Rookie directors and firm performance: Evidence from China

This paper examines the benefits and costs associated with rookie independent directors (RIDs) in Chinese public companies from 2008 to 2014. We find that RIDs attend more board meetings. Boards with more RIDs tunnel less to controlling shareholders, suggesting that RIDs are efficient monitors. However, in state-owned firms, the presence of RIDs is negatively associated with investment efficiency, suggesting a potential cost of appointing RIDs. Overall, firms with more RIDs have higher operating performance, especially when tunneling is a more common issue, when board experience is less important and when monitoring costs are relatively low.     

The value of independent directors: Evidence from sudden deaths

We investigate contributions of independent directors to shareholder value by examining stock price reactions to sudden deaths in the US from 1994 to 2007. We find, first, that following director death stock prices drop by 0.85% on average. Second, the degree of independence and board structure determine the marginal value of independent directors. Third, independence is more valuable in crucial board functions. Finally, controlling for director-invariant heterogeneity using a fixed effect approach, we identify the value of independence over and above the value of individual skills and competences. Overall, our results suggest that independent directors provide a valuable service to shareholders.     

Analyst coverage,corporate social responsibility,and firm value: Evidence from China

This paper examines how analyst coverage affects firms' engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using data on Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2017, we find that (1) analyst coverage significantly enhances CSR engagement; (2) ownership structure, political connection, corporate governance, and media coverage moderate that association; (3) a plausible mechanism is that analyst coverage increases CSR by increasing site visits from institutional investors and improving firms' internal controls. In addition, the interaction between analyst coverage and CSR engagement has an economically sizeable incremental effect on firm value. Overall, our findings indicate that financial analysts play a critical external monitoring and informational role for organizations.     

Reverse innovation and firm value in emerging markets: Evidence from China

Reverse innovation (RI) patents, which apply to intellectual property that is created in an emerging country but patented in a developed country, are better representatives of innovation value than domestic patents in emerging economies. We argue that RI patents contribute to firm value by proxying for the private value of innovation, generating product market value, and signalling firms’ capabilities. Using a sample of Chinese-listed companies, we find RI patents positively relate to firms’ short- and long-term market value. This effect is stronger for firms with high innovative intensity and managerial ability. We also explore the mechanisms behind the relationship between RI and firm value. We demonstrate that, in addition to the domestic patent functions of creating value and capturing innovation rent, RI patents can further leverage firm value by signalling firm quality to customers and investors in developed markets, a function that is unique to RI patents.     

Board directors with foreign experience and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of board directors with foreign experience (BDFEs) on stock price crash risk. We find that BDFEs help reduce crash risk. This association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including a firm fixed effects model, controlling for possibly omitted variables, and instrumental variable estimations. Moreover, we find that the negative association between BDFEs and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with more agency problems, weaker corporate governance, and less overall transparency. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of board directors matter in determining stock price crash risk.     

Independent directors and patenting strategies: Evidence from China

Despite the burgeoning literature on the contribution of independent boards to innovation, little is known about their influence on patenting strategies. Relying on finer-grained patent data of Chinese listed firms, this study tests the causal effects of board independence on patenting strategies, specifically, technological scope, technological proximity, and technological concentration. We show that having more independent directors on a board leads to a narrower technological scope and more overlap between current and prior technological trajectories, but there is no material impact on technological concentration. These effects are more pronounced among firms with market and technological dominance. Moreover, patenting strategies seem to benefit firms' financial and innovation outcomes, which highlights the value of independent directors as advisors.     

Geographic distance and board monitoring: Evidence from the relocation of independent directors

