股权分置改革、高股利分配与投资者利益保护——基于驰宏锌锗的案例研究

本文以我国股权分置改革为制度背景,从股利代理理论和投资者保护理论角度出发,研究驰宏锌锗的股利分配行为与投资者利益保护的关系。分析结果表明,驰宏锌锗在股权分置改革过程中所进行的股利分配,有严重侵占中小股东利益之嫌。针对这一问题,我们建议监管当局要加强对上市公司高股利分配行为的监管,并继续完善中小投资者法律保护建设,尤其是执行层面的监督。上市公司则应该提高其所披露信息的质量,促进公司稳定和谐发展。     

美国内部控制经验研究进展及其对我国的启示

美国（（2002年萨班斯-奥克斯利法案》（SOX法案）加强公司内部控制披露的规定旨在提高外部投资者对公司财务报告可靠性的信心。然而,公司内部控制有效性是否对财务报告可靠性产生显著影响？SOX法案相关规定是否有助于保护投资者利益、促进社会财富的增长？这些问题引起了广泛的争论。本文首先介绍该法案关于内部控制评价与披露规定的制度背景,然后从公司内部控制的决定因素、内部控制有效性对财务报告可靠性的影响、内部控制披露的经济后果等三个研究领域,评述美国内部控制经验研究最新发展以及所引出的深层次问题,最后结合我国内部控制制度建设讨论对我国监管部门、空备界坐术界带桌的启示．     

合并会计方法选择的经济后果探讨

企业合并历来就是证券市场的焦点.企业财务报告是投资者预测和评价合并效应的主要依据,而不同的合并会计方法产生不同的会计信息,导致各利害关系集团不同的利益分配结果,进而影响社会资源配置的效率和效果,即具有经济后果.本文从理论上分析了合并会计方法选择的经济后果,并以TCL集团吸收合并TCL通讯为例,比较了购买法和联营法下的财务状况、经营成果和主要财务指标,在此基础上,探讨了我国企业合并会计方法的规范问题.     

创业板退市制度的完善--基于公司治理的视角

上市公司退市制度被看作是保护中小投资者利益的重要制度安排。本文简要阐述创业板的退市制度,指出其存在的不足,并分析公司治理与投资者保护的关系,针对其问题从公司治理的角度来给出相应退市制度改进完善的建议,使得创业板的退市制度真正有助于提高上市公司质量,优化市场资源配置,保护中小投资者的利益。     

机构持股与中小投资者保护

信息不对称是导致中小投资者在资本市场遭受利益损失的重要原因,本文以会计盈余质量作为衡量中小投资者保护水平的指标,以2003-2005年沪、深两市A股为样本,实证检验了中国机构持股对中小投资者保护的影响.结果发现,机构持股降低了会计盈余质量,没有发挥保护中小投资者的利益的作用.上述研究发现,对理解机构持股的经济后果具有重要意义,有助于更加深入地理解机构持股影响中小投资者利益保护的制度条件,也为投资者保护研究提供了一个有益的视角.     

利率管制、投资者行为和股市特征

本文从资本市场供求两个角度分析了在利率管制背景下投资者行为和公司融资行为偏好.同时研究表明,在利率扭曲背景下,总体上股市收益率低于市场均衡利率,甚至低于债务收益率,现金股利率低;但是部分投资者投资股市的效用大于债券投资,因而即便股市收益率低,仍会投资股市;而且投资股市的王要目的是赚取价差收益,这进一步决定了中国股市投机成分强,换手率高的特征.在此基础上,本文提出了最有效的保护中小投资者利益的措施是逐步解除利率管制的观点.     

会计制度变迁与盈余稳健性:一项理论分析

本文从制度层面对会计制度变迁与盈余稳健性进行了理论分析,并着重从我国的制度背景分析了我国会计制度中稳健性原则强化的原因,西方国家会计稳健性提高的主要因素很难为其提供解释。以盈余为基础的监管和评价制度是我国会计制度中稳健性原则强化的外在制度原因,而根本原因是稳健性原则的运用作为一种财务报告机制可以改善公司的盈余质量,并强化对投资者利益的保护。     

资本结构、公司治理与投资者保护——基于委托代理理论的分析

公司治理与资本结构在投资者保护中起着重要作用:科学完善的公司治理机制是投资者利益得以保护的前提,合理的资本结构是保护投资者利益的有效手段;而公司治理缺陷则可能诱发经营者和股东侵害投资者利益的行为。本文在对公司治理、资本结构与投资者保护之间的关系进行理论分析的基础上,对我国上市公司当前资本结构和公司治理中的主要问题进行了分析,进而提出了完善我国投资者保护制度的政策建议。     

