Efficient monetary allocations and the illiquidity of bonds

We construct a monetary economy with heterogeneity in discounting and consumption risk. Agents can insure against this risk with money and nominal government bonds, but all trades must be monetary. We demonstrate that a deflationary policy à la Friedman cannot sustain the constrained-efficient allocation as no-arbitrage imposes too stringent a bound on the return money can pay. The constrained-efficient allocation can be sustained when bonds have positive yields and, under certain conditions, only if they are illiquid. Illiquidity, meaning that bonds cannot be transformed into consumption as easily as cash, is necessary to eliminate arbitrage opportunities due to disparities in shadow interest rates.     

Insider ownership, ownership concentration and investment performance: An international comparison

This article makes two important contributions to the literature on the incentive effects of insider ownership. First, it presents a clean method for separating the positive wealth effect of insider ownership from the negative entrenchment effect, which can be applied to samples of companies from the US and any other country. Second, it measures the effects of insider ownership using a measure of firm performance, namely a marginal q, which ensures that the causal relationship estimated runs from ownership to performance. The article applies this method to a large sample of publicly listed firms from the Anglo-Saxon and Civil law traditions and confirms that managerial entrenchment has an unambiguous negative effect on firm performance as measured by both Tobin's (average) q and our marginal q, and that the wealth effect of insider ownership is unambiguously positive for both measures. We also test for the effects of ownership concentration for other categories of owners and find that while institutional ownership improves the performance in the USA, financial institutions have a negative impact in other Anglo-Saxon countries and in Europe.     

Parent-subsidiary investment layers and the value of corporate cash holdings

Our study investigates whether agency costs arising from organizational structure in terms of the number of investment layers which connect the parent firm and its lowest-tiered subsidiaries within the corporate pyramid are associated with the value of cash holdings. Using a sample of Taiwanese publicly traded firms, we find that a change of a dollar in cash holdings is associated with less than a dollar change in market value. In line with our expectation, we find that the marginal value of cash decreases with the number of investment layers, supporting the agency theory of excess cash holdings. We also find that the negative association between the number of layers and the value of cash holdings is stronger for firms with high deviation between cash flow and voting rights and for family-controlled firms.     

Real effects of separating investment and operating cash flows

This paper investigates the rationale for the measurement of a firm's periodic performance through the accounting classification of its cash outflows into operating cash flow and investment. We show that when the accounting system does not attempt to measure periodic performance and reports only aggregate cash flow, equilibrium capital market prices are such that there is a perverse informational cost to investment over and above the real cost of investment. This induces distortions in the firms' equilibrium investment. We show that other sources of information, consisting of forecasts of future returns to investment play a vital counterbalancing role when the accounting system is inadequate in this way. An accounting signal that provides noisy information on periodic performance decreases the informational cost to investment and moves the economy closer to first best.The first author wishes to acknowledge financial support from McKnight Foundation and the Accounting Research Center, University of Minnesota. An earlier version of the paper was titled Capitalization vs. Expensing: Effects on Investment.     

Costly external financing, investment timing, and investment–cash flow sensitivity

This paper examines the effects of costly external financing on the optimal timing of a firm's investment. By altering the optimal investment timing, costly financing affects current investment and the sensitivity of investment to internal cash flow. Importantly, the relation between the cost of external funds and investment–cash flow sensitivity is non-monotonic. Investment–cash flow sensitivity is decreasing in the cost of external financing when it is relatively low and is increasing in the financing cost when it is high. Empirical tests examining investment–cash flow sensitivities within groups of firms classified by proxies for their costs of external funds provide evidence consistent with the model. The model and the empirical results complement recent studies by Cleary, Povel and Raith [Cleary, S., Povel, P. and Raith, M., 2007. The U-shaped investment curve: theory and evidence, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 42, 1–39.] and Almeida and Campello [Almeida, H. and Campello, M., in press, Financial constraints, asset tangibility and corporate investment, Review of Financial Studies.] that show a non-monotonic relation between firms' investment and the availability of internal funds.     

Share allocations and performance of KLSE second board IPOs

We analyze share allocations in the Malaysian IPO market, which provide a unique instrument of economic policy for wealth redistribution amongst different ethnic groups. For a sample of Second Board IPOs, we find that Bumiputera investors and the Malaysian public receive almost an equal allocation and make similar profits per issue. However, institutional Bumiputera investors are allocated a significantly smaller proportion of the most underpriced issues and a significantly higher proportion of overpriced issues. IPOs with a higher share allocation to retail Bumiputera investors perform best in both the short and long run.     

