Relationship lending and firm innovativeness

This study investigates the effects of close ties between firms and banks – as measured by the share and length of the relationship with the main bank, and by the number of lenders – on a firm's ability to develop innovation and introduce new products. As these effects may vary depending on both the type of firm and innovation, this study provides results for small and high-tech firms and distinguishes between process and product innovation. The results suggest that for small firms banks do not intervene at the development stage of an innovation but rather play their traditional role of financing investments for constrained firms. In contrast, relationship banks do play an important role for high-tech firms in the development of a process innovation and in the introduction of new products. In addition, for both types of firms, the financing decision of the main bank seems to be correlated with the lending behaviour of other banks, with multiple borrowing exerting a positive effect on firm innovative capability.     

Mandatory CSR expenditure and firm performance

India has recently mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) expenditure under section 135 of the Indian Companies Act 2013 – the first national jurisdiction to do so. In line with the “shareholder value maximization” concept, we document the positive impacts of CSR expenditure on firm performance measured by return on asset and cash flow from operations. Additionally, we find that, despite the regulatory requirement, mandated CSR legislation is a significant but not the sole determinant of actual CSR spending by firms; rather, firm-specific economic factors such as size, level of cash balance and cash flow from operations have a moderating effect. We also observe that CSR expenditure contributes to firm performance irrespective of the level of actual CSR expenditure relative to the level of mandatory CSR expenditure. Our findings potentially reconcile conflicting results presented in the literature and provide valuable information for governments and regulatory authorities that are considering the mandatory implementation of CSR expenditure.     

The effect of mandatory CSR disclosure on firm profitability and social externalities: Evidence from China

We examine how mandatory disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) impacts firm performance and social externalities. Our analysis exploits China's 2008 mandate requiring firms to disclose CSR activities, using a difference-in-differences design. Although the mandate does not require firms to spend on CSR, we find that mandatory CSR reporting firms experience a decrease in profitability subsequent to the mandate. In addition, the cities most impacted by the disclosure mandate experience a decrease in their industrial wastewater and SO₂ emission levels. These findings suggest that mandatory CSR disclosure alters firm behavior and generates positive externalities at the expense of shareholders.     

The roles of past returns and firm fundamentals in driving US stock price movements

This paper provides new empirical evidence that incorporating past stock returns from different time horizons can enhance the ability of firm fundamentals to better explain stock price movements but this benefit dissipates under uncertainty. We apply both OLS and state-space modeling to US firms' stock price movements over the period from 1999 to 2012 to compare the roles of the two main types of information typically used by equity investors. Empirical results reveal the importance of firm fundamentals over longer term horizons for particularly, small-cap stocks with greater information uncertainty. Furthermore, when market uncertainty is high, fundamentals unambiguously dominate in driving stock price movements of smaller sized firms indicating that uncertainty at the firm and market level both create attention bias on firm fundamentals.     

Decentralization of the firm: theory and evidence

Value maximization requires either that knowledge is transferred to those with the right to make decisions, or that decision rights are transferred to those who have the knowledge. A tradeoff of knowledge transfer costs and control costs is required. Characteristics of firms' investment opportunity sets (IOSs) that affect knowledge transfer costs and control costs are identified. Testable predictions about the relations between these characteristics and firms' decentralization decisions are developed and tested. The evidence presented is consistent with our predictions and is robust to different ways of measuring variables.     

Shareholder election of CSR committee members and its effects on CSR performance

We examine the election of directors to corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees and whether shareholder votes influence CSR committee effectiveness. Our study is motivated by the importance that shareholders place on CSR and the responsibilities of the board in overseeing a firm's CSR practices. We find that CSR committee members receive greater shareholder support than other directors. We further find that among CSR committee members, those who are more experienced and skilled receive greater shareholder support. Furthermore, when a firm's CSR performance is poorer (better), CSR committee members receive lower (greater) shareholder support compared with other directors. Finally, we find that through voting, shareholders can increase the efficacy of the CSR committee, leading to improvements in CSR committee structure and performance. Overall, our results suggest that shareholders value the services and expertise of CSR committee members and hold them accountable for CSR performance. Shareholder votes are also effective in enhancing CSR performance.     