股权集中与投资者利益保护——基于我国上市公司的实证分析

公司的股权集中度问题是公司不同主体利益分配和剩余索取权安排的基础问题,同时也是公司治理的核心。股权集中的程度决定了公司代理问题的基本性质,即在公司治理过程中面临的主要冲突是存在于管理者与股东之间还是控股股东与中小股东之间,学者们对此却有着不同的见解。同时,学术界在用何种指标来衡量投资者利益保护问题上,也未达成一致意见。本文从公司治理理论出发,构建投资者利益保护评价指标体系,研究公司股权集中度与投资者利益保护之间的关系。实证结果表明,公司第一大股东持股比例越大,越不利于投资者保护;公司股东的持股比例差距越小、分布越均衡,越利于投资者保护;同时,第一大股东与第二大股东持股比例的比值不宜过大,两大股东的股权制衡,有利于投资者利益的保护。相对于股权集中,公司股权的制衡是更有利于投资者的利益保护。     

投资者保护与控股股东资产偏好

本文从控股股东资产偏好的角度构建了一个在股权集中型公司中研究控股股东侵占中小股东利益的行为决策分析框架。理论分析表明,投资者保护可以缓解因控股股东对流动性资产的偏好而形成的投资不足,但公司现金持有水平取决于公司投资不足和控股股东资产转移两个方面的净效应。实证研究结果证实了较好的投资者保护能够在一定程度上缓解公司投资不足,并抑制控股股东的资产转移动机,从而促使外部投资者对公司所持有的现金予以较高的价值评估。我们还发现中国上市公司控股股东较高的现金流权对应着较高的控制权,其结果是加剧公司投资不足,导致公司现金水平较高而现金价值较低。     

投资者法律保护、股权集中度与大股东行为

在不同的法系和国家中,对投资者的法律保护存在很大的差异。作为对投资者法律保护的替代,在投资者法律保护薄弱的国家,股权结构相对集中。为了保护投资者的利益,我国应该完善对投资者的法律保护,提高执法质量和会计质量,促进股权的适度集中,限制控制股东的掠夺行为。     

Investor legal protection and earnings management: A study of Chinese H-shares and Hong Kong shares

Under the unique “one country, two systems” arrangement, the more stringent investor protection rules in Hong Kong are not enforceable in firms that are incorporated in China but listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange (H-shares). As such, H-shares and other local Hong Kong firms are subject to different investor protection regimes in the same stock market. We find that H-shares are associated with higher earnings management than local Hong Kong firms after controlling for disparity in economic development, types of controlling shareholders and other factors. More importantly, this relationship is weaker after China implemented the Securities Law in 1999. The results are robust after considering the dual-listing status of H-shares and board characteristics. These results provide direct evidence showing the effect of investor legal protection on financial reporting quality.     

我国证券投资者权益保护问题研究

目前,我国证券市场对证券投资者保护的法规尚不健全,法律的执行力不够;证券市场监管机制也不完善,上市公司特殊的股权结构,以及投资者自我维权意识的不足,使得投资者的权益容易受到侵害。本文认为,要有效保护证券投资者权益,应进一步加大证券市场投资者保护法规建设力度,加强外部行政、司法干预及行业监管,建立行业自律和投资者赔偿机制,从多层面改善证券投资者保护现状。     

International Corporate Governance and Finance: Legal,Cultural and Political Explanations

We investigate the disparity and the determinants of investor protection around the world and their impact on financial market development. More specifically, we build on Williamson's (2000) new institutional economic model to explain this disparity using legal, political and cultural variables. In 2006, the World Bank established an index to measure the disparity of investor protection regulations across 81 emerging and developed countries. Our results confirm that combining classifications based on legal systems, cultures and polities is important in explaining the disparity of investor protection and market capitalization around the world. In particular, we show that the classical regression analysis is not well suited to approach this question because it gives mitigated results. However, the mediation analysis is more cohesive with our conceptual model: we confirmed an indirect effect through a path analysis involving investor protection as a mediator of the relationship between legal systems and culture on the one hand and stock market capitalization on the other hand. Nevertheless, the polity factor was shown to have only a direct effect on stock market capitalization.     

