Patent Citation, R&D Spillover, and Tobin's Q: Evidence from Taiwan Semiconductor Industry

Although prior research has examined the effect of patent citations on Tobin's Q in a variety of environments, in this study we examine whether the parameters are affected by stage of a company in the value chain. Unlike other national semiconductor firms, Taiwanese semiconductor firms typically specialize in one of the value-added activities, namely, either design or manufacturing or packaging and testing. Our finding is that the effect of patent citation on Tobin's Q is accentuated when the firm is at the front end of the value chain and diminishes as we proceed to the back end. This finding is novel in the literature. We also find that frequency of patent citations and R&D spillover are positive and significant in relation to Tobin's Q. In addition, the effect of R&D spillover on Tobin's Q is more pronounced for firms in the design sector relative to other sectors. JEL Classification: M41, O3 Authors are grateful for insightful comments and suggestions from an anonymous reviewer. Picheng Lee also gratefully acknowledges a research grant from Lubin School of Business at Pace University     

The Relationship Among Managerial Sentiment,Corporate Investment,and Firm Value: Evidence from Taiwan

This study has two objectives: to examine the relationship between managerial sentiment and corporate investment and to examine the relationship between investment and firm value. We use a sample of Taiwanese firms and find that an optimal level of investment that maximizes a firm's value does exist and that it depends upon the quality of the investment opportunities. In addition, the empirical results show that when firms have valuable (nonvaluable) investment opportunities, managerial optimism (pessimism) makes overinvestment (underinvestment) more likely. Interestingly, the overinvestment (underinvestment) phenomenon for optimistic (pessimistic) managers differs significantly between valuable project and nonvaluable project firms.     

Managerial myopia and the unintended real consequences of conditional conservatism

We examine whether the demand for conditional conservatism produces unintended real consequences that are exacerbated by managerial incentives to report higher earnings. We document a robust positive association between conditional conservatism and real earnings management (REM), particularly for firms whose CEOs face greater compensation incentives and capital market incentives to report higher earnings. Using mediation analyses, we find that conservatism has a negative indirect relation with future returns via REM over the next 1–3 years. In additional tests, we find that the relation between conservatism and REM is attenuated for firms with higher debt-to-equity, which suggests that debtholders moderate the negative relation between conditional conservative reporting and REM. Our findings suggest that, in contrast to its monitoring benefit, conditional conservatism can exacerbate managerial myopia, resulting in negative consequences for future firm value.     

The Impact of Capital Requirements and Managerial Compensation on Bank Charter Value

This paper examines the joint impact of capital requirements and managerial incentive compensation on bank charter value and bank risk. Most of the previous literature in the area of banking and agency theory has focused on asymmetric information between either banks and regulators, (and therefore on the role of bank capital), or between bank shareholders and bank managers, (and therefore on the role of managerial ownership). In this paper we unify these issues and present empirical results from the regression of capital requirements jointly with measures of incentive compensation on Tobin's Q, our proxy for bank charter value, and on the standard deviation of total return, our proxy for bank risk. In a sample of 102 bank holding companies we find that capital levels are consistently a significant positive factor in determining bank charter value and a significant negative factor in determining risk. On the other hand, we find our six measures of incentive compensation to be generally insignificant relative to charter value but do provide some evidence consistent with a theory relating types of incentive compensation with risk.     

Managerial Private Benefits and Overinvestment

According to agency theory, we hypothesize that underpayment of top management motivates management to overinvest. Using a sample of Chinese-listed companies for the period 2005-10, we assess the effect of managerial compensation on overinvestment and the effect of overinvestment on managerial private benefits, including future compensation and perquisites, as well as on firm performance. We find that underpayment does motivate overinvestment, which increases managerial private benefits but not firm value.     

Managerial Placement and Entrenchment

Using data on companies that have implemented private placements in China from 2011 to 2016, we examine the discount on private placements, short-term stock returns, and long-term performance after the placements. Our goal is to determine whether the prevailing certification and entrenchment hypotheses can explain managerial placements. We find that the participation of managerial investors has a significant and negative impact on short-term stock returns. Such a negative effect can also be found on issuing companies’ long-term profitability. Moreover, managerial placements have a higher discount than nonmanagerial placements. Our findings suggest that managerial placement is consistent with the entrenchment hypothesis but not the certification hypothesis.     

