机构投资者持股和会计盈余质量

本文从会计盈余质量的角度来研究机构投资者(’在公司治理中的作用。我们从盈余管理程度、盈余信息含量和盈余稳健性等三个方面来衡量会计盈余的质量。三方面的研究结果显示,机构投资者持股有助于改善会计盈余的质量:机构投资者持股公司的会计盈余质量显著高于其他公司,并且会计盈余的质量随着机构投资者持股比例的增加而增加。进一步研究发现,机构投资者还能够缓解大股东对会计盈余信息含量的恶化,起到一定的制衡作用。本文的研究表明,机构投资者能够在一定程度上改善上市公司的盈余质量,其快速成长有助于公司治理结构的改善,也有助于资本市场信息披露环境的良性发展。     

Cash Flow Is King? Cognitive Errors by Investors

When investors fixate on current earnings, they commit a cognitive error and fail to fully value the information contained in accruals and cash flows. Extending the accrual anomaly documented by Sloan [1996], we identify significant excess returns from a cash flow-based trading strategy. The market consistently underestimates the transitory nature of accruals and the long-term persistence of cash flows. We find that the accrual anomaly derives from the poor performance of high accrual firms, which are more likely to manage earnings. Combining the accrual and cash flow information also reveals that investors misvalue the quality of earnings. Contrary to Fama [1998], these anomalies are robust to the three-factor model with equally or value-weighted portfolio returns.     

机构持股、公司治理与上市公司R&D投入——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

基于代理理论,检验了机构投资者能否作为一种公司治理机制,降低管理层的代理成本,激励上市公司管理层增加R&D投入、追求上市公司的长期价值。结论显示,机构持股与上市公司R&D支出之间存在显著正相关关系,机构持股能够激励企业进行长期投资。以上发现表明,机构投资者已经能够作为一种公司治理的机制参与到公司治理中,并对公司的经营运作发挥监督作用。     

会计监管理论:综述及其引申

本文在对现有的会计监管概念进行综述的基础上,对会计监管概念进行了引申。认为会计监管是为了保证会计信息质量、维护利益相关者的产权,企业单位负责人和投资者、债权人、政府机构、注册会计师(会计师事务所)、新闻媒体、社会公众等企业内外部利益相关者,对企业的经济活动和会计行为,基于规则而进行的监督管理的一项制度安排。该定义强调会计监管是一项制度安排,会计人员和会计机构的会计监督不应作为单独的会计监管制度安排。     

Unexpected Share Repurchase Announcements

Abstract

Open-market stock repurchase announcements are generally perceived by the stock market as a signal of firm undervaluation. Our study shows that repurchase announcements that were preceded by SEOs of other firms in the same industry within the prior six months (namely SEO-RPs) are more likely the result of lacking investment opportunities than signaling undervaluation, especially in concentrated industries. Specifically, we find investors response negatively to SEO-RP announcements while react positively to regular repurchase announcements. The higher the intensity of SEO activities in the industry, the more negative market reaction to SEO-RP announcements. We argue that the market doesn’t expect a repurchase announcement when other rival firms are raising more capital via SEOs. These SEO-RPs represent a negative surprise to the market and lead to a downward adjustment in value of the repurchasing firms in the announcement window. In the three-year post-announcement periods, the SEO-RP firms underperform regular repurchasing firms in both stock return and operating performance. Moreover, while regular repurchasing firms gradually increase their capital expenditures, SEO-RP firms significantly reduce their capital expenditures. These findings support our arguments that repurchase announcements that immediately follow SEOs of rival firms (SEO-RPs) more likely indicate the announcing firms entering a slower growth rate with fewer investment opportunities than signal the undervaluation problem. The underperformance in stock return and operation combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditures in the post-announcement periods are consistent with this logic and also explain why the market reacts negatively to SEO-RP announcements.     

国有机构投资者持股能提升企业投资效率吗?

具有国资背景的机构投资者,对于资本市场平稳发展具有重要意义。本文基于我国2015—2019年A股上市公司样本,考察持股对企业投资效率的影响。研究发现,持股显著提升了企业投资效率,并且该影响在代理冲突更严重和所处信息环境更不透明的公司中更加显著。机制检验表明,降低企业内外部信息不对称和代理成本是持股提升企业投资效率的重要渠道。进一步研究发现,国有机构投资者持股时间越长,对企业非效率投资的治理效果越好;细分国有机构投资者类型后发现,致力于长期维护资本市场稳定和上市公司长期健康发展的证金公司和汇金公司对企业投资效率的提升作用显著,但没有发现“救市”基金和外管局旗下的投资平台对企业投资效率有提升作用。研究结论从企业投资效率视角为国有机构投资者持股在微观企业日常经营中发挥的治理作用提供了新颖的经验证据,对进一步提高我国上市公司质量具有启示意义。     

The relations among accounting conservatism,institutional investors and earnings manipulation