Investor protection and the Coasian view

The corporate charters of a sample of Mexican firms show that private firms often significantly enhance the legal protection offered to investors, but public firms rarely do so. We construct a model that endogenizes the degree of investor protection that firms provide, using as a springboard the assumption that legal regimes differ in their ability to enforce precisely filtering contracts that provide protection only in those cases where expropriation can occur. Our model generates predictions about the types of contracts that would be employed and the levels of investor protection that would prevail across different legal regimes in both private and public firms.     

The Global CAPM and a Firm's Cost of Capital in Different Currencies

In an integrated global market, a firm's cost of capital expressed in one currency should be consistent with its cost of capital expressed in another currency. This article presents and illustrates a process for estimating consistent costs of capital in different currencies for a U.K. based multinational. In so doing, it uses a simple, easy-to-use version of the global CAPM that attempts to incorporate the effect of uncertain exchange rates by calculating exchange rate "betas." As argued in the previous article, at least part of a company's currency exposure is systematically related to the global market and thus should be treated as a component of the firm's systematic equity risk.
For example, the U.K. firm featured in this article is shown to have an exchange rate beta of 0.20 from the perspective of a U.S. investor. This implies that a 10% return on the global market in U.S. dollars tends to be associated with a 2% change in the U.S. dollar value of the British pound. One interesting consequence of incorporating exchange risk in this fashion is that two firms with identical U.S. global betas and costs of equity will have different expected returns expressed in another currency if they have different exposures to that currency.     

Developing a Trading Rule from the FTSE-100 Stock Index Futures Contract: Evidence in Support of the EMH

An extensive literature documents the predictability of both short and long horizon returns, over a wide range of sample periods, frequencies and markets. This predictability may represent weak form inefficiency, or it may be caused by a failure to account for a time-variation in risk. We develop statistically reliable ex ante models of the returns on the FTSE-100 stock index futures contract and test a simple trading rule based on the out-of-sample predictions from these models. We interpret the failure of our ex ante model to produce abnormal returns for a risk neutral investor as evidence in favour of the EMH. Our trading rule results clearly suggest that we should be careful in interpreting such ex ante models as evidence of financial market inefficiency.     

Investment–cash flow sensitivity and investor protection

We examine the role of country-level legal investor protection (i.e., shareholder and creditor protection) on firm investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS). Using underexplored research data on investor protection across 21 countries and working with a conservative empirical design, we extend prior literature on the relation between investor protection and ICFS and provide new evidence on how these country-level attributes interact to explain a firm's ICFS. We find that either the strong legal protection of minority shareholders or the strong legal protection of creditors reduces the sensitivity of investment to internal cash flow. However, in countries with strong levels of both minority shareholder and creditor protection, ICFS increases. Our results remain robust after controlling for several alternative explanations. The results support the argument that overregulation arises when policymakers increase investor protection at levels that lead firms to avoid external sources of finance, hampering firm investment. Our findings suggest that countries face a regulatory trade-off such that increasing investor protection (either shareholder or creditors protection) enhances financial markets efficiency, but excessive regulation can indeed lead to financial markets inefficiencies.     

Number of Shareholders and Stock Prices: Evidence from Japan

Merton (1987) proposes that an increase in a firm's investor base increases the firm's value. In Japan, companies can reduce their stock's minimum trading unit—the number of shares in a "round lot"—which facilitates trading in the stock by small investors. We find that a reduction in the minimum trading unit greatly increases a firm's base of individual investors and its stock liquidity, and is associated with a significant increase in the stock price. Further, the stock price appreciation is positively related to an increase in the number of shareholders.     

STRATEGIC HEDGING

This article presents a new approach to financial risk management whose primary objective is to ensure that companies have sufficient internal funds and access to outside capital to carry out their strategic investments. The foundation of this approach is a comprehensive measure of corporate exposure that views the firm as a collection of current cashgenerating assets and future investment opportunities and that attempts to show how changes in fundamental economic variables can threaten the firm's ability to realize its strategic objectives. As such, the measure of exposure reflects the effect of expected changes in economic variables not only on the firm's operating cash flows but also on its future investment requirements.
Because its focuses only on the exposures that need protection when regular sources of funds are exhausted, this strategic hedging approach will generally lead to a more conservative hedging policy. In so doing, it should enable companies to avoid the excessive and costly "micro" hedging of individual transactions—an approach that can easily degenerate into speculation.