Audit committee characteristics and financial statement comparability

Financial statement comparability enables weighing the similarities and differences in financial performance between firms. Prior studies mainly focus on the role of accounting standards in the production of comparability, but the role of economic agents has been largely overlooked. We find that a firm's audit committee size and financial expertise affect its financial statement comparability. Financial information tends to be more comparable among industry peers when audit committees are larger and more members have financial and accounting expertise. The effect of audit committee expertise on comparability is stronger for firms with less independent and smaller boards, for firms with non-Big 4 auditors and for firms with CEOs serving as the chairperson of the boards.     

银行理财与资本市场

银行理财是现代银行一项十分重要的中间业务。银行理财业务的发展,不仅大大拓宽了银行的经营范围,增加了银行取得收益的途径,也为资本市场的发展增添了新的活力。该文介绍了银行理财的主要种类及其存在背景,分析了银行理财资金进入资本市场的联结渠道及其制约因素,指出更多的理财资金应进入资本市场,以更好地满足社会投资需求,有关政策应当对理财资金进入资本市场进行鼓励。     

Discount rates for long-term projects: the cost of capital and social discount rate compared

Research on the cost of capital and on the social discount rate (SDR) has developed largely along separate paths. This paper offers an overview and comparison of both concepts. The consumption-based theory of discount rates is common to both, but there are striking differences in how the cost of capital and SDR are estimated. A project's cost of capital is inferred in practice from market data, by a well-established package of techniques, and project risk makes a large difference. In contrast, the SDR is estimated by applying judgement about the welfare of future generations, in the setting of consumption-based theory. Project risk has tended to be ignored under the SDR approach.     

The effect of financial reporting quality on CEO compensation structure: Evidence from accounting comparability

This study examines the effect of accounting comparability on the design of CEO compensation structure. After controlling for firm-specific attributes, we find that accounting comparability is positively associated with CEO equity-based compensation intensity and pay-performance sensitivity. This suggests that the improved comparability increases the usefulness of equity-based compensation and a firm is willing to offer more equity-based compensation contracts to CEOs and increase their pay-performance sensitivity. Further, we find that the impact of comparability on the CEO’s compensation contract increases with information asymmetry, which is consistent with the notion that accounting comparability is a quality of financial reporting that facilitates the use of equity-based compensation in a poor information environment. Our analysis also reveals that the effect of accounting comparability on CEO compensation structure is greater when a firm’s corporate governance is strong, consistent with the complementary relation between comparability and the exiting corporate governance in determining CEO compensation schemes. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms utilize more equity-based compensation as a proportion of total compensation under greater accounting comparability and enhance the alignment between equity-based compensation and firm performance.     

The capital market implications of the frequency of interim financial reporting: an international analysis

This study examines empirically the extent to which the frequency of interim financial reporting affects stock price volatility over the course of the fiscal year in four countries with different interim reporting regimes: the United States and Canada with quarterly reporting, and Great Britain and Australia with semi-annual interim reporting. It is hypothesized that, in the tradeoff between timeliness and predictive value of the interim reports, semi-annual interim reporting will lead to lesser price volatility after accounting for other potential influences. These expectations are supported in the results found. Moreover, additional tests conducted on American ADRs of British and Australian companies show that those firms have higher volatility than comparable purely domestic firms on their home stock exchanges.

Bank interconnectedness and financial stability: The role of bank capital

This paper builds a network model to study the relation between financial stability and interconnectedness among banks. In the model, banks adopt a Value-at-Risk rule to determine capital ratios. It is shown that interconnectedness may hurt financial stability by amplifying the banks’ mistakes of underestimating risk, and that interconnectedness increases systemic risk. The results in the paper suggest that financial integration may hurt financial stability, and that bank interconnectedness is more harmful when the economy turns abruptly from boom to recession. In addition, banks should be given incentives to reduce interconnectedness if systemic risk is a serious concern for regulators.     

