Blurring Firm Boundaries: The Role of Venture Capital in Strategic Alliances

This study documents a new value-added role of venture capitalists and addresses important questions about how resources are combined to create firms. As part of the nexus of contracts surrounding a firm, strategic alliances can be viewed as relational contracts that blur firm boundaries. This paper provides evidence that alliances are more frequent among companies sharing a common venture capitalist. The effect is concentrated in alliances in which contracting problems are more pronounced, consistent with venture capitalists utilizing informational and other advantages in providing resources to firms. Further, these alliances improve the probability of exit for venture-backed firms.     

战略联盟与公司税负

在全球迅速兴起的战略联盟是公司获取竞争优势的重要途径之一.本文以2009-2018年沪深A股上市公司为研究样本,检验了公司参与战略联盟对其税收负担的影响.研究结果表明:参与战略联盟的公司,其整体税收负担显著低于未参与战略联盟的公司,且股权式联盟和契约式联盟均可降低公司税收负担.区分联盟伙伴及公司异质性特征的进一步研究发现:只有当联盟伙伴为民营公司时,参与战略联盟才能显著降低公司税负;当公司大股东存在关联关系、公司位于法律环境较差地区及公司的避税动机更强时,战略联盟对公司税负的降低效应更大.拓展性分析结果显示,关联交易(资本支出)是股权式联盟(契约式联盟)影响公司税负的主要渠道.本文丰富了战略联盟的经济后果和公司税负的影响因素研究,并为改善战略联盟的监管提供了政策参考.     

The Market for Mergers and the Boundaries of the Firm

We relate the property rights theory of the firm to empirical regularities in the market for mergers and acquisitions. We first show that high market-to-book acquirers typically do not purchase low market-to-book targets. Instead, mergers pair together firms with similar ratios. We then build a continuous-time model of investment and merger activity combining search, scarcity, and asset complementarity to explain this like buys like result. We test the model by relating like-buys-like to search frictions. Search frictions and assortative matching vary inversely, supporting the model over standard explanations.     

中外银行之战略联盟

加入世界贸易组织以后,与外资银行重在竞争还是重在合作?这是任何一家中资银行都必须从企业战略的高度加以考虑的重大课题。 战略联盟,作为近年来国际企业界的一种趋势,值得我国商业银行借鉴。中资银行与外资银行建立战略联盟从而沦落为外资银行的傀儡?还是中资银行通过合作与学习,全面提升自身的核心竞争力呢?     

The Wealth Effect of Japanese-US Strategic Alliances

We investigate the wealth impact for Japanese and US firms that announce nonequity strategic alliances. We find that on average, both Japanese and US shareholders benefit from the formation of international alliances. We also find that shareholders earn larger abnormal returns in these alliances when the partnering firms are relatively small in size, have higher growth opportunities, or are less profitable. We show that both Japanese and US partnering firms display significant improvements in operating performance over the three-year period subsequent to the formation of international alliances.     

The Value of Strategic Alliances in Acquisitions and IPOs

This paper investigates how firms’ strategic alliance experience affects their valuations as acquisition targets or in initial public offerings (IPOs). We propose that alliance experience serves as a valuable signaling device for opaque firms. The results show that takeover targets with alliance experience receive higher premiums than those without such experience. More recent alliance experience as well as alliances in the same industry also contributes to a larger target gain. Similarly, IPO firms that have alliance experience obtain higher valuations than those without the experience. Finally, alliance experience increases the likelihood that private firms exit by going public rather than being acquired.     

Strategic Investment by a Regulated Firm

A government's choice of regulatory stringency can depend on investments that a firm made in earlier periods. The regulated firm may therefore invest strategically, to effect the government's choice of regulation. To reduce its payment of emissions taxes, the firm may therefore reduce emissions below their socially optimal level. In contrast, a firm subject to regulation by quantity wants to reduce the stringency of regulations. A firm which invests little thereby reduces the marginal social cost of reducing emissions, and so can induce government to weaken its regulations.     

Strategic Decision Making of the Firm Under Asymmetric Information

This paper develops a simple signaling model whereby high valuation firm uses levels of investment, debt and dividends to convey information to the market regarding its valuation. Conditions are determined under which investment, debt and dividends are employed in a separating Nash equilibrium. Unlike many other signaling models where the source of asymmetric information concerns only the mean of the firms' cash flow, our model allows for two sources of asymmetric information: the mean and the variance of the cash flow. This paper finds that the choice of signals depends on the relative importance of these two sources of informational asymmetry. For example, we show that high valued firms signal their values by decreasing their debt if the source of asymmetric information is mainly driven by the variance of the cash flows. This latter result differs from the debt signaling models found in the literature. The findings of this paper are consistent with extensive empirical evidence.     

构建期货市场战略联盟的理论及应用研究

期货市场的系统性和复杂性决定了期货价格发现与风险规避操作的难度,围绕着期货如何为实体企业服务这个问题,有必要构建战略联盟来实现期货市场功能。本文从期货公司发展的角度,认为要全面满足客户的稳定生产和经营利润的需求,同时实现客户锁定,必须组建期货市场战略联盟,期货公司可与科研组织、贸易仓储企业、投资公司和海外期货公司等结成战略联盟,实现资源共享、信息互通,充分利用期货市场为实体企业的风险管理提供一站式的解决方案和顺畅的通道服务。     

Corporate Equity Ownership, Strategic Alliances, and Product Market Relationships

This paper examines long-term block ownership by corporations and performance changes in firms with corporate block owners. We also examine potential reasons for corporate ownership including benefits in product market relationships, alleviation of financing constraints, and board monitoring by corporate owners. We find the largest significant increases in targets' stock prices, investment, and operating profitability when ownership is combined with alliances, joint ventures, and other product market relationships between purchasing and target firms, especially in industries with high research and development. Our findings are consistent with the conclusion that block ownership by corporations has significant benefits in product market relationships.     

