Information Asymmetry and Quarterly Disclosure Decisions by Firms: Evidence From the Tokyo Stock Exchange

This study investigates whether the new quarterly disclosure reporting requirement issued by the Tokyo Stock Exchange was related to the reduction of the degree of private information‐based trade and the liquidity of listed stocks in Japan, or as a reverse causality, helped dichotomize good firms and bad firms as a separating signaling equilibrium. We use the probability of asymmetric information‐based trade (Adjusted PIN) as a measure of information asymmetry and the probability of symmetric order‐flow shock (PSOS) as a measure of market illiquidity. We use a sample of public firms from 2002 to 2007 that chose to either disclose or not disclose quarterly financial reports. We find that the disclosing firms had lower information asymmetry (Adjusted PIN), lower symmetric order‐flow shocks (PSOS), and lower private information‐based trade (PIN). When we conduct further difference‐in‐differences tests, we find that the firms with lower information asymmetry and higher liquidity had a higher tendency to disclose their financial statements and vice versa. Thus, the new disclosure requirement did not necessarily improve the information asymmetry and liquidity of firms, but instead helped good and bad firms form a case for a separating signaling equilibrium.     

Disclosure for whom? Government involvement,CSR disclosure and firm value

This paper investigates the roles of market and government in an emerging economy. By examining 2906 CSR reports from Chinese listed firms, we find that CSR disclosure adds incremental value to firms, especially for Private-Owned Enterprises (POE). We also find that the disclosure saves Central Government Controlled State-Owned Enterprises, which mandatorily disclose CSR information, from negative news report and litigation risks. This insurance effect is significant in POEs only when they suffer from economic losses. We find that POEs are market-oriented; although government would compensate for other mandatory disclosure firms when they suffer from reputational shock.     

Small firm growth,access to capital markets and financial structure: Review of issues and an empirical investigation

This article investigates the financial structure of small firms with an emphasis on growth and access to capital markets. Neo-classical economic, life cycle, pecking order and agency theory perspectives are reviewed in order to formulate testable propositions concerning levels of long-term, short-term and total debt, and liquidity. Up-to-date financial data were collected from the U.K. Private+ database for a large sample comprising of both listed and unlisted small firms. Regression results indicate significant relationships between financial structure and profitability, asset structure, size, age and stock market flotation but not growth except when rapid and combined with lack of stock market flotation. Analysis of stock market flotation as an interactive dummy reveals major differences between listed and unlisted small firms. The results indicate that the variety of financial structures observed in practice may reflect rational trade-offs of various costs on the part of small firm owner-managers but that the over-reliance on internally available funds and the importance of collateral, in the case of unlisted small firms, are likely to be major constraints on economic growth.     

Determinants of corporate listings on stock markets in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Ghana

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) economies have established stock markets to encourage the mobilization of domestic funds and attract foreign capital in-flows for corporate investment and growth. But domestic corporate listings on stock markets have been abysmal. This study examines the reasons behind the low patronage of stock markets by domestic firms in SSA using Ghana as a case study. Data for the study was obtained from 110 out of the 200 largest firms in Ghana and included firms which were listed on the stock market and unlisted firms over three time-periods from 2002 to 2009. The findings show that knowledge about stock market dynamics and financial institutions' support encourages listing on the stock market. However, extensive information and disclosure costs requirements, and loss of ownership and control discourage listing on the stock market.     

Stock Market’s Reaction to Disclosure of Environmental Violations: Evidence from China

The stock market’s reaction to information disclosure of environmental violation events (EVEs) is investigated multi-dimensionally for Chinese listed companies, including variables such as pollution types, information disclosure sources, information disclosure levels, modernization levels of the region where the company locates, ultimate ownership of the company, and ownership held by the largest shareholder. Using the method of event study, daily abnormal return (AR) and accumulative abnormal return (CAR) are calculated under different event window for examining the extent to which the stock market responds to the EVEs. Furthermore, statistical significance of the difference in stock market reaction is compared between event firms with different characteristics. The relationship between CAR and its impact factors is examined by multivariate analysis. The findings reveal that the average reduction in market value is estimated to be much lower than the estimated changes in market value for similar events in other countries, demonstrating that the negative environmental events of Chinese listed companies currently have weak impact on the stock market.     

Day-of-the-Week Variation and Predicting Stock Returns: Taiwan and Thailand Stock Exchanges

Previously, researchers created a day-of-the-week anomaly in closing stock returns for firms listed on established financial markets. This article explores whether this line of argument is or is not satisfactory and does or does not aid in predicting daily stock returns. The article focuses on the performance of stock returns for two large Asian Stock Market exchanges, Taiwan and Thailand. The purpose is to determine if stock market returns (which include closing prices and dividends) are in part predictable and whether there are explanations for short-term predictability.     