Stock market regulations and international financial integration: the case of Spain

International financial integration effects on the Spanish stock market are studied, both for the conditional mean and conditional variance. New institutional regulations in Spain are taken into account and their efficiency consequences are addressed. Results suggest an increasing international integration but nontrivial opportunities for financial diversification may still be relevant.     

从金融危机看我国商业银行综合经营的变革方向

金融危机中美国金融机构遭受重创的自身原因是,公司治理失效及过度的激励机制,缺乏严格的内部风险管理机制,规模快速扩张带来整合和管理的巨大难题。同时,美国计划改革其金融监管体制,发布了《现代化金融监管体制蓝图》和《金融改革框架》。欧美金融机构的转型,尤其是花旗分拆不意味着综合经营模式的失败;基于金融深化发展和适应全球金融竞争的考虑,我国商业银行应当坚持综合经营和金融创新,金融监管的变革方向应是对金融创新带来的风险实施更加有效的监管。     

The effects of activity and geographic diversification on performance: Evidence from French financial institutions

Our paper studies the impact of activity and geographic diversification on financial institution's performance. These diversification strategies are complementary in generating performance and may provide important implications. Moreover, we investigate the interaction between these two strategies. Our dataset comprises 4532 years observations over the period of 2002 to 2012 and covers 412 French financial institutions. We find a negative relationship between diversification and performance. However, this relationship is significantly positive when institutions implement a dual diversification strategy. In this paper, we propose a classification of French financial institutions. For generalists’ banks and cooperative banks, we find similar results to those of the entire sample. Furthermore, for specialized financial institutions, the relationship is positive and significant. Our findings are robust to the potential endogeneity problem and to measures of diversification and performance.     

Expected earnings growth and the cost of capital: an analysis of accounting regime change in the European financial market

This study focuses on the relation between the cost of equity capital and earnings expectations when the properties of accounting that determine earnings vary across different regulatory regimes. More particularly, it addresses the European setting where different types of GAAP regime have continued to function in the presence of the gradual harmonization of the underlying legal framework, and where the adoption of internationally recognized accounting standards by certain firms has anticipated the requirement for International Financial Reporting Standards. On the basis of estimates of the cost of equity that are implied by analysts' earnings forecasts, the article provides evidence that financial market integration may have already contributed to mitigating the economic consequences of accounting diversity, and that switching to IFRS could have a short lived impact on capital markets. Moreover, based on firm level transparency and disclosure rankings provided by Standard and Poor's, it is shown how the quality of financial reporting conditions the implied cost of equity under different GAAP.     

Shareholder rights, financial disclosure and the cost of equity capital

This study extends research into whether shareholder rights and disclosures of financial-related attributes are associated with firms' costs of equity capital. Using cost-of-equity-capital estimates derived from expected earnings growth valuation models, we find that firms with stronger shareholder rights regimes and higher levels of financial transparency are associated with significantly lower costs of equity capital. We also find evidence that greater financial disclosure and stronger rights regimes interact in reducing firms' costs of equity capital, such that the effect of a high level of one mechanism is minimal when it is combined with a low level of the other. Finally, we document that neither factor dominates the other in their associations, and that there are tradeoffs between disclosure levels and shareholder rights in their influence on firms' implied costs of equity capital. JEL Classification G30 · M10     

中国上市银行内部控制审计现状分析及对策建议

作为内部控制系统的再监督机制,内部控制审计对于银行业具有重要的作用。随着《企业内部控制基本规范》及配套指引的出台,中国各上市银行加快了规范内部控制审计的步伐,但在内部控制审计的地位、独立性和权威性、方法论、信息化、行业标准化和团队建设中仍存在一些不足。有关的完善建议包括:从组织架构和管理体制上确保内部审计的地位;更加充分重视风险文化的建立;更加注重对审计方法论、技术和内容等的精细化研究;培养专家型和研究型的审计人员;开发更多的计算机审计技术;监管部门应加快出台银行业内部控制审计操作指南。     

Governance and Performance Implications of Diversification Strategies: Evidence from Large U.S. Firms

Recent research focuses on explaining the diversification discount. However, there is little direct evidence regarding the relation among ownership structure, corporate governance, and corporate diversification. The results in this paper suggest that agency issues do not account for firms adopting a particular diversification strategy. Also, the performance consequences of the shift in the diversification strategy and the subsequent changes in institutional and block ownership structures are not related to agency issues. In fact, investors seem not to avoid diversified firms per se. We suggest that observed board and ownership differences between diversified and focused firms are due to their being at different stages of corporate evolution.     