In this study, we use a sample of independent directors (hereafter, IDs) in China, whose primary employers have changed during their tenure as IDs, to examine whether and how geographic distance affects the monitoring role of IDs. Based on 233 relocations of IDs due to the change of their primary employers, we find that when IDs are located farther from the firm headquarters, they attend fewer meetings and express a lower percentage of dissenting opinions. The results are robust with a battery of robustness checks. In addition, we find that the negative relationship between geographic distance and meeting attendance of IDs is mitigated where there are high-speed railways between firm headquarters and the ID or when firms have a higher litigation risk. We also find that the negative relationship is more pronounced for state-owned firms. Our tests on the effectiveness of monitoring show that firms with more distant IDs have more tunneling activities and earnings management, lower sensitivity of CEO compensation to firm performance, and lower sensitivity of investment expenditure to investment opportunities. Furthermore, we focus on the relocations that make IDs more distant from the firm headquarters and find that after the relocations, firms are more likely to acquire firms in the provinces that the IDs relocate to. We find that the market reactions of M&As in the provinces that IDs relocate to are more positive after the relocations, which suggests that distant IDs have an advisory role. Finally, we find that firms with more distant IDs have lower performance and that firms are less likely to reappoint IDs in future sessions if these IDs move farther away from the firm headquarters. Our study, based on exogenous changes in geographic distance between IDs and the firm headquarters, provides new evidence that IDs who are located farther from the firm headquarters are less effective monitors due to higher cost of information acquisition.     

Accountability of independent directors: Evidence from firms subject to securities litigation

We examine which independent directors are held accountable when investors sue firms for financial and disclosure-related fraud. Investors can name independent directors as defendants in lawsuits, and they can vote against their reelection to express displeasure over the directors’ ineffectiveness at monitoring managers. In a sample of securities class action lawsuits from 1996 to 2010, about 11% of independent directors are named as defendants. The likelihood of being named is greater for audit committee members and directors who sell stock during the class period. Named directors receive more negative recommendations from Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory firm, and significantly more negative votes from shareholders than directors in a benchmark sample. They are also more likely than other independent directors to leave sued firms. Overall, shareholders use litigation along with director elections and director retention to hold some independent directors more accountable than others when firms experience financial fraud.     

Investor protection and firm value: Evidence from PIPE offerings

We find that PIPE issues that do not provide any protections to investors convey positive information about the firm and result in positive announcement period returns. However, PIPE issues that provide protections do not convey any new information about the firm and hence do not result in significant positive or negative announcement period returns. PIPE issuers that offer no protections to investors outperform their matched portfolios for up to 9 months after the issue. PIPE issuers that offer protections underperform their matched portfolios for 18 to 36 months after the issue.     

Connected transactions and firm value: Evidence from China-affiliated companies

This paper investigates tunneling through related-party transactions (RPT) using a unique dataset of listed Chinese companies in Hong Kong. While prior findings suggest that investors do not seem to systematically discount tunneling firms, we find that firm value (Tobin's q and market-to-book value) is significantly lower for firms undertaking potentially expropriating transactions. In addition, cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) are lower for RPTs with disclosure exemptions and are negatively related to some RPT types. Our results suggest that firms tunnel using RPTs with disclosure exemptions and that disclosure requirements matter for RPTs. These RPTs could signal firms' corporate-governance quality, as investors substantially discount firms that undertake potentially expropriating transactions.     

Female directors and real activities manipulation:Evidence from China

Unlike previous studies that focus on accrual-based earnings management, this study analyzes real activities manipulation and investigates whether female direct...     

Managerial expertise,corporate decisions and firm value: Evidence from corporate refocusing

This paper investigates how managerial expertise—specifically, industry expertise—affects firm value through divestiture. Using CEOs’ managerial experiences in industries throughout their careers as a measure of their industry expertise, I find that CEOs in diversified conglomerates are more likely to divest divisions in industries in which they have less experience. This finding is consistent with CEOs who divest such divisions in order to refocus on those divisions in which they have specialized—that is, to achieve a better match between their expertise and their firms’ retained assets. Firms that divest for a better CEO-firm match experience significant improvements in operating performance, as well as significant abnormal stock returns that persist for an average of three years following a divestiture. Further, among firms that divest for a better match, those firms with more experienced CEOs realize greater gains in firm value. In contrast, divestitures that increase corporate focus, but do not improve the expertise-asset match, do not lead to long-run increases in firm value.     

Effects of appointing new independent directors who are professionally affiliated with their predecessors: Evidence from China

The roles played by independent directors (IDs) have been extensively documented, but the question of how they are appointed remains insufficiently explored. We found that the likelihood of IDs being appointed was higher when they were professionally affiliated with the departing IDs, and this effect was more pronounced when either the predecessor had a compliant voting record or held more directorships in other firms controlled by insiders in the focal firm. The appointment of affiliated IDs who colluded with insiders through predecessors is positively associated with fewer dissenting votes, more related-party transactions, and more severe violations. The effect was stronger for firms that had higher concentrated ownership and were located in areas with a weak institutional environment. Our research showed that predecessors with low independence helps establish a reciprocity norm between affiliated successors and insiders, leading to weak board monitoring.     

