Financial Convergence in Transition Economies: EU Enlargement

This paper analyzes the financial effect of the enlargement of the European Union (EU) to include ten new Central and East European countries (CEECs) on firms' business and financial structures. We employ quantitative analytic techniques and financial ratios to discover whether firms in the new EU member states tend to converge with businesses in the EU-15 in terms of the structure of their financial statements. We examine the extent to which the increasing integration of the former may foster the convergence of productive structures. We analyze the evolution of twelve financial ratios in a sample of firms obtained from the AMADEUS database, performing a dynamic factor analysis that identifies the determining factors of the joint evolution of deviations in financial ratios from the average values of EU-15 firms. This allows us to analyze the convergence in each of the CEECs toward the EU-15.     

The Impact of IFRS 16 on Key Financial Ratios: A New Methodological Approach

In January 2016, the International Accounting Standards Board issued a new standard for lease accounting: International Financial Reporting Starndard (IFRS) 16. IFRS 16 will lead to the capitalisation of the majority of current operating leases by lessees. We analyse the impact of the new accounting model on entity’s key financial, contributing to research by making significant changes in the Imhoff et al. [(1991). Operating leases: Impact of constructive capitalization. Accounting Horizons, 5(1), 51–63. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&;db=buh&;AN=9604010111&;site=ehost-live; (1997). Operating leases: Income effects of constructive capitalization. Accounting Horizons, 11(2), 12–32. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.fama.us.es/docview/208896121?accountid=14744] methodology used by previous authors. We change how the lease term is estimated (more aligned with the final approved standard), and how the discount rate is obtained. Furthermore, we use a more comprehensive sample (646 quoted European companies). In line with previous research we find important systematic impacts on key balance sheet financial ratios (mainly leverage ratios), on a magnitude that depends on the operating lease intensity of the sector in which the entity operates. Our estimated impact is generally higher than that obtained in previous studies. The most affected sectors are retail, hotels and transportation. We do not find a consistent result with regard to the effect on profitability ratios.     

Industry Distributional Characteristics of Financial Ratios: An Acquisition Theory Application

This study explores the importance of capturing industry‐specific distributional characteristies in analyses based on financial ratios. As a test case, the study replicates Palepu (1986), who employs financial ratios in logit models to investigate the usefulness of six acquisition hypotheses in predicting takeover targets. Without adjustment for industry‐specific distributional characteristics, this study's findings are only consistent with one of the six acquisition hypotheses. After adjusting for distributional properties, the results are consistent with four of the six acquisition hypotheses. Furthermore, the adjusted model produces a classification accuracy significantly greater than chance, as well as significantly greater than that observed for the unadjusted model.     

Predicting Corporate Failure in the UK: A Multidimensional Scaling Approach

Scaling techniques are proposed as a tool for the analysis and prediction of corporate failure. This approach, while keeping a strong theoretical basis, has the advantage of visualising the main features of the data in the form of statistical maps that lend themselves to intuitive interpretation. The maps contain directional statistics to help with interpretation. The methodology is demonstrated using a sample of UK industrial companies. A future‐dated holdout sample is also employed to illustrate how the Multidimensional Scaling technique can aid practitioners when assessing the financial health of a company.     

Predicting Corporate Financial Distress: A Time-Series CUSUM Methodology

The ability to predict corporate financial distress can be strengthened using models that account for serial correlation in the data, incorporate information from more than one period and include stationary explanatory variables. This paper develops a stationary financial distress model for AMEX and NYSE manufacturing and retailing firms based on the statistical methodology of time-series Cumulative Sums (CUSUM). The model has the ability to distinguish between changes in the financial variables of a firm that are the result of serial correlation and changes that are the result of permanent shifts in the mean structure of the variables due to financial distress. Tests performed show that the model is robust over time and outperforms similar models based on the popular statistical methods of Linear Discriminant Analysis and Logit.     