商业银行社会责任及其报告披露:问题与改进

商业银行履行社会责任有其经济理论与实践逻辑基础.与国外银行领先实践与企业社会责任评估标准相比较,我国商业银行履行社会责任并进行报告披露尚处于起始阶段.本文总结回顾了我国商业银行社会责任发展的历程及其报告披露概况,并就存在的问题有针对性地提出了六条具体改进策略:将履行社会责任嵌入到银行发展战略、治理架构、企业文化和业务流程之中,制定明确的社会责任目标和执行计划并加强评估,探索建立统一的企业社会责任指标评价体系与报告指南,适时引入并建立商业银行社会责任报告第三方独立鉴证制度,发挥政府积极作用促进商业银行更好地履行社会责任,谨防社会责任虚无主义和管理者机会主义错误倾向.     

Systematic risk and the theory of the firm: A reexamination

A recent microeconomic model of the determinants of equity betas (Subrahmanyam and Thomadakis 1980) is generalized by including risky human capital in the market portfolio and allowing a general covariance structure between the model's sources of uncertainty. This provides an explanation of the ambiguous effect of operating leverage on beta by viewing human capital and equity contributors as risk sharers in the firm's output risk. This explanation may help to clarify the apparent conflict with the previous literature. The relationship between systematic risk and monopoly power is rederived and shown to depend upon a plausible condition on the correlation between wage rate and price uncertainty. Finally, the public policy implications of this analysis are presented.     

SOX and the regulated firm

We investigate the initial and long-term market reactions in three regulated industries to the debate and ultimate passage of Sarbanes–Oxley (SOX) legislation. We argue that market reactions may differ for regulated industries relative to the broad market based on perceived differences in the costs and benefits from the legislation. Our results indicate that the initial reaction to the passage was more positive for regulated firms compared with non-regulated firms. These results are generally consistent with a compliance cost based explanation, although the underlying motivation for the results differs across industries. However, over longer post-SOX holding periods, the regulated samples outperformed the S&P 500 but underperformed their matched samples. Lower longer-term accounting profits in terms of ROA argue against significantly lower compliance costs associated with SOX.     

Gender-diverse board and the relevance of voluntary CSR reporting

In this paper, we focus on voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, and we test the extent to which the value relevance of CSR reporting is affected by the appointment of female directors. Using a sample of French listed companies belonging to the SBF 120 index from 2001 to 2011, we control for differences in firm characteristics between firms with and without female board membership by using propensity score matching. Our results show that high CSR reporting is more relevant in terms of market value for firms with gender-diverse boards than for firms with completely male directors. This finding holds when we use the accounting-based performance measures, namely, return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). We also highlight that engaging an external assurance provider for CSR reporting is value relevant for firms without female directors but not value relevant for firms with female directors, suggesting a substitute relationship between gender-diverse boards and CSR assurance. Our results are stable when we consider the presence of at least two and three female directors.     

Transaction costs and the small firm effect: A comment

Stoll and Whaley (1983) suggest large transaction costs may be responsible for the large risk-adjusted returns earned by small firm stocks. This study, using data from the AMEX as well as the NYSE, shows that investors can earn risk-adjusted excess returns after transaction costs by holding small firms for relatively short holding periods. Other literature that provides evidence that is inconsistent with the transaction costs hypothesis is cited.     

Futures of the sustainable firm: An evolutionary perspective

The response of firms to sustainable development issues needs to pass through a deep re-thinking of the strategic design, encompassing the entire organization, its functions and re-shaping its business model.This contribution proposes a frame of reference for SD oriented organizations, based on three cornerstones: principles, processes and outcomes. Based on an abductive research approach, an analysis is developed on some case studies. Special attention is devoted to the dynamics of SD oriented organizations in order to understand how firms can evolve towards progressively more challenging models of business which make compatible profitability and growth with respect for the environment and – beyond mere respect – positive proactive action to improve the planet resources.     

