The disciplinary role of debt and equity contracts: Theory and tests

We study how equity and debt contracts commit investors to discipline managers. Our model shows that the optimal allocation of debt, equity, and control rights depends on which disciplinary action is more efficient. When the efficient action is managerial replacement, then control rights should be allocated to equity holders, and capital structure should consist of equity and long-term debt. When the efficient action is liquidation, then control rights can be allocated to the manager, and capital structure should consist of equity and short-term debt. We find empirical support to the model's predictions in a sample of leveraged buyout transactions.     

Managerial Ownership and Financial Analysts’ Information Environment

Despite the importance of sell‐side financial analysts as information intermediaries in the capital market, little is known about how managerial equity ownership is associated with their information environment. Using Barron, Kim, Lim and Stevens’ (1998) framework for measuring the precision of financial analysts’ information, we observe that managerial ownership is positively associated with the precision of financial analysts’ public (common) and private (idiosyncratic) information, largely consistent with the alignment view of managerial equity ownership. These results are robust to controlling for various economic and statistical factors that might affect the inference.     

Real earnings management and cost of capital

This study investigates whether a firm’s cost of equity capital is influenced by the extent of a firm’s real activities management. Using a large sample of U.S. firms, we find that our proxy for the cost of capital is positively associated with the extent of earnings management through the real activities manipulation after controlling for the effect of the accrual-based earnings management. We also provide evidence suggesting that this positive association stems from managerial opportunism rather than from the measurement errors in our real earnings management proxies. The main findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests. Collectively, our results suggest that real earnings management activities exacerbate the information quality of earnings used by outside investors, and thus the market demands a higher risk premium for these activities, which is incremental to the risk premium for the accrual-based earnings management.     

How Entrenchment, Incentives and Governance Influence REIT Capital Structure

Although recent literature has confirmed the importance of viewing a firm??s capital structure choices of leverage and debt maturity as jointly determined, to date there has been little analysis of the importance of traditional governance variables on a firm??s capital structure decisions using a simultaneous equations approach. We examine the influence of managerial incentives, traditional managerial monitoring mechanisms and managerial entrenchment on the capital structure of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Using panel data, we estimate a system of simultaneous equations for leverage and maturity and find that firms with entrenched CEOs use less leverage and shorter maturity debt. This is consistent with the expectation that managers acting in their own self interest will choose lower leverage to reduce liquidity risk and use short maturity debt to preserve their ability to enhance their compensation and reputations by empire building. We also find evidence that traditional alignment mechanisms such as equity and option ownership have an offsetting effect; and that firms where the founder serves as CEO choose higher leverage and longer maturity debt. The results also provide evidence that leverage and maturity are substitutes, firms with high profitability and growth opportunities use less leverage and firms with liquid assets use more leverage and longer maturity debt.     

An empirical analysis of incremental capital structure decisions under managerial entrenchment

We study incremental capital structure decisions of Dutch companies. From 1977 to 1996 these companies have made 110 issues of public and private seasoned equity and 137 public issues of straight debt. Managers of Dutch companies are entrenched. For this reason a discrepancy exists between managerial decisions and shareholder reactions. Confirming Zwiebel [American Economic Review (1996) 1197–1215] we find that Dutch managers avoid the disciplining role of debt allowing them to overinvest. However, the market reactions show that this overinvestment behavior is recognized. We do not find a confirmation of the adverse selection model of Myers and Majluf [Journal of Financial Economics (1984) 187–221]. This is probably due to the entrenchment of managers and the prevalence of rights issues.     

银行权益资本使用及其对规模经济测度的影响

将所有者权益的作用嵌入银行技术模型,测算中国十六家上市商业银行满足成本最小化时的所有者权益影子价格,并以成本最小化为标准评价权益资本使用情况。研究发现,五家国有大型商业银行持有高于最小化成本水平的所有者权益;其余大部分股份制商业银行的权益资本低于成本最小化要求。进一步测算规模经济,发现所有者权益进入成本方程后计算出的规模经济效应比仅以所有者权益为条件调节项和使用标准成本方程估计出的规模经济结果都要高,说明规模经济的轨迹将依赖于银行对负债与所有者权益相对信任度,即提高存款和所有者权益的相对成本及所有者权益资本以多大程度进入到成本函数设定中。     