Ownership structure,cash flow,and capital investment: Evidence from East Asian economies before the financial crisis

Using financial and ownership data from eight East Asian emerging markets before the Asian financial crisis, we document that while the sensitivity of a firm's capital investment to its cash flow decreases as the cash-flow rights of its largest shareholders increase, this sensitivity increases as the degree of the divergence between the control rights and cash-flow rights of the firm's largest shareholders increases. We interpret the results to be consistent with the free cash-flow hypothesis, which postulates that too much free cash flow in the hands of entrenched managers is likely to lead to overinvestment. This is particularly true for firms with the greatest divergence between the largest shareholders' control rights and their cash-flow rights and for firms with lower profitability.     

Excess cash holdings and investment: the moderating roles of financial constraints and managerial entrenchment

Our study investigates the relationship between excess cash holdings and investment behaviour under two dimensions of financial constraints and managerial entrenchment, based upon a sample of Taiwanese firms operating in an environment characterized by poor legal protection for investors, with data covering the years 2000–2006. We find that excess cash is significantly correlated with capital expenditure, particularly for firms financially constrained and with severe managerial entrenchment. However, the evidence shows that excess cash is insensitive to R&D expenditure under these two dimensions.     

Stocks,bonds and the investment horizon: a test of time diversification on the French market

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the relative performance of stocks and bonds for various investment horizons on the French market. We use a new matched block bootstrap approach to take account of estimation risk. Furthermore, in the light of non-normality of returns, we use two different risk approaches as inputs in portfolio optimization: the traditional variance, and a downside risk measure, the semi-variance. Our results suggest that an investor should avoid bonds in the long run due to the time diversification effect.     

Realism,skill, and incentives: Current and future trends in investment management and investment performance

We review the recent trends in investment management and performance research and highlight the fields expected to develop further in the future. The trend to adapt the classic CAPM and factor models seems likely to continue, with the drive for realistic factors, which best proxy the drivers of investment performance, playing a key role. The search for skill, based on enhanced benchmarks, is also a developing area, with new concepts of identification and verification at the fore. The availability of more qualitative data has allowed corporate finance themes such as agency conflict and incentives to be explored. These are some of the areas where we have seen major developments in recent years and where we expect to see continuing development.     

Derivative use,fund flows and investment manager performance

Prior literature which examines the use of derivatives by investment managers does not discern between different types of derivative trading strategies. This study is the first to examine and gather data on a particular type of derivative trading strategy undertaken by investment managers. We examine the extent to which equity fund managers use index futures to manage fund flows and the effect this has on their alpha and market timing measures of performance. Our results show that funds that do not use derivatives exhibit lower returns and negative market timing skills when they experience fund flow. The performance of funds that use derivatives, however, is independent of investor’s liquidity demands. In fact, the unconditional performance of the average user fund is statistically equivalent to the performance of the average non-user fund conditional on zero fund flow. Our results provide evidence that derivatives can be beneficial for mutual fund holders under certain conditions.     

The effect of financial constraints,investment policy,product market competition and corporate governance on the value of cash holdings

This study empirically investigates the value shareholders place on excess cash holdings and how shareholders’ valuation of cash holdings is associated with financial constraints, firm growth, cash‐flow uncertainty and product market competition for Australian firms from 1990 to 2007. Our results indicate that the marginal value of cash holdings to shareholders declines with larger cash holdings and higher leverage. However, firms that are more financially constrained, that have higher growth rates and that face greater uncertainty exhibit a higher marginal value of cash holdings. These findings are consistent with the explanation that excess cash holdings are not necessarily detrimental to firm value. Firms with costly external financing and that also save more cash for current operating and future investing needs find that the market values these cash hoarding policies favourably. Finally, there is limited evidence of an association between various corporate governance measures and the value of cash holdings for a shorter sample period.     

The development of discounted cash flow and profitability of investment in France in the 1960s

The methods and concepts of the history of technology can make a contribution to the history of management techniques. The model developed by Hughes (1983) to trace the history of a technique from the invention phase to the stabilization phase can provide a useful tool of analysis. The history (until now written exclusively in Anglo-Saxon terms) of the slow adoption by firms of the very old technique of discounting, in order to evaluate investments, can be discussed within a new framework. In France the innovation phase took place very early, as a result of a long tradition of economic calculation. The French case demonstrates the link between management innovation and the social and economic environment. This link appears to be more in accord with Gille's 'loose determinism' than with any rigid causality.     

Financial market development and the importance of internal cash: Evidence from international data

We examine the impact of financial market development on the extent to which firms have to rely on internal capital for making investments. Using international data from 31 countries for the 1987–1997 period, we find evidence of a negative relationship between financial market development and the importance of internal capital. The evidence is consistent across different estimation procedures, alternative measures of financial constraints and cash flow, and the use of bootstrapped standard errors. Finally, we find that the distortionary effect of negative cash flow observations reported earlier for US data extends to international data as well.     