Most scholars have indicated corporations using accounting conservatism to reduce earnings manipulation, although certain scholars believe that firms have more incentive to increase earnings manipulation. Institutional investors play an important external monitoring role, and affect firm's earnings manipulation. Previous studies adopted accruals as an earnings manipulation proxy to detect the relationship among accounting conservatism, institutional investor shareholdings, and earnings manipulation. We further investigate the relationship among accounting conservatism, institutional investor shareholdings, and earnings manipulation by using Benford's law. Our results indicate that firms with more conservative financial reporting have less probability of engaging in earnings-manipulative activities. We also find the negative association between earnings management and institutional investor shareholdings. However, if corporate financial statements tend toward conservatism, institutional investor shareholdings could increase managers' incentive to manage earnings. Our findings have important implications for investors to make investment decisions.     

外部机构投资者能否对传统内部治理机制产生影响

对全体上市公司样本以及机构投资者长期持股样本的经验分析表明,我国上市公司的内部治理结构并未因为机构投资者的出现而发生重大变化。同时,机构投资者的积极主义行为也未能显著改善上市公司的内部治理机制的运行状态。研究结果表明,现阶段机构投资者在干预公司内部治理方面并没有和它们的国外同行一样起到重要作用。     

Dividend policy and investor pressure

The economics of dividend policy has focused on the single tight narrative that dividends keep managers honest, mitigating concerns that they over-invest. This article provides a critique of that agency narrative, arguing that pressure from short-term focused investors, executives and board members pushes the firm into preemptive actions of returning too much cash via dividends. We analyze three channels of influence for investor pressure through 1) threat of takeovers, 2) shareholder value oriented corporate governance, measured by director independence and board equity incentives, and 3) trading and institutional ownership patterns. We find that firms adopt a higher dividend payout to discourage takeover bids. Also, FTSE 100 firms, that are most focused on shareholder value governance in the form of equity-based compensation and a higher share of independent directors, display a higher dividend payout. Frequency of trading and ownership by transient investors seeking current profits also predict increased dividend payout. Traditional agency theory, focused on dividends as a tool for managerial discipline, is not strongly supported by the results, which rather support a narrative of short-term investor pressure on firms irrespective of investment opportunities.     

Institutional Quality and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Can Management Effort and Bribes Compensate for Low-Quality Institutions?

The industrial development in sub-Saharan Africa is perhaps more affected by the quality of institutions than that of other regions. We investigate what alternatives managers may have and what their firms would need to function in case the institutional furniture they encounter is of low quality. We find that, in high quality institutional environments, management spending effort to deal with the authorities and to navigate regulations negates the effect of the institutional environment. Managers do not need to spend such efforts. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that the positive effect of high-quality institutional environments on firm performance is enhanced by making informal payments.     

公司治理与掏空

本文采用非平衡面板数据模型检验了公司治理机制对控股股东掏空的影响。研究发现，独立董事对控股股东的掏空无监督效果；股权集中加剧了控股股东的掏空；股权制衡对控股股东的掏空无影响；管理者持股与基金持股均能抑制控股股东的掏空；国家控制没有加剧控股股东的掏空；企业集团控制加剧了控股股东的掏空；信息披露透明度和投资者保护均显著影响了控股股东的掏空；产品市场竞争是抑制控股股东掏空的有效机制。     

Institutional investors,political connections and analyst following in Malaysia

We examine the association between institutional ownership, political connections, and analyst following in Malaysia from 1999 to 2009. Based on 940 firm-year observations, we document a positive relation between institutional ownership, particularly by Employees Provident Fund (EPF), and analyst following, thus supporting the governance role that institutional investors play in promoting corporate transparency. However, there is no evidence that political connections matter to analyst following. The monitoring role of institutional investors, including EPF, does not appear to be any different between politically connected and non-connected firms.     

中国证券商的业务竞争与创新发展势态

本文分析了开放条件下我国证券业经营竞争环境的变化，并从6个方面分析了中国证券商业务创新的发展势态。（1）证券业分类管理制度使证券商的经营规模发生变化；（2）证券发行与承销方式的改革深化了证券业内的服务竞争；（3）证券网络化交易的快速发展完善了交易清算的服务管理模式；（4）交易佣金制度的改革将使证券业的结构调整得到不断优化；（5）投资基金业务与投资组合的多样化对基金经理行为的监管提出了新的要求；（6）中国放宽市场准入条件的同时必须完善制度创新与管理创新。     

Accruals quality,managers’ incentives and stock market reaction: evidence from Europe

We investigate if accruals quality is a valuable indicator of earnings quality for stock market investors. Our particular focus is on the incremental informative value of taking into account managers’ incentives for using accruals. We propose a market-based approach for assessing the usefulness of this indicator to improve investors’ decisions. Specifically, we examine the association between accruals quality and information asymmetry among stock market participants. Our empirical study uses data on European firms and our results are consistent with a positive association between poor earnings quality and high information asymmetry. However, given some previous studies suggesting that accruals-based measures may be noisy indicators of earnings quality, we develop a method to increase the informational content of the accruals quality measure. Based on our results, we find that combining accruals quality with the dispersion in analysts’ forecasts provides a better indicator of earnings quality rather than only accruals quality.     

