Product market power,industry structure,and corporate earnings management

This is the first study to establish a link between product market power of firms and the degree of earnings management. We hypothesize and document a significant and robust association between (a) a firm’s product market pricing power and its degree of earnings management, and (b) industry competitiveness and the degree of earnings management in the industry. Our study reveals that firms with inferior product market pricing power engage in greater discretionary earnings accruals, adding a new dimension to our understanding of the transparency and informativeness of firms’ financial statements. These findings are mirrored at the industry level where we document that more competitive industries are associated with greater earnings manipulation. The empirical evidence has direct implication on the informativeness and earnings quality of firms based on their product market power and competitiveness.     

区块链在普惠金融市场有很大潜力

在由当代金融家主办,中国区块链研究联盟承办的中国区块链产业大会上,普华永道中国金融行业管理咨询主管合伙人张立钧发表演讲,他认为：比特币最大的不乐观因素就是,它挑战了各国央行的强中心地位。货币不仅仅只是支付和获得价值的媒介,货币对于各个国家来讲是一种货币政策调控经济的手段,这是数字化货币很难改变的。     

隐性行业壁垒、市场集中度与中国保险经纪市场结构演进

对于保险经纪市场结构的研究,传统方法是运用市场集中度和市场壁垒指标,而由于我国正处在经济转型期,市场特点与发达国家有所不同,本文提出了隐性行业壁垒的分析方法。基于2005年~2009年保险经纪市场数据进行的两种不同的实证研究显示,我国保险经纪市场结构的演进趋势有所不同:传统分析方法的结果表明,保险经纪市场的总体特征是垄断性较低、竞争性较强,且呈现出竞争性逐步增强的趋势;隐性行业壁垒方法的结果表明,保险经纪市场中存在有较为明显的垄断性特征,且这种垄断性特征随着时间的变化呈现出增强的趋势,结论的差异值得保险经纪市场的监管者、参与者等利益相关者予以高度重视。     

The dynamics of international equity market expectations

This paper develops a noisy rational expectations model of the way in which international investors adjust their expectations of asset payoffs in a given country in response not only to public information signals but also to private information signals whose precision differs across investors. The model predicts that the perceptions of investors in one country about the future market returns in another country are related differently to realized past returns depending on their informational disadvantage relative to other investors: the greater is that informational disadvantage, the greater is the change in perception associated with returns. The predictions are confirmed by monthly survey data of institutional money managers investing in developed markets from 1995 to 2000.     

市场经济中作为资源的资本

(一)在市场经济条件下,不论从事哪种行业,其经济主体都是内生的,在市场的需求作用和催生中诞生的,又是在市场需求、包容下发展壮大,在优胜劣汰的竞争中不断更新进步升级的。如果把资本作为相对于经济主体而独立存在其外的另类的话,资本是经济主体赖以萌发的土壤,赖以成长的血脉和营养,赖以拨正航向的罗盘和舵轮。     

Financial crisis dynamics: attempt to define a market instability indicator

The impact of increasing leverage in the economy produces hyperreaction of market participants to variations of their revenues. If the income of banks decreases, they mass-reduce their lendings; if corporations sales drop, and they cannot adjust their liquidities by further borrowing due to existing debt, then they must immediately reduce their expenses, lay off staff, and cancel investments. This hyperreaction produces a bifurcation mechanism, and eventually a strong dynamical instability in capital markets that is commonly called systemic risk. In this article, we show that this instability can be monitored by measuring the highest eigenvalue of a matrix of elasticities. These elasticities measure the reaction of each sector of the economy to a drop in its revenues from another sector. This highest eigenvalue—the spectral radius—of the elasticity matrix can be used as an early indicator of market instability and potential crisis. Grandmont and subsequent research showed the possibility that the ‘invisible hand’ of markets becomes chaotic, opening the door to uncontrolled swings. Our contribution is to provide an actual way of measuring how close to chaos the market is. Estimating elasticities and actually generating the indicators of instability will be the topic of forthcoming research.     

European financial market dependence: An industry analysis

This paper uses a copula model to investigate the degree and determinants of European market dependence across 10 industries in 12 Euro zone and 8 non-Euro zone stock markets during the period 1992–2011. Most of the industries in Euro countries show a dependence increase with the Euro-area after the introduction of the Euro. The effects are strongest in countries with larger market capitalization and in the Financials, Industrials, Consumer Goods, Utilities, Technology and Telecommunications industries. Overall, the export intensity, interest rate sensitivity and competitiveness of an industry and the financial development and economic openness of a country are the most important determinants of changes in equity market dependence. The period around the Lehman collapse also shows higher equity market dependence between European countries, while the lower dependence increase during the period of the recent European sovereign debt crisis suggests that country-specific factors may matter more than before.     

Storing power: market structure matters

We assess how firms' incentives to operate and invest in energy storage depend on the market structure. For this purpose, we characterize equilibrium market outcomes allowing for market power in storage and/or production, as well as for vertical integration between storage and production. Market power reduces overall efficiency through two channels: It induces an inefficient use of the storage facilities, and it distorts investment incentives. The worst outcome for consumers and total welfare occurs under vertical integration. The results are key to understanding how to regulate energy storage, an issue which is critical for the deployment of renewable energies.     