The Impact of Managerial Entrenchment on Agency Costs: An Empirical Investigation Using UK Panel Data

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between managerial entrenchment and agency costs for a large sample of UK firms over the period 1999–2005. To measure managerial entrenchment, we use detailed information on ownership and board structures and managerial compensation. We develop a managerial entrenchment index, which captures the extent to which managers have the ability and incentives to expropriate wealth from shareholders. Our findings, which are based on a dynamic panel data analysis, show that there is a strong negative relationship between managerial entrenchment and our inverse proxy for agency costs, namely asset turnover ratio. There is also evidence that short‐term debt and dividend payments work as effective corporate governance devices for UK firms. Finally, our findings reveal that agency costs are persistent over time. The results are robust to a number of alternative specifications, including varying measures of managerial entrenchment and agency costs.     

Foreign Acquisitions and Managerial Discretion

Foreign acquisitions have been growingdramatically since the 1980s despite academic studiesshowing that shareholders of acquirers generally donot realize any significant gain. In this paper, weinvestigate whether foreign acquisitions aremotivated by managerial self-interest. Logisticregressions are performed to establish a link betweenforeign acquisitions and the acquirer's free cashflow. The results show that foreign acquisitions oflow-Q firms are strongly influenced by managerialdiscretion. In addition, acquisitions of low-Q firmsare conducted without consideration of theperformance of the acquirers. Foreign acquisitions ofhigh-Q firms, however, do not representoverinvestments.     

公司治理、管理者动机与衍生金融工具使用

基于中国上市公司2007~2013年财务数据,研究公司治理对管理者使用衍生金融工具的影响,并结合中国制度背景,深入分析和检验企业产权、政策监管对公司治理效应的影响。实证结果表明,公司治理对管理者使用衍生金融工具的动机存在重要影响,公司治理水平越高,管理者越倾向于利用衍生金融工具避免财务困境风险;相反,管理者越倾向于利用衍生金融工具规避薪酬风险。研究还发现,公司治理的作用机制会受到所有权性质的影响,国有控制属性会弱化公司治理效应,对衍生金融工具交易的政策监管差异是重要原因。     

Managerial Ownership, Information Content of Earnings, and Discretionary Accruals in a Non–US Setting

This study employs Danish data to examine the empirical relationship between the proportion of managerial ownership and two characteristics of accounting earnings: the information content of earnings and the magnitude of discretionary accruals. In previous research concerning American firms, Warfield et al. (1995) document a positive relationship between managerial ownership and the information content of earnings, and a negative relationship between managerial ownership and discretionary accruals. We question the generality of the Warfield et al. result, as the ownership structure found in most other countries, including Denmark, deviates from the US ownership configuration. In fact, Danish data indicate that the information content of earnings is inversely related to managerial ownership.     

Managerial compensation: Luck,skill or labor markets?

Luck, skill and labor markets all have empirical support as determinants of managerial compensation. We examine the relative importance of pay for luck, managerial skill and labor market opportunities in determining compensation. We measure luck as the predictable component of firm performance, measure skill using managerial fixed effects and measure labor market opportunities as the compensation of executives at matched firms. Our results imply that managerial skill is the most important determinant of managers' compensation, followed by firm size and labor market opportunities, and that luck is not an important determinant of managerial compensation.     

The Relationship Between Equity-Based Compensation and Managerial Risk Taking: Evidence from China

The authors analyze the impact of equity-based compensation on managerial risk-taking behavior in Chinese listed firms from January 2006 to July 2011. They find that greater risk-taking incentives lead executives to invest more in research and development (R&D) projects and less in capital expenditures. Greater managerial risk-taking incentive increases firm focus. Managerial risk-taking incentives have positive effects on firms' leverage. Overall, increasing the sensitivity of chief executive officers' portfolio value to stock return volatility helps incentivize executives to work harder, as sharing gains and losses with shareholders aligns the interests of executives and shareholders. In addition, the results indicate that state control of firms has a negative effect on R&D investment, and this suggests that state-controlled firms should take more initiative to innovate.     

The Endogeneity of Managerial Compensation in Firm Valuation: A Solution

Much of the empirical literature that has examined the functionalrelationship between firm value and managerial ownership levelsassumes that managerial ownership levels are exogenous and arethe only component of managerial compensation related to firmperformance. This assumption is contrary to the theoreticaland empirical literature wherein managerial compensation isendogenously determined and includes both shares and options.Using instruments for managerial compensation and panel datato control for unobservable heterogeneity in the firm's contractingenvironment, we estimate a system of simultaneous equations.We find that firms are in equilibrium when they endogenouslyset their chief executive officer's compensation.     