Outsourcing Mutual Fund Management: Firm Boundaries,Incentives, and Performance

We investigate the effects of managerial outsourcing on the performance and incentives of mutual funds. Fund families outsource the management of a large fraction of their funds to advisory firms. These funds underperform those run internally by about 52 basis points per year. After instrumenting for a fund's outsourcing status, the estimated underperformance is three times larger. We hypothesize that contractual externalities due to firm boundaries make it difficult to extract performance from an outsourced relationship. Consistent with this view, outsourced funds face higher powered incentives; they are more likely to be closed after poor performance and excessive risk‐taking.     

战略联盟：我国商业银行实现综合经营的重要途径

随着我国金融业对外开放和自由化进程的加快,综合经营已成为业界、学术界探讨的热门话题。本文旨在探讨我国银行业在分业经营体制和管理水平约束下,如何通过战略联盟实现综合经营。文章从探讨理论依据出发,指出战略联盟在国内具有比较优势,同时分析了我国商业银行综合经营中战略联盟的运行情况和存在问题,并提出了相关建议。     

Alliances and corporate governance

We study the link between a firm's quality of governance and its alliance activity. We consider alliances as a commitment technology that helps a company’ Chief Executive Officer overcome agency problems that relate to the inability to ex ante motivate division managers. We show that well-governed firms are more likely to avail themselves of this technology to anticipate ex post commitment problems and resolve them. The role of governance is particularly important when the commitment problems are more acute, such as for significantly risky/long-horizon projects (“longshots”) or firms more prone to inefficient internal redistribution of resources (conglomerates), as well as in the absence of alternative disciplining devices (e.g., low product market competition). Governance also mitigates agency issues between alliance partners; dominant alliance partners agree to a more equal split of power with junior partners that are better governed. An “experiment” that induces cross-sectional variation in the cost of the alliance commitment technology provides evidence of a causal link between governance and alliances.     

Alliances and Mergers in Electricity Supply

The takeovers that have occurred within the Regional Electricity Companies (RECs) since the privatization of the UK electricity industry are reviewed. The article describes the nature and scale of the changes that have occurred, and the policy considerations that have influenced the behaviour of the companies. A variety of emergent behaviour patterns among the companies are identified, which reflect apparent differences in the RECs' policy objectives; the mergers are then grouped on the basis of this behaviour. There is strong evidence of a learning process among the companies.     

International, Local and Regional Government Alliances

Kent County Council now promotes itself as the 'European County', a message that it seeks to deliver to the heart of institutional Europe through its Brussels office. Commentators generally agree that Kent has demonstrated how British local authorities can play an influential role at the European level, but will this acknowledged success be sufficient to maintain Kent's position over the coming years in a rapidly changing Europe where large regions look set to wield the power? This article reviews how Kent formed alliances with authorities in the same region of north-west Europe. How real are these supra-national groupings and what benefits can they bring to the partner areas?     

OSHA Sanctions and the Value of the Firm

Citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) against companies for violating health and safety regulations are shown in this study to induce declines in the values of the subject firms. The declines are immediate and significant responses to the announcement of the OSHA citation, following the pattern predicted for efficient markets. Because firm values fall by more than proposed fines, OSHA citations are apparently forerunners of additional and significant costs to be borne by subject firms, perhaps in the form of capital costs to remedy safety conditions or losses in related lawsuits. Our findings point toward OSHA citations as an important part of the business environment.     

Firm Transparency and the Costs of Going Public

We demonstrate that firms that are more transparent pay less, in all components of issuance costs, to go public. We employ a sample of 334 previous leveraged buyouts and a characteristic-matched control sample to test the hypothesis that greater firm transparency before the issue decreases the flotation costs of the initial public offering. These flotation costs are divided into initial underpricing, underwriter discount, administrative expenses, and the overallotment option required to take the firm public. Our results provide further evidence of the asymmetric information hypothesis as it applies to initial public offerings.     

企业业绩组合业绩差异与季报披露的时间选择--管理层信息披露的组合动机与信息操作

本文主要考察企业业绩组合、业绩差异与季报披露的时间选择之间的关系以及季报披露时间的信息内涵。实证研究显示,上年年报和一季度季报均为“好消息”,一季度每股收益、净资产收益率和主营业务利润率高的上市公司季报披露时间间隔大;上年年报为“好消息”而一季度季报为“坏消息”,上年年报为“坏消息”而一季度季报为“好消息”,上年年报和一季度季报均为“坏消息”,一季度每股收益比上年度高的上市公司季报披露时间间隔小。这可能是由于一季度季报和上年年报均要求在4月30日之前披露的特殊性,上市公司管理层在信息披露的过程中可能存在组合动机与信息操作行为,一季度季报披露的时间选择可能关键取决于上年年报和一季度季报披露的“好消息”或“坏消息”带来的积极影响或消极影响的组合与权衡。     

坚固第三道防线

伴随着信息科技与业务发展的深度融合,银行对信息科技这一关键资源的效率和效能、可用和安全有着越来越高的要求。任何与信息科技相关的风险事件的发生,对银行的IT审计都是重大挑战。"十二五"时期,IT审计作为银行的"第三道防线"(信息科技管理为"第一道防线"、信息科技风险管理为