保险市场结构与非规范竞争

本文运用产业组织理论和简单的博弈论原理证明,保险企业采用给予折扣等非规范竞争是保险企业经营者的一种理性选择。而具体的非规范竞争行为又与市场需求弹性、保险企业管理水平、承保企业的所有制性质相关。根据对保险市场折扣行为的分析,笔者的结论是监管机构除了对相关行为进行有效监管以外,还要逐步放开费率厘定权、鼓励保险企业进行险种创新并进一步开放保险市场。     

Asset market games of survival: a synthesis of evolutionary and dynamic games

The paper examines a game-theoretic model of a financial market in which asset prices are determined endogenously in terms of a short-run equilibrium. Investors use general, adaptive strategies (portfolio rules) depending on the exogenous states of the world and the observed history of the game. The main goal is to identify portfolio rules, allowing an investor to “survive,” i.e., to possess a positive, bounded away from zero, share of market wealth over an infinite time horizon. The model under consideration combines a strategic framework characteristic for stochastic dynamic games with an evolutionary solution concept (survival strategies), thereby linking two fundamental paradigms of game theory.     

The entry and exit dynamics of the cryptocurrency market

This paper presents an analysis of the entry and exit dynamics of the cryptocurrency market that focuses on the growth of initial coin offerings during 2015–2020. We used two different datasets: one includes long-lived cryptocurrencies, while the other includes the whole cryptocurrency system at our disposal–that is, it considers the entering and exiting cryptocurrencies. Comparing the dynamics between both datasets with the index cohesive force approach, we assessed how the growth of the initial coin offerings and the exiting cryptocurrencies affected the connectedness of the market. Our results show that the expansion of the cryptocurrency system gave rise to a strong collective movement during 2018–2019. Afterwards, the group pressure, due to the bubble of the initial coin offerings, decreased in favour of the largest cryptocurrencies. Lastly, we observed changes in the hierarchical order of the most influential cryptocurrencies. In particular, Ethereum became the most influential cryptocurrency, at the detriment of Bitcoin.     

Entry and pricing in a differentiated products industry: evidence from the ATM market

We estimate a structural equilibrium model of the automatic teller machine market (ATM) to evaluate the implications of regulating ATM surcharges. We use data on bank characteristics, potential and actual ATM locations, and consumer locations; identify the model parameters with a regression discontinuity design; and develop methods to estimate the model without computing equilibria. A surcharge ban reduces ATM entry 12% and consumer welfare 24% but increases firm profits 27%. Total welfare under either regime is 4% lower than the surplus maximizing level. The article can help shed light on the implications of unregulated entry for differentiated products industries.     

Forecasting aggregate stock market volatility with industry volatilities: The role of spillover index

In this paper, we aim to improve the predictability of aggregate stock market volatility with industry volatilities. The empirical results show that individual industry volatilities can provide useful predictive information, while the predictive contribution is limited. We further consider the spillover index between industry volatilities and find it displays strong predictive power for stock market volatility. Based on the portfolio exercise, we find that a mean-variance investor can achieve sizeable economic gains by using volatility forecasts of the spillover index. In addition, we conduct three extended analyses and further demonstrate the superior performance of the spillover index. Also, our results show robustness to a series of alternative settings. Finally, we investigate why the spillover index performs better and answer what information it contains. The results show that the spillover index can reflect and explain investor sentiments that are related to stock market volatility.     

The influence of product market dynamics on a firm's cash holdings and hedging behavior

Prior work suggests that if a firm shares a larger proportion of its growth opportunities with rivals, an inability to fully invest in these opportunities leads to predatory behavior on the part of rivals and losses in market share. We examine whether firms manage this predation risk. We find inter- and intra-industry evidence that the extent of the interdependence of a firm's investment opportunities with rivals is positively associated with its use of derivatives and the size of its cash holdings. Moreover, an analysis of investment behavior provides evidence that if this interdependence is high, the management of predation risk provides strategic benefits. Our results indicate that predation risk is an important determinant of corporate financial policy choices and investment behavior.     

Stock returns and product market competition: beyond industry concentration

The main purpose of this paper is to provide direct evidence that product market structure affects stock returns. This is not only through industry concentration, as found in Hou and Robinson (J Finance 61:1927–1956, 2006), but also based on firms’ product substitutability and industry market size. Furthermore, the predictive power of product substitutability and market size for stock returns is not subsumed by industry concentration. Our results highlight the multi-dimensional structure of product market competition and its impact on asset prices.     

Impact of short selling activity on market dynamics: Evidence from an emerging market

With unique daily short sale data of Borsa Istanbul (stock exchange of Turkey), we investigate the dynamic relationship between short selling activity and volatility, liquidity and market return from January 2005 to December 2012 using a VAR(p)-cDCC-FIEGARCH(1,d,1) approach. Our findings suggest that short sellers are contrarian traders and contribute to efficient stock market in Turkey. We also show that increased short selling activity is associated with higher liquidity and decreased volatility. However this relation weakens during the financial turmoil of 2008. Our results indicate that any ban on short sales may be detrimental for financial stability and market quality in Turkey.     

Horizontal mergers and divestment dynamics in a sunset industry

Industries with declining demand tend to be riddled with chronic excess capital due to the presence of a business‐stealing effect and fixed costs. This article highlights the potential of mergers to internalize this business‐stealing effect and thereby promote divestment. Using the case of mergers in the Japanese cement industry, it examines whether such merger‐induced divestment improves total welfare based on a dynamic model of divestment. The findings suggest that merged firms indeed tended to reduce capital more actively and that, as a result of these mergers, total welfare improved despite a reduction in the consumer surplus.     

Conditional risk measures in a bipartite market structure

In this paper, we study the effect of network structure between agents and objects on measures for systemic risk. We model the influence of sharing large exogeneous losses to the financial or (re)insurance market by a bipartite graph. Using Pareto-tailed losses and multivariate regular variation, we obtain asymptotic results for conditional risk measures based on the Value-at-Risk and the Conditional Tail Expectation. These results allow us to assess the influence of an individual institution on the systemic or market risk and vice versa through a collection of conditional risk measures. For large markets, Poisson approximations of the relevant constants are provided. Differences of the conditional risk measures for an underlying homogeneous and inhomogeneous random graph are illustrated by simulations.