我国商业银行前瞻性资本结构模型构建与实证研究

资本结构研究对以建立现代金融企业为目标的中国银行业十分重要。本文通过深入分析资本充足率、核心资本充足率、股权回报率和平均融资成本之间的关系,提出我国商业银行在转轨时期的前瞻性资本结构模型,并以我国四大国有商业银行为例进行实证分析,进而得到资本结构管理的指标矩阵。这有利于合理确定银行的资本结构,满足投资者的股权回报要求,降低融资成本。国内其他类型的商业银行也可以通过改变参数的方式,以前瞻性资本结构模型建立适应各自规模和定位的估计区间。     

The international effect of managerial social capital on the cost of equity

We examine the effect of managerial social capital on the firm's cost of equity capital. We argue that social ties alleviate information asymmetry and agency problems, which in turn leads to a decrease in the cost of equity. Using a large panel of companies from 52 countries over the period 1999–2012, we document that social capital inversely affects the cost of equity. Our evidence suggests that the association between social capital and the cost of equity capital is stronger in underdeveloped financial markets and those characterized by weak legal protection. The marginal effect of social capital is also stronger for constrained firms with profitable investment opportunities. Our results are robust to alternative model specifications and tests for endogeneity.     

Does equity market timing have a persistent impact on capital structure? Evidence from China

This paper uses the change in individual securities accounts as a measure of equity funding supply to examine whether the persistent timing effect on capital structure exists for the Chinese equity market. This new equity timing measure avoids previous criticisms over a timing measure not being independent of a firm's characteristics of capital structure. Our empirical results show that this new measure is an effective market timing variable for issuing equity in the Chinese equity market, and that a persistent effect of equity market timing on firm capital structure exists for more than 7 years. This paper offers evidence that the market conditions of equity funding supply play an important role in corporate financing decisions in China.     

Sensitivity of executive pay to accounting performance measures in all-equity firms

We investigate the relation between chief executive officer compensation and accounting performance measures as a function of the firm's capital structure. We specifically analyse pay–performance relationships for all‐equity firms relative to high‐levered firms. We find a significant positive association between return on equity and the level of compensation for all‐equity firms. Consistent with optimal contracting theory, we cannot discern any such relationship for high‐levered firms. Because of agency costs of debt, managerial compensation in high‐levered firms plays the role of a precommitment mechanism in addition to its conventional role of aligning management incentives with shareholder interest.     

Credit Ratings and Capital Structure

This paper examines to what extent credit ratings directly affect capital structure decisions. The paper outlines discrete costs (benefits) associated with firm credit rating level differences and tests whether concerns for these costs (benefits) directly affect debt and equity financing decisions. Firms near a credit rating upgrade or downgrade issue less debt relative to equity than firms not near a change in rating. This behavior is consistent with discrete costs (benefits) of rating changes but is not explained by traditional capital structure theories. The results persist within previous empirical tests of the pecking order and tradeoff capital structure theories.     

资产专用性与公司资本结构——来自中国制造业股份有限公司的经验证据

交易成本经济学视角下的公司融资理论指出,债务与权益应该视为不同类型的“治理结构”,而这种治理结构的具体选择又主要取决于公司资产专用性。我们以2001—2003年我国制造业股份有限公司为研究对象,运用多元线性回归计量模型实证表明,公司资本结构与资产专用性和盈利能力负相关,但公司盈利能力与资产专用性正相关。因此,公司资本结构的决策不仅要考虑公司资产投资具有专用性的特点,而且还要考虑其自身的盈利能力,才可能在激烈的产品市场竞争中获得可持续竞争优势与优良绩效。     

On the relation between ownership structure and capital structure

The agency relationship between managers and shareholders has the potential to influence decision-making in the firm which in turn potentially impacts on firm characteristics such as value and leverage. Prior evidence has demonstrated an association between ownership structure and firm value. This paper extends the literature by examining a further link between ownership structure and capital structure. Using an agency framework, it is argued that the distribution of equity ownership among corporate managers and external blockholders may have a significant relation with leverage. The empirical results provide support for a positive relation between external blockholders and leverage, and non-linear relation between the level of managerial share ownership and leverage. The results also suggest that the relation between external block ownership and leverage varies across the level of managerial share ownership. These results are consistent with active monitoring by blockholders, and the effects of convergence-of-interests and management entrenchment.     

Local Taxes and Capital Structure Choice

This paper investigates the question of taxation and capital structure choice in Germany. Germany represents an excellent case study for investigating the question of whether and to what extent taxes influence the debt-equity decision of firms, because the relative tax burdens on debt and equity vary greatly across communities. German communities levy local taxes on profits and long-term debt payments in addition to personal and corporate taxes on the federal level. A stylized model is presented incorporating these taxes. The model shows that local taxes create substantial incentives for firms to use debt financing. Furthermore, the paper empirically investigates the effect of local business taxes on the share of debt used to finance incremental investments by German firms. I find that local taxes significantly influence the capital structure choice of firms, controlling for a large number of other factors. In an extensive sensitivity analysis the tax effect are found to be robust across several different specifications.     