Liquidity,ownership concentration,corporate governance,and firm value: Evidence from Thailand

We examine the interactions among ownership structure, liquidity, and corporate governance in an important emerging market. The results suggest that firms with more concentrated ownership experience significantly lower stock liquidity. Large shareholders are assumed to possess private information, leading to information asymmetry and thus a higher adverse selection cost. As a result, higher ownership concentration is associated with less liquidity. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that corporate governance plays a significant role in the relationship between ownership and liquidity in Thailand.     

Earnings,institutional investors,tax avoidance,and firm value: Evidence from Taiwan

This study examines the valuation of earnings from China and Taiwan by foreign and domestic institutional investors across a sample of Taiwanese electronics firms. We further compare the valuation of firm earnings reported in tax havens and non-tax havens, and whether these firms have changed tax avoidance activities since 2004 when the Taiwanese government enacted stricter auditing of transfer pricing regulation.Our findings show that both operating income from the home country and investment income are positively associated with firm value. Operating income from China, however, is not significantly related to firm value when institutional ownership of the firm exceeds fifty percent. This result indicates that operating income is valued differently, depending on the location from which the income was generated. Non-operating income enhances firm value regardless of the revenue source. We also report that foreign institutional investors favor operating income from domestic and investment sources over earnings generated from non-domestic sources and other non-operating income. Furthermore, our results suggest that firms rearrange reported profits from subsidiaries located in tax havens to affiliates in other countries following the transfer pricing audit guide Taiwan implemented in 2004. Results also indicate firms may have been shifting profits to other low-tax-rate countries, or to countries which do not require firms to pay taxes, even if they are not doing business in that country.     

Political connections,tax benefits and firm performance: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the different effects of political connections on the firm performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately owned enterprises. Using data on Chinese listed firms from 1999 to 2007, we find that private firms with politically connected managers outperform those without such managers, whereas local SOEs with connected managers underperform those without such managers. Moreover, we find that private firms with politically connected managers enjoy tax benefits, whereas local SOEs with politically connected managers are prone to more severe over-investment problems. Our study reconciles the mixed findings of previous studies on the effect of political connections on firm performance.     

Product line transformation,foreign sales,and firm value: Evidence from COVID-19 pandemic governance in urban China

Using a sample of Chinese firms, we examine stock market reaction to firms that announce a change in their product lines to those related to COVID-19 management (medical masks and ventilators, among others). We find the market reacts positively to the announcements. In addition, when a firm ordinarily has a large share of export sales, the stock market reaction is more salient, indicating that export sales provide a certification effect that positively signals investors. Additional analysis on moderating effects suggest that, conditional on foreign sales, prior experience with medical product lines or less uncertainty about supply availability enhances the cumulative announcement returns (CARs), while the adverse impact of firm size on CAR magnifies.     

Board meetings,committee structure,and firm value

In this study, we examine the determinants of board monitoring activity and its impact on firm value for a broad panel of firms over a six-year period from 1999 to 2005. During this period, Congress and the exchanges promulgated regulations that increased pressure upon firms for more independent and active boards. Economists have debated whether board activity and externally imposed regulations benefit or harm firms. We develop and examine several proxies for board monitoring and examine the relationship between board monitoring activity, firm characteristics, and firm value in a structural equation framework. One set of our proxies is based on the number of annual board and Audit Committee meetings. We show that prior performance, firm characteristics and governance characteristics are important determinants of board activity. We also show that the board monitoring is driven by corporate events, such as an acquisition or a restatement of financial statements. We find that board activity has a positive impact on firm value. Our results also indicate that the external pressure has had a salutary effect and recent regulations have led to some increase in firm value. A second set of proxies is based on the shift to a fully independent Audit, Compensation and Nominating Committees. We find that firms increased the independence of these Board committees following the enactment of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.     

Military directors,governance and firm behavior

We build a large dataset of board of directors with military experience and document a substantial and persistent presence of independent military directors serving on corporate boards. We find that firms with independent military directors are associated with better monitoring outcomes, including less excessive CEO compensation, greater forced CEO turnover–performance sensitivity, and less earnings management.