财务报表国际趋同的重大进展——IASB与FASB《财务报表列报初步意见》之分析

财务报表作为公司对外财务报告的核心载体,其结构、内容及繁简在国际上充满争议。如何使财务报表最为及时、准确、有效地传递公司财务信息给使用者,是理论和实务界的共同努力方向。国际会计准则理事会(IASB)和美国财务会计准则委员会(FASB)联合发布的《财务报表列报初步意见》讨论稿提出了颠覆性的方案。针对讨论稿中提出的变革方案,我们需要从强化资产负债观、逐步引入综合收益表、加强对新报表分类模式理论研究三个方面努力,以改进我国财务报告,实现我国会计准则与国际财务报告准则持续和动态趋同。     

The Time Series Properties of Financial Ratios: Lev Revisited

This paper re‐evaluates the time series properties of financial ratios. It presents new empirical analysis which explicitly allows for the possibility that financial ratios can be characterized as non‐linear mean‐reverting processes. Financial ratios are widely employed as explanatory variables in accounting and finance research with applications ranging from the determinants of auditors' compensation to explaining firms' investment decisions. An implicit assumption in this empirical work is that the ratios are stationary so that the postulated models can be estimated by classical regression methods. However, recent empirical work on the time series properties of corporate financial ratios has reported that the level of the majority of ratios is described by non‐stationary, I (1), integrated processes and that the ratio differences are parsimoniously described by random walks. We hypothesize that financial ratios may follow a random walk near their target level, but that the more distant a ratio is from target, the more likely the firm is to take remedial action to bring it back towards target. This behavior will result in a significant size distortion of the conventional stationarity tests and lead to frequent non‐rejection of the null hypothesis of non‐stationarity, a finding which undermines the use of these ratios as reliable conditioning variables for the explanation of firms' decisions.     

现代金融分析：范围、路线和范式转换

文章讨论了现代金融分析领域所涉及的基本问题和研究范围,识别金融分析同货币分析的区别和联系,现代金融分析发展的思想起源以及随着这种思想路线的发展而形成新古典主义金融分析。并对现代金融学的理论框架进行评估,分析了行为金融学兴起的价值理论基础。其目的是对“现代金融学”教学和研究的理论框架、历史演变,以及变革发展的趋势作一个概括,从而为我国21世纪的条件下的金融学理论体系重建提供一个历史的参照。     

Financial scandals: a historical overview

I examine the incidence of fraud from c.1720 to 2009 and relate it to the occurrence of significant financial scandals. Focusing on the UK, and US prior to Enron, and using a detailed dataset of significant events and news content, underpinned by examination of specific watershed scandals, the paper highlights the regulatory response to scandals and the implications for accounting and financial reporting. The evidence reveals the incidence of fraud and financial scandal to be historically contingent and skewed towards certain sectors, particularly banking and finance, facilitated by complex group structures and international capital mobility, and mediated by managerial incentives and ownership concentration. Financial reporting and auditing can mitigate fraud opportunities in all sectors and businesses without complex group structures, and the accounting profession achieved some success in this respect up to the mid-1970s. Since then, the profession has been increasingly challenged by, and to some degree implicated in, the development of interconnected and international business networks, which, combined with wider financial deregulation, has led to a resurgence of fraud and financial scandal not previously experienced since the mid-nineteenth century.     

Security Choice, Information Effects and Firm Characteristics: A Factor Analytic Approach

Abstract:   We examine the marginal choice between debt and equity securities using a factor analytic approach. This data reduction property eliminates the need to select the one best variable to proxy for a particular theoretical construct. Our results reinforce numerous existing findings using traditional methods and suggest both static tradeoff and asymmetric information based considerations are relevant in determining security choice. Two new results are presented related to the accounting liquidity of the firm. First, the preference for equity is increasing with liquidity as suggested by the window of opportunity hypothesis. Secondly, the market response to equity issuance announcements is inversely related to the liquidity of the firm. Profitability and growth measures support Jensen's (1986) agency cost of free cash flow as a potential explanation for the second finding.     

金融资产投资、杠杆率与企业风险承担——基于非金融企业的视角

本文以2007~2018年我国A股非金融上市公司为研究样本,运用动态面板系统广义矩估计法,研究杠杆率在金融资产投资与企业风险承担之间的中介效应影响,分析金融资产投资、杠杆率、企业风险承担三者之间的传导链条。研究发现:杠杆率在金融资产投资与企业风险承担水平之间发挥了部分中介效应;金融资产投资增加会直接导致企业风险承担水平上升,同时也会通过提高杠杆率间接地提升企业风险承担水平。本研究丰富了实体企业金融投资后果的相关文献,为实体企业的投资决策以及风险管理提供了参考,也为监管部门去杠杆防风险提供了经验证据。     

金融制度差异与演进解释理论的新探索:金融发展的社会经济动力学

迄今为止,关于金融制度差异与演进的较成熟的理论包括金融发展的"结构"理论和金融发展的"利益集团"理论.前者强调法律渊源、法律传统是金融制度差异的核心影响因素;后者洞察了金融制度的内生性质、利益集团的组织能力对金融制度差异与演进的重要作用.本文通过对两种理论的比较与引申,旨在创造性综合出一种金融制度差异或变迁的社会经济动力学理论,以期能够对金融发展问题的深入研究有所启示.     