上市公司披露会计师事务所报酬的实证分析

2001年证监会首次要求上市公司在年报中披露支付会计师事务所报酬情况这一信息,该项规定既便于考察事务所的独立性,又便于考察上市公司治理结构,使上市公司信息披露迈进一个台阶。这里拟从2001年年报出发,对首次披露会计师事务所报酬进行实证分析,并探讨产生这一现状的深层原因。     

Stock Liquidity and Firm Value: Evidence from a Policy Experiment in India

The Indian securities market regulator intervened in June 2010 with a regulatory amendment in the listing requirement that mandated all the listed firms other than PSUs (government‐owned companies) to have a minimum public shareholding of 25%. The affected firms were given a 3‐year window to comply with the regulation. This study examines the impact of the new regulation on the affected firms’ value. We explore the relationship between improvement in firms’ value and stock liquidity. This regulatory intervention offers a natural experiment to examine direct causality between stock liquidity and firms’ value. The findings of the empirical analysis confirm the existence of a direct causal relationship between stock liquidity and firm value, stemming from an improved operating performance.     

Quality disclosure in the presence of strategic consumers

Consider a market for short-life products, such as smartphones, where a firm and consumers have asymmetric quality information, the firm sells products in two periods, and consumers make purchase decisions strategically. We investigate when a firm should disclose quality and the interaction between consumers' strategic behavior and the firm's disclosure behavior. We obtain several findings. First, regardless of whether consumers have low or high patience, the firm should disclose quality information if product quality is high and conceal it if product quality is low. However, for products with moderate quality levels, the firm will disclose more quality information to consumers with relatively high or low patience levels than when consumer patience is moderate. Second, firms will disclose less information when consumers behave strategically than when they are myopic. Third, when concealing quality information is an equilibrium, product prices are affected only by disclosure costs and independent of true product quality. Finally, the firm can benefit from consumers' strategic behavior and a higher disclosure cost, but greater patience might be detrimental to consumer surplus and social welfare.     

Financial profiles and the disclosure of expenditures for socially responsible purposes

Recently the relationship between “socially responsible” activities and the financial performance of corporations has received attention in the business literature. Most studies have focused on the market reaction of shareholders to the disclosure of both monetary and nonmonetary corporate contributions relating to pollution control, employee welfare, affirmative action, and other activities deemed to be in the public interest. Results of this research have been mixed, with some authors finding favorable market response to socially responsible actions, and others finding no difference between the market performance of more and less responsible firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine financial performance and socially responsible activities from a different perspective. Specifically, it examines the relationship between the disclosure of monetary expenditures for various social initiatives and composite financial accounting profiles of disclosing and nondisclosing firms. Using two-group discriminant analysis, the authors conclude that management tends to disclose monetary expenditures for these generally nonproductive purposes at times when the financial statements of the firm otherwise look favorable to shareholders. Such disclosure in a sample of Fortune 500 firms in 1976 and 1977 was clearly not unrelated to financial performance, and neither did it appear to occur in order to explain relatively poor financial statements.     

Social Reporting by Companies Listed on the Alternative Investment Market

While the existing literature focuses on the disclosure of social information mainly by large companies, this paper concentrates on the disclosure of social information by small- and medium-sized companies (SME) listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in the U.K. The paper investigates the prevalent view that SMEs are unlikely to report social information due to their financial constraints and the perception that they have very little social conduct on which to report. Our overall evidence illustrates that, contrary to this view, SMEs report social information regardless of their financial constraints, most likely in the same manner as large companies do, because they realise the significance of social reporting in establishing and retaining their corporate reputation.     

环境信息披露质量与银行信贷决策--来自我国沪深两市A股重污染行业上市公司经验证据

本文以沪深两市A股重污染行业2012－2013年上市公司为样本，实证考察我国重污染行业上市公司环境信息披露质量与银行信贷决策两者之间的相互关系。研究发现：重污染行业上市公司环境信息披露质量越高，可获得的银行借款越多。进一步研究发现，环境信息披露质量对重污染行业上市公司短期银行借款的影响更为显著，对长期银行借款的影响则较弱。研究证实，重污染行业上市公司提高环境信息披露质量有助于企业获取更多的银行借款，尤其是短期银行借款。     

More shareholders,higher liquidity? Evidence from an emerging stock market

Using data assembled from all non-financial firms traded on the Malaysian stock exchange, we provide evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the number of shareholders and liquidity. While more shareholders are associated with higher liquidity, the negative effect of wider spreads kicks in when shareholder base exceeds a threshold level due to higher volatility induced by noise trading. However, the threshold level is considerably higher than the number of shareholders of most Malaysian public listed firms, suggesting much room for shareholder expansion in the local market. Our findings call for corporate managers to actively manage and expand their shareholder bases.     

