is preceded by the release of negative information about the firm.     

Asset Pricing and Expected Inflation

This paper provides an equilibrium model in which expected real returns on common stocks are negatively related to expected inflation and money growth. It is shown that the fall in real wealth associated with an increase in expected inflation decreases the real rate of interest and the expected real rate of return of the market portfolio. The expected real rate of return of the market portfolio falls less, for a given increase in expected inflation, when the increase in expected inflation is caused by an increase in money growth rather than by a worsening of the investment opportunity set. The model has empirical implications for the effect of a change in expected inflation on the cross-sectional distribution of asset returns and can help to understand why assets whose return covaries positively with expected inflation may have lower expected returns. The model also agrees with explanations advanced by Fama [5] and Geske and Roll [10] for the negative relation between stock returns and inflation.     

税率降低与企业固定资产投资的DID实证分析——来自上市公司的经验证据

为考察我国企业所得税改革对固定资产投资的影响效应,以税改前后上市公司执行税率的不同作为研究的切入点,借鉴国外衡量政策效应的主流计量研究方法——DID(Difference in Difference)方法,使用上市公司数据对此予以实证分析。研究结果表明,税改前后上市公司执行税率的不同,对不同所有制性质的上市公司的固定资产投资影响明显不同。因此,要有效调整企业的固定资产投资,应对这两类身份不同的企业制定有所区别的政策。     

Dividend and capital gains taxation under incomplete markets

Motivated by the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) of 2003, the effects of capital income tax cuts are investigated in an economy with heterogeneous households and a representative, mature firm. Dividend tax cuts, contrary to capital gains tax cuts, lead to a decrease in investment and capital. This is because they increase the market value of existing capital and households require a higher return to hold this additional wealth. In line with empirical evidence, the model predicts substantial increases in dividends and stock prices. Overall, the tax cuts lead to a welfare reduction equivalent to a consumption drop of 0.5%.     

Unanticipated interest rates,bank stock returns and the nominal contracting hypothesis

The relationship between unexpected interest rate movements and bank stock returns is analyzed in the context of the nominal contracting hypothesis. Unanticipated changes in interest rates should influence individual bank profits and stock returns depending on the maturity characteristics of their assets relative to their liabilities. This hypothesis is investigated by constructing portfolios on the basis of the nominal contracting positions of banks. The main conclusion of this paper is that the wealth redistribution implications of the nominal contracting hypothesis is found to be unimportant in the determination of bank stock returns.     

Bidder returns in interstate and intrastate bank acquisitions

Returns to bidders are examined for 108 bank acquisitions over the 1981–1987 period. These returns provide evidence on the conflict-of-interest hypothesis and the hubris hypothesis, both of which predict negative returns to bidders, versus the shareholder wealth maximization model that predicts positive (or at least non-negative) returns. Further evidence on these hypotheses is provided from the returns on 18 defensive acquisitions. Consistent with the conflict-of-interest and hubris hypotheses, announcement period returns are negative and statistically significant both for interstate and intrastate acquisitions. However, bidder returns to interstate bank acquisitions do not differ significantly from intrastate mergers.     

A Test of the Debt-Monitoring Hypothesis: The Case of Corporate R&D Expenditures

Studies that test for shareholder wealth effects of announcements of plans to increase R&D expenditures find an average positive effect, but also a significant cross-sectional variation. This study determines whether the effect can be predicted when the announcing firm's capital structure is considered. Results suggest a positive relation between the debt ratio and the R&D induced abnormal stock returns. These results are robust using different industry-adjusted and unadjusted measures of capital structure and while controlling for several potentially influential variables. In addition, the gains to shareholders do not seem to be wealth transfers from bondholders. This evidence provides support to the debt-monitoring hypothesis.     

Optimal Asset Abandonment and Replacement: Tax and Inflation Considerations

The tax and inflation effects on the abandonment and replacement policies are examined for capital assets. The tax effect is shown to defer abandonment for some classes of assets while the asset duration is shortened for others depending on the characteristic of the marginal rates of return of extending asset life. Moreover, inflation may increase or decrease the asset duration depending on the rates of inflation growth of asset nominal cash flows and abandonment value and depending on the relative benefit of asset abandonment. In addition, the Fisher hypothesis of constant real returns relative to anticipated inflation is also examined in the case of asset abandonment and replacement. The results derived for a single cycle of replacement carry over to the replacement policy in an infinite cycle of replacement.