Financial Crises as a Phenomenon of Multiple Equilibria and How to Select among Them

When equilibrium is indeterminate (i.e., not unique), applied theory often obtains uniqueness either via ad hoc sunspots or via global games. This paper highlights the relative merits of a third selection mechanism—best-response dynamics (BRD)—in the context of various financial crisis frameworks. For example, in the context of a bank run, selection via BRD is preferred (to ad hoc sunspots) because it provides an explicit coordination narrative and (to global games) because it accounts for the fact that depositors realistically may decide to join or leave a bank's queue upon observing its length.     

Taxation and Income Distribution Dynamics in a Neoclassical Growth Model

We examine how changes in tax policies affect the dynamics of the distributions of wealth and income in a Ramsey model in which agents differ in their initial capital endowments. The endogeneity of the labor supply plays a crucial role, as tax changes that affect hours of work will affect the distribution of wealth and income, reinforcing or offsetting the direct redistributive impact of taxes. We consider different ways of financing government expenditure and find that policies that reduce the labor supply are associated with lower output but also with a more equal distribution of after‐tax income. We illustrate these effects by examining the impact of recent tax changes observed in the United States and in European economies.     

数字普惠金融与制造业升级：影响机制与经验证据

基于2011-2020年省级面板数据,采用系统GMM方法和中介效应模型,考察数字普惠金融对制造业升级的影响,同时检验技术创新、人力资本和消费升级在数字普惠金融影响制造业升级过程中的传导作用机制。结果表明：数字普惠金融的发展能够显著促进制造业升级;技术创新、人力资本和消费升级具有一定的传导作用,但均表现为遮掩效应。鉴于此,要进一步完善数字普惠金融体系、技术创新服务机制、培养高层次产业人才、刺激消费等,发挥数字普惠金融对制造业升级的促进作用。     

Modelling failure rates with machine-learning models: Evidence from a panel of UK firms

In this study, we investigate the ability of machine-learning techniques to predict firm failures and we compare them against alternatives. Using data on business and financial risks of UK firms over 1994–2019, we document that machine-learning models are systematically more accurate than a discrete hazard benchmark. We conclude that the random forest model outperforms other models in failure prediction. In addition, we show that the improved predictive power of the random forest model relative to its counterparts persists when we consider extreme economic events as well as firm and industry heterogeneity. Finally, we find that financial factors affect failure probabilities.     

Valuing the Potential Transformation of Banks into Financial Service Conglomerates: Evidence from the Citigroup Merger

The merger between Citicorp and Travelers Group on April 6, 1998 could have emitted two relevant signals for firms that provide financial services. The first signal is the endorsement by two prominent financial institutions that benefits from cross‐selling of bank services with insurance services, brokerage services, and other financial services can be realized. The second signal is that regulators will allow the combination of commercial banking with insurance underwriting and full‐service brokerage, paving a path for similar combinations in the future. We document a favorable share price response for commercial banks, insurance companies, and brokerage firms, which supports the argument that the merger sets a precedent for other combinations between banks and nonbank financial services that will facilitate cross‐selling and efficiencies.     

金融集团的公司治理:典型模式的案例分析

本文对花旗集团、德意志银行集团以及三菱东京金融集团的公司治理实践进行了详细的比较分析。研究表明,三种金融集团治理模式之间存在着显著差异,但又不乏一些共性。比较分析后得到如下启示:国有商业银行应该进行股份制改造并成为上市公司;商业银行的公司治理应该以“长期股东价值最大化”为目标;要进一步明确以风险管理原则为基础构建商业银行治理结构的重要性;应该进一步强化监事会的功能,保证监事会的独立性,并使监事具备任职的积极资格;实现责任人的绩效与薪酬额度的有机结合是我们构建高效的激励机制的努力方向;要实现我国银行业的国际化、集团化与多元化。     

金融体系中的顺周期性：我们是否需要一个新的宏观金融稳定框架

近几十年,中央银行成功地不断追求低通货膨胀目标制,降低了通胀和产出的可变性。与此同时,出现了大量的金融失衡和其他方面的失衡(明显持续地偏离历史标准)。如果这些失衡能恢复到均衡水平,应该会对产出增长产生显著影响。尽管这样的不利结果还仅仅是一种可能,但本文提出的问题是,我们是否能从一个新的宏观金融稳定框架中受益,在这个框架中货币政策和监管政策更多地关注如何避免出现失衡现象。