资本市场开放与企业真实盈余管理——基于“陆港通”的经验证据

资本市场开放不仅是扩大国际融资、更好地利用国际金融市场的需要,而且对我国资本市场发育和上市公司行为具有多重外部治理效应。本文借助我国内地与香港资本市场互联互通机制这一准自然实验,研究资本市场开放对企业真实盈余管理的影响。研究发现:(1)总体上,“陆港通”机制的实施显著降低了标的公司真实盈余管理程度。(2)委托代理问题是企业进行盈余管理的重要原因,而“陆港通”机制开通后,能够缓解标的公司代理矛盾,进而约束管理层的真实盈余管理行为。(3)当资本市场信息环境改善、管理层面临较大股票抛售压力以及大股东监督力度较强时,“陆港通”抑制企业真实盈余管理行为的治理效果更强。本文结果表明,资本市场开放有助于提高我国上市公司财务信息披露质量及公司治理水平。     

资本市场开放与企业真实盈余管理——基于“陆港通”的经验证据

资本市场开放不仅是扩大国际融资、更好地利用国际金融市场的需要,而且对我国资本市场发育和上市公司行为具有多重外部治理效应。本文借助我国内地与香港资本市场互联互通机制这一准自然实验,研究资本市场开放对企业真实盈余管理的影响。研究发现:(1)总体上,“陆港通”机制的实施显著降低了标的公司真实盈余管理程度。(2)委托代理问题是企业进行盈余管理的重要原因,而“陆港通”机制开通后,能够缓解标的公司代理矛盾,进而约束管理层的真实盈余管理行为。(3)当资本市场信息环境改善、管理层面临较大股票抛售压力以及大股东监督力度较强时,“陆港通”抑制企业真实盈余管理行为的治理效果更强。本文结果表明,资本市场开放有助于提高我国上市公司财务信息披露质量及公司治理水平。     

Families and firms: Agency costs and labor market imperfections in Sialkot's surgical industry

The family firm is generally viewed as an organizational solution to agency costs in the labor market for managers and institutional underdevelopment. Consistent with this view, this paper links the preponderance of family firms in the surgical instrument industry of Sialkot to the prevailing agency and institutional problems. However, strong dependence on family management coupled with restrictions on family size constrains the firms from optimally choosing management size. The resulting labor market distortion is manifested by a significant positive correlation between the founder's family size and the firm size such that the founders who have more brothers (a larger pool of potential managers) end up with bigger firms.     

Visibility,Institutional Preferences and Agency Considerations

We show that market frictions and agency considerations are important concerns when institutional investors make portfolio allocation decisions. For a sample of widely followed firms, institutional holdings increase with increases in visibility as measured by the number of analysts following the firm. We also report a significant seasonal pattern in institutional holdings consistent with the gamesmanship hypothesis, which asserts that institutions rebalance their portfolios in response to agency considerations. Finally, we find that excess returns are highly seasonal with performance, deteriorating when the following by financial analysts increases. "Followed" firms actually exhibit inferior market performance over the 1981-1996 sample period.     

Stock market-driven investment: new evidence on information,financing and agency effects

This study provides a theoretical model and empirical analysis to jointly examine the information, financing and agency effects, the three channels through which the stock market can actively influence corporate investment decisions and firm performance. First, stock market affects corporate investments, and such impact varies with different market valuation measures, types of investments and firm characteristics. Second, stock market valuation affects investments through the channel of corporate financing, supporting the financing hypothesis. Third, stock market-driven investments have differential impacts on the future operating performance of firms. Investments driven by market valuation of firm-specific information have a positive effect on future performance. In contrast, investments driven by market-wide sentiment have a negative effect on future performance. Fourth, consistent with the information hypothesis, market-driven investments are value-enhancing for firms with better external monitoring by analysts and institutional investors. Lastly, consistent with the agency hypothesis, market-driven investments are value-destroying when firms lack external monitoring, proper managerial incentives and independent board of directors.     

Mode of International Investment and Endogenous Risk of Expropriation

This paper analyzes the relationship between the mode of international investment and institutional quality. Foreign investors from a capital‐rich North can either purchase productive assets in a capital‐poor South and transfer their capital within integrated multinational firms or they can form joint ventures with local asset owners. The South is ruled by an autocratic elite that may use its political power to expropriate productive assets. The expropriation risk lowers the incentive to provide specific capital in an integrated firm and distorts the decision between joint ventures and integrated production. We determine the equilibrium risk of expropriation in this framework and the resulting pattern of international production. We also analyze as to how globalization, which is reflected in a decline in investment costs, influences institutional quality.