金融市场的效率内涵及我国政策选择

本文从资金运用角度阐述了金融市场的效率内涵 ,并对金融市场的效率进行了分析和衡量 ,最后在分析我国金融市场效率现状的基础上 ,提出了一些提高我国金融市场效率的看法和建议。     

The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis and the Role of External and Internal Factors in Emerging Economies

This article assesses the impact of trade, capital openness and institutions on emerging economies’ output loss during the “Great Recession.” The fixed-effect estimates of an unbalanced panel of 122 emerging countries observed from 2008 to 2010 yield three main results. First, trade openness has exacerbated output loss. Second, capital openness can help mitigate the negative impact of an external shock, but this is conditional on the level of financial development. Finally, the results also point out that the interrelations between financial and institutional development affect the crisis’s severity.     

An intervention analysis for the relationship between capital expenditure decisions and the market value of firms

This article is meant to explore the relationship between corporate capital expenditure decisions and the market value of firms using the intervention technique. The article shows that deep cuts in capital expenditures may, for sink-hole type projects, provide a positive signal to the marketplace. For non-sink-hole type projects, our findings are not quite consistent with those reported in McConnell and Muscarella (1985).     

International comparative analysis of the association between board structure and the efficiency of value added by a firm from its physical capital and intellectual capital resources

This study investigates the link between corporate board features and corporate performance for a sample of 286 publicly traded firms from South Africa (84 firms), Sweden (94 firms), and the UK (108 firms). Corporate board features considered are board composition, inside director ownership, duality and board size. In contrast to prior literature, performance is defined as the efficiency of value added (VA) rather than in financial terms. Further, the analysis examines the association between board features and efficiency of VA and each of the firm's physical capital (PC) and intellectual capital (IC), respectively. Finally, the present study analyzes the association between board features and corporate performance conjointly. Comparable to general findings from studies using U.S. data, the empirical analysis as a whole did not discern consistent significant link between the four board features and corporate performance across the three nations. However, individual board features are found to influence corporate performance in isolated cases. Overall, results provide evidence that even under different sociopolitical and economic conditions, governance needs vary across firms. Consequently, these findings do not lend support to the notion that uniform board structures should be mandated.     

Internal Funds Allocation and the Ownership Structure: Evidence from Korean Business Groups

We examine the relationship between the controlling shareholder’s cash flow rights and the funds transfer in the internal capital market within Korean business groups (chaebols) during the period from 1998 to 2001. We find that the funds allocation in the firms where controlling shareholders have high cash flow rights is better aligned with the investment opportunities and therefore, more efficient than in the firms where they have low cash flow rights. This effect is stronger when they have controlling powers large enough to expropriate minority shareholders. However, during the financial crisis period, funds simply move toward the firms where controlling shareholders have high cash flow rights. The results evidence the tunneling behavior in the internal capital market within a chaebol that the ownership structure distorts the allocation of internal funds in such a way as to benefit the controlling shareholders.JEL Classification: G31, G30     

Internal control audits: Judges' perceptions of the credibility of the financial reporting process and likely auditor liability

This paper reports the results of a study in which fifty-seven sitting United States judges participated in a behavioral experiment to assess the perceived credibility of the financial reporting process and the legal risk auditors bear under conditions where they provide an internal control audit report (vs. no report) under two corporate governance environments. We find that participating judges believe internal control audits provide enhanced assurance that intentional misstatements do not exist and also serve to provide elevated protection to the public, but only under conditions of a strong corporate governance environment beyond current regulatory requirements. We also find that, after being informed of an undetected material fraud, judges who currently have high expectations of the auditing profession find auditors more liable when an internal control audit report has been issued (as compared to when no such report has been issued).