Managerial ability and bank‐loan pricing

This paper examines the impact of borrowers’ managerial ability on lenders’ bank‐loan pricing and the channels through which managerial ability affects bank‐loan pricing. Using a large sample of US bank loans, we provide evidence that higher managerial ability is associated with lower bank‐loan prices. This effect is stronger in firms with high information risk, suggesting that an important channel for managerial ability to affect bank‐loan pricing is through improved financial disclosure to mitigate information asymmetry. The relationship is also stronger for firms with weak business fundamentals, implying that another channel is through improved business performance. Of these two mechanisms, path analysis suggests that the business‐fundamentals mechanism is the more important channel through which managerial ability affects bank‐loan pricing.     

Managerial characteristics and stock market investment: evidence from China

We examine the effect of managerial characteristics on investment in the stock market by listed firms in China. Our empirical findings suggest that higher levels of cash‐based compensation may increase both the propensity of investing in the stock market and the total amount of investment. On the other hand, managerial holdings discourage managers from investing in stock markets and also lead to a decrease in the amount of investment. This study sheds light on managerial risk‐taking incentives. Moreover, this study fills the gap in the literature by providing evidence for the determinants of listed firms’ stock market investment.     

The Effect of Managerial Incentives to Bear Risk on Corporate Capital Structure and R&D Investment

In this study we use estimates of the sensitivities of managers' portfolios to stock return volatility and stock price to directly test the relationship between managerial incentives to bear risk and two important corporate decisions. We find that as the sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility increases firms tend to choose higher debt ratios and make higher levels of R&D investment. These results are even stronger in a subsample of firms with relatively low outside monitoring. For these firms, managerial incentives to bear risk play a particularly pivotal role in determining leverage and R&D investment.     

CEO Ownership,Stock Market Performance,and Managerial Discretion

We examine the relationship between CEO ownership and stock market performance. A strategy based on public information about managerial ownership delivers annual abnormal returns of 4% to 10%. The effect is strongest among firms with weak external governance, weak product market competition, and large managerial discretion, suggesting that CEO ownership can reverse the negative impact of weak governance. Furthermore, owner‐CEOs are value increasing: they reduce empire building and run their firms more efficiently. Overall, our findings indicate that the market does not correctly price the incentive effects of managerial ownership, suggesting interesting feedback effects between corporate finance and asset pricing.     

Product Market Competition,Managerial Incentives and Firm Valuation

This paper contributes to the very small empirical literature on the effects of competition on managerial incentive schemes. Based on a theoretical model that incorporates both strategic interaction between firms and a principal agent relationship, we analyse the relationship between product market competition, incentive schemes and firm valuation. The model predicts a nonlinear relationship between the intensity of product market competition and the strength of managerial incentives. We test the implications of our model empirically based on a unique and hand‐collected dataset comprising over 600 observations on 200 Swiss firms over the 2002–2005 period. Our results suggest that, consistent with the implications of our model, the relation between product market competition and managerial intensive schemes is convex indicating that above a certain level of intensity in product market competition, the marginal effect of competition on the strength of the incentive schemes increases in the level of competition. Moreover, competition is associated with lower firm values. These results are robust to accounting for a potential endogeneity of managerial incentives and firm value in a simultaneous equations framework.     

Corporate Multinationality and Acquirer Returns

This paper provides evidence on how corporate multinationality from the perspective of acquiring firms relates to M&A returns. Using multivariate regressions and a large dataset of over 6,000 M&As (both cross-border and domestic) by UK firms during 1987 to 2014, the paper finds multinationality to be associated with significantly higher short-run announcement returns and long-run operating performance. While the multinationality premium (higher M&A returns for multinationals) persists over time, it seems to be restricted to firms with superior resource/managerial capabilities and minimal agency problems. Finally, the multinationality premium appears to be driven by foreign acquisitions into advanced economies. The results are robust to correcting for sample selection bias and controlling for several firm and deal characteristics, as well as accounting for firm-, industry-, and year-fixed effects. Collectively, the findings imply that multinationality could be a source of value creation for acquiring firms, particularly in foreign acquisitions, which tend to be complex, and, thereby, require superior managerial capabilities to succeed.     

Managerial ability and debt maturity

We examine whether and how managerial ability affects corporate debt maturity decisions. The demand for shorter maturity debt is expected to be higher in firms operated by high-ability managers, who possess the superior skills needed to anticipate firms’ economic prospects and communicate their private information, thereby alleviating information asymmetry and bolstering their reputation. We document that firms with high ability managers are associated with more short-term debt financing. The effect becomes stronger for firms facing severe information asymmetry problems, unconstrained firms or high quality firms. Supportive evidence is found from the analysis of short- and long-term debt issuance activity. Our findings remain robust to alternative measures of managerial ability and debt maturity choice, and are not driven by omitted variable bias, endogeneity concerns or industry group. Overall, we provide robust evidence that supports the signalling theory for debt maturity structure and contributes to the literatures on managerial ability.