The Impact of Dividends, Debt and Investment on Valuation Models

The reliability of a basic earnings and equity model of value is tested using 8,287 cases drawn from UK industrial and commercial firms reporting during 1987–1995. A respecification of this model is used to investigate the value relevance of dividends, capital structure and capital expenditure. Both the dividend and capital expenditure signals appear to be significant and the impact of the former is surprisingly strong. There is no convincing evidence that equity value is affected by the level of debt. Further investigation of dividends confirms that they are less influential in large firms or in firms with high return on equity.     

Determinants and consequences of voluntary disclosure in an emerging market: Evidence from China

In this paper we examine empirically the determinants of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of Chinese listed firms that issue both domestic and foreign shares and determine if the cost of debt capital is related to the extent of voluntary disclosure. We find the level of voluntary disclosure is positively related to the proportion of state ownership, foreign ownership, firm performance measured by return on equity, and reputation of the engaged auditor. There is no evidence, however, that companies benefit from extensive voluntary disclosure by having a lower cost of debt capital.     

基于分位回归的资本结构与高新技术企业绩效相关性研究

资本结构通过作用于企业的治理效率对企业绩效产生影响,向投资者传递有关企业经营状况的有效信息。高新技术上市公司在任何一个生命周期,都需要各种渠道的资金投入,其资本结构的合理与否直接关系到公司资本成本的高低和市场价值的大小。我们通过对沪深两市341家高新技术上市公司2006年～2009年的相关数据进行分位回归分析发现,国有股比例、流通股比例、长、短期资产负债率对企业绩效有着显著的负向效应,在50％-75％的分位点上企业绩效与股权集中度呈显著正相关,高管持股比例对企业绩效的敏感性缺失。基于该回归结果,我们提出了企业人力资本股权化、建立知识产权保护体系、加速发展风险投资业等优化高新技术企业资本结构,提高企业绩效的相关建议。     

Capital structure with dividend restrictions

This paper develops a symmetric information model of a new firm which incorporates a constraint on dividend payments known as a balance sheet test. This test solves moral hazard problems that arise in credit markets where complete contracting over future actions is not possible. This constraint breaks down the traditional symmetric information result of separability between financial and real variables, and thus maximizing shareholder returns in this setting is not equivalent to maximizing total firm value. As a consequence, more profitable firms, those with a higher average product of capital, will have lower debt/equity ratios. Debt/equity ratios will be positively correlated with the firm's physical capital and negatively correlated with the firm's market power.     

股权激励计划契约结构对其激励效应的影响

依据2007年1月1日至2012年12月31日期间首次公告股票期权计划激励方案的上市公司数据,考量股权激励计划契约结构对其激励效应的影响。结果表明：股权激励计划中高管激励比例、行权价格、绩效条件严格度、激励强度及激励期限均将对其激励效应产生正向影响。上市公司设计股权激励计划契约时,应适当扩大高管激励比例、提升行权价格、提高绩效条件严格度,增加激励强度、延长激励期限以增强股权激励计划激励效应。     

Capital management in mutual financial institutions

Capital management by mutual financial institutions (such as credit unions) provides a valuable testing ground for assessing the impact of capital regulation and theories of managerial behaviour in financial institutions. Limited access to external equity capital means that capital accumulation must be met primarily by reliance on retained earnings. To deal with shocks to the capital position and avoid breaching regulatory requirements, managers will aim to have a buffer of capital in excess of the regulatory minimum. Moreover, mutual governance arrangements and an absence of capital market discipline mean that managers have discretion to set target capital ratios which differ significantly from industry averages. This paper develops a formal model of capital management and risk management in mutual financial institutions such as credit unions which reflects these industry characteristics. The model is tested using data from larger credit unions in Australia, which have been subject to the Basel Accord Risk Weighted Capital Requirements since 1993. The data supports the hypothesis that credit unions manage their capital position by setting a short term target profit rate (return on assets) which is positively related to asset growth and which is aimed at gradually removing discrepancies between the actual and desired capital ratio. Desired capital ratios vary significantly across credit unions. There is little evidence of short run adjustments to the risk of the asset portfolio to achieve a desired capital position.