Voluntarily Disclosing Prosocial Behaviors in Korean Firms

Instrumental CSR perspectives suggest that selective investments in prosocial, voluntary behaviors are largely profit-driven, whereas institutional theory emphasizes legitimacy-seeking as a significant mechanism for explicit CSR disclosure. We test both profit-seeking and legitimacy-seeking mechanisms, derived from empirical findings of Western-oriented firms, in a unique setting to understand voluntary CSR disclosure in an Eastern context: South Korea. By examining voluntary disclosure of the 500 largest South Korean firms’ social contributions from 2006 to 2012, a time period purposefully encompassing the global financial crisis (GFC), we highlight the limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) theorizing when East meets West. Our findings suggest profitability is not significantly related to voluntary disclosure as predicted by Western, instrumental CSR literature. Overall, we found support for legitimacy-seeking mechanisms as the likelihood of disclosure increased for publicly listed firms and those employing a larger number of workers for all years between 2006 and 2012. Further, firms affiliated with chaebols (Korean business groups) are more likely to disclose prosocial behaviors prior to, and after, the GFC compared to firms that are not affiliated with chaebols regardless of profitability further suggesting that legitimacy-seeking mechanisms may underlie CSR reporting in Korean firms.     

上市公司信息泄露减少了吗?——基于《上市公司信息披露管理办法》实施前后的比较

运用事件研究法对《上市公司信息披露管理办法》实施前后两年,即2005—2009年深沪两市A股业绩预告利多、高送转和增发三类重大事件信息披露的市场反应进行实证分析,利用内幕交易和信息泄露程度测度上市公司信息披露的公平性,检验了《上市公司信息披露管理办法》的实施效果。结果显示,信息公平披露规则在实施当年的短期内发挥了作用,但总体效果并不明显,信息泄露程度呈先下降后回升的趋势,内幕交易依然存在。为此,应进一步加强信息披露的监管,加大对违规信息披露的处罚力度;在强调公平信息披露的同时,关注上市公司信息披露的及时性;正确处理好资本市场效率与信息披露公平两者之间的关系。     

我国上市公司使用外汇衍生品的影响因素研究

本文利用2005-2010年我国上市公司使用外汇衍生品的数据,分析公司使用外汇衍生品行为的影响因素,从而对破产成本等假设进行验证。研究发现,财务状况、投资机会等指标是使用衍生品的影响因素。本文还分析了公司的股权结构、产权性质、市场化程度、政治关联度对使用衍生品的影响,使用连续变量的稳健性检验支持了本文的结论。论文拓展了外汇衍生品使用动机的研究,在规范上市公司衍生品信息披露和加强公司衍生品行为监管方面提出了相应的政策建议。     

试论上市公司信息披露失真问题及规制

上市公司的信息披露失真问题历来是证券市场上重点规制的对象。我国上市公司信息披露失真既有外部监管方面的原因,也有内部体制的问题,应通过调整信息披露标准、建立上市公司的证券信用评级制度、完善上市公司内部治理结构、落实惩罚性赔偿责任等措施来遏制会计信息披露失真。     

企业社会责任信息披露与股票价格关系研究——沪市民营企业的经验证据

文章以2009年沪市A股222家民营上市公司为研究样本实证检验了民营企业社会责任信息披露与股票价格的关系,结果表明,民营企业社会责任信息披露与股票价格负相关。结合企业社会责任实践及其信息披露现状、投资者基于企业社会责任的投资理念以及资本市场有效性,从作用机制视角分析了形成民营企业社会责任信息披露与股票价格关系的深层原因,并由此就改进企业社会责任及信息披露实践和促进资本市场健康发展为上市民营企业、资本市场投资者和监管者带来启示。     

基于资产价值链的股票定价模型实证研究

从股票价格的形成过程入手提出可交易价值的概念,指出名义股价、流动性和波动性是其可能的影响因素。接着运用面板数据分析法对我国股市的周交易数据进行实证,发现可交易价值对股票的定价行为具有解释能力,且在不同市场环境下的表现形式不同:上涨行情中投资者偏好低价格、高流动和高波动的股票组合,下跌行情中则相反;走势平稳的市场中名义股价因子影响力最强,而流动性因子和波动性因子则在急涨急跌背景下更具影响力。     

Firm performance,corporate ownership,and corporate social responsibility disclosure in China

The existing literature provides conflicting results on the association between firm performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. This paper empirically examines the effect of firm performance on CSR disclosure in terms of disclosure frequency and quality among Chinese listed firms and the possible mediating effect of corporate ownership on the relationship between firm performance and CSR disclosure. Our findings show that better‐performing firms are more likely than worse‐performing ones to disclose CSR information and to produce higher quality CSR reports. In addition, the link between firm performance and CSR disclosure is found to be weaker among state‐owned enterprises compared with non‐state‐owned ones.