Boundaries of the firm: evidence from the banking industry

Agency theory implies that asset ownership and decision authority are complements. Using 1998 data from Texas commercial banks, we test whether the likelihood of local ownership of bank offices increases with the importance of granting local managers greater decision authority (for example, due to location or customer base). Our empirical evidence is consistent with this hypothesis. It suggests that complementarities between strategy and organizational structure can foster differentiation among firms in terms of location, customers, and products. It also supports the growing view that small locally-owned banks have a comparative advantage over large banks within specific environments.     

Business Tax reform and CSR engagement: Evidence from China

This study investigates the impacts of tax incentives on firms' CSR engagement. Using the staggered Business Tax reform in China as exogenous shocks, our difference-in-differences estimation shows that tax incentives facilitate firms' CSR disclosure, and a plausible mechanism is the released financial burden. The result remains valid under a battery of robustness checks and is more pronounced for state-owned firms, firms with tighter political connections, firms with transparent information and firms locate in areas with higher degree of social trust. The study provides clear policy implications by elaborating on the favorable impacts of tax incentives on firms' CSR performance.     

Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review

Review of Accounting Studies - This study collates potential economic effects of mandated disclosure and reporting standards for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability topics. We...     

CSR in the bond market: Pricing stakeholders and the moderating role of the institutional context

This study examines the impact of corporate social performance (CSP) on the spreads and credit ratings of corporate bonds on a global scale. The relationship is examined within the national legal and institutional environment and with regard to specific stakeholder practices. We construct and use a unique longitudinal, international dataset with a total of 5280 bond issues dating from 2003 to 2018 and spanning 40 countries worldwide.We provide evidence that more responsible firms benefit from lower bond spreads and improved bond ratings, while a higher degree of CSR-related controversies penalizes firms on both dimensions. Various, but not all, stakeholder relationships appear to generate a significant impact on spreads and bond ratings, with shareholders remaining crucial in both civil and common law countries, opposite to literature findings so far. Corporate governance is corroborated as a primary concern also in the debt market for common law economies, while societal stakeholders assume significance for civil law systems. Finally, findings highlight that stronger regulation and government involvement do not further promote the role of CSP in the debt market. On the other hand, free public criticism and media scrutiny generate a more pronounced effect of CSP on bond pricing providing support for the rewards associated with voluntary and proactive CSR.     

Taste,information, and asset prices: implications for the valuation of CSR

Firms often undertake activities that do not necessarily increase cash flows (e.g., costly investments in corporate social responsibility or CSR), and some investors value these non cash activities (i.e., they have a “taste” for these activities). We develop a model to capture this phenomenon and focus on the asset-pricing implications of differences in investors’ tastes for firms’ activities and outputs. Our model shows that, first, investor taste differences provide a basis for investor clientele effects that are endogenously determined by the shares demanded by different types of investors. Second, because the market must clear at one price, investors’ demands are influenced by all dimensions of firm output even if their preferences are only over some dimensions. Third, information releases cause trading volume, even when all investors have the same information. Fourth, investor taste provides a rationale for corporate spin-offs that help firms better target their shareholder bases. Finally, individual social responsibility can lead to corporate social responsibility when managers care about stock price because price reacts to investments in CSR activities.     

Post-merger restructuring and the boundaries of the firm

We examine how firms redraw their boundaries after acquisitions using plant-level data. We find that there is extensive restructuring in a short period following mergers and full-firm acquisitions. Acquirers of full firms sell 27% and close 19% of the plants of target firms within three years of the acquisition. Acquirers with skill in running their peripheral divisions tend to retain more acquired plants. Retained plants increase in productivity whereas sold plants do not. These results suggest that acquirers restructure targets in ways that exploit their comparative advantage.