The investment performance,attributes, and investment behavior of ethical equity mutual funds in the US: an empirical investigation

This paper examines the investment performance of US ethical equity mutual funds relative to the market and their traditional counterparts using a survivorship-bias-free database. We detect selectivity and market timing performance of fund managers using two models. First, we use Treynor and Mazuy’s (Harv Bus Rev 44:131–136, 1966) model to determine these performances from a quadratic regression of fund returns on market returns. Second, we use a comprehensive and integrated model derived by Bhattacharya and Pfleiderer (A note on performance evaluation. Technical Report 714, Stanford, California, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, 1983) and Lee and Rahman (J Bus 63:261–278, 1990) to simultaneously capture stock selection and market timing skill of fund managers. This model extracts timing skill from the relationship between managers’ forecast and realized market return. In addition, the R² approach developed by Amihud and Goyenko (Rev Financ Stud 26:667–694, 2013) for evaluating selectivity is also used in this paper. Our empirical results indicate that ethical funds perform no worse than their traditional counterparts, although ethical and traditional funds do not outperform the market. We find some evidence of superior security selection and/or market timing skill among a very small number of ethical and traditional funds. It appears that matching traditional funds have slightly more abnormal (superior as well as inferior) performance than ethical funds in our sample.     

The effects of ownership structure,sub-optimal cash holdings and investment inefficiency on dividend policy: evidence from Indonesia

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - We investigate how a firm’s decision to hold excessive cash or to overinvest could influence its dividend payout policy in Indonesia....     

Locals, foreigners, and multi-market trading of equities: Intraday evidence from Thailand

We study stock market orders and trades in a developing country, Thailand, where foreign ownership limits partially segment local and foreign investors into two distinct markets. Some foreigners forgo voting rights and distributions to trade on the “local board”, while some locals forgo such benefits and pay a price premium to trade on the “foreign board”. Regardless of nationality, these cross-market traders typically submit orders when liquidity is high, fill orders at relatively beneficial prices, exploit patterns in stock prices across markets, display profitable holding-period returns, and enhance price discovery. This suggests that skilled, informed trading that affects market quality does not depend on trader nationality.     

Access to capital,investment, and the financial crisis

During the recent financial crisis, corporate borrowing and capital expenditures fall sharply. Most existing research links the two phenomena by arguing that a shock to bank lending (or, more generally, to the corporate credit supply) caused a reduction in capital expenditures. The economic significance of this causal link is tenuous, as we find that (1) bank-dependent firms do not decrease capital expenditures more than matching firms in the first year of the crisis or in the two quarters after Lehman Brother's bankruptcy; (2) firms that are unlevered before the crisis decrease capital expenditures during the crisis as much as matching firms and, proportionately, more than highly levered firms; (3) the decrease in net debt issuance for bank-dependent firms is not greater than for matching firms; (4) the average cumulative decrease in net equity issuance is more than twice the average decrease in net debt issuance from the start of the crisis through March 2009; and (5) bank-dependent firms hoard cash during the crisis compared with unlevered firms.     

Selectivity and timing performance of UK investment trusts

This study examines the selectivity and timing performance of 218 UK investment trusts over the period July 1981 to June 2009. We estimate the Treynor and Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson and Merton (1981) models augmented with the size, value, and momentum factors, either under the OLS method adjusted with the Newey–West procedure or under the GARCH(1,1)-in-mean method following the specification of Glosten et al. (1993; hereafter GJR-GARCH-M). We find that the OLS method provides little evidence in favour of the selectivity and timing ability, consistent with previous studies. Interestingly, the GJR-GARCH-M method reverses this result, showing some relatively strong evidence on favourable selectivity ability, particularly for international funds, as well as favourable timing ability, particularly for domestic funds. We conclude that the GJR-GARCH-M method performs better in evaluating fund performance compared with the OLS method and the non-parametric approach, as it essentially accounts for the time-varying characteristics of factor loadings and hence obtains more reliable results, in particular, when the high frequency data, such as the daily returns, are used in the analysis. Our results are robust to various in-sample and out-of-sample tests and have valuable implications for practitioners in making their asset allocation decisions across different fund styles.     

Locals,foreigners, and multi-market trading of equities: Intraday evidence from Thailand

We study stock market orders and trades in a developing country, Thailand, where foreign ownership limits partially segment local and foreign investors into two distinct markets. Some foreigners forgo voting rights and distributions to trade on the “local board”, while some locals forgo such benefits and pay a price premium to trade on the “foreign board”. Regardless of nationality, these cross-market traders typically submit orders when liquidity is high, fill orders at relatively beneficial prices, exploit patterns in stock prices across markets, display profitable holding-period returns, and enhance price discovery. This suggests that skilled, informed trading that affects market quality does not depend on trader nationality.