投资者法律保护的评价研究

证券市场的发展在很大程度上取决于对股东和债权人的法律保护程度.对投资者法律保护的评价一方面有助于投资者保护自己的合法权益,另一方面也有助于促进企业关注投资者保护,提高公司治理水平和公司绩效.本文从国家、地区和上市公司三个层面,对投资者法律保护评价的研究文献进行综述,尤其探讨了国内投资者法律保护的研究进展,并提出了未来的研究方向,从而为建立和完善投资者法律保护的评价体系提供参考.     

标准的投资者保护制度和替代性投资者保护制度：一个概念性分析框架

基于在标准的投资者保护制度和替代性投资者保护制度之间做出的区分,本文提出了一个概念性分析框架,并对国有股权的制度安排在中国股票市场发展中的作用进行了初步的解释。标准的投资者保护制度——市场、法律和管制——固然重要,但是对于转轨国家而言,由于缺乏支撑标准的投资者保护制度运转的制度资源,利用替代性的投资者保护制度对于股票市场的早期发展就是至关重要的。     

审计质量法律确定的国际比较与可移植性

20世纪70年代以来法与金融学的兴起与发展,为研究审计质量与投资者保护提供了全新视角。以拉波塔等人(La Porta、Lopez-de- Silanes、Shleifer&Vishny,以下简称LLSV)为代表的学者从法律渊源出发,对世界各国的投资者保护水平进行比较,认为法律渊源的不同会导致各国投资者保护水平存在差异,执法水平也会影响到投资者权益的保护效果。     

筹资质量的特征内涵及其治理功能

在我国对投资者的法律保护还比较薄弱，如何有效地加强投资者保护一直是困扰我国资本市场的难题。本文主要探讨什么是筹资质量，筹资质量的特征包括哪些方面，如何提高企业的筹资质量，它们与企业财务运行有何直接联系。同时，筹资质量的结构安排对投资者保护的内在影响机理及传导机制是什么；如何来衡量企业的筹资质量以有效降低代理成本并提升企...     

海外投资者保护基金制度及借鉴

保护投资者尤其是保护中小投资者,是证券市场监管的核心内容,也是证券市场健康运行的基础.国际上,证券投资者保护机制已经有30多年的运行经验,很多方面值得我们借鉴.本文从法律框架、组织模式、资金来源、赔偿机制、运作情况等方面,对国际上主要国家和地区的证券投资者保护基金制度进行了比较,并结合我国证券市场特征,对我国证券投资者保护制度的建立和完善提出若干建议.     

浅析证券市场中小投资者的法律保护

构建完善的证券市场中小投资者的法律制度,对于我国证券市场的良性运行至关重要。然而我国在证券市场中小投资者保护制度方面存在严重的立法缺失。本文从关于投资者保护理由的理论入手,对构建和完善我国证券市场中小投资者的法律制度提出了相应的对策。     

证券投资者保护法律体系的基本问题

一、研究证券投资者保护法律体系的意义 对于投资者的保护已经日益在世界范围内得到认同和执行。国际证监会组织（IOSCO）将“保护投资者”列为对资本市场三大监管目标之一,欧洲证券委员会论坛（FFSCO）更在2001年2月发布了《协调保护投资者的核心商业行为准则》。中国证券市场的发展过程也是证券市场相关法律问题产生与解决的过程,2006年1月1日起开始实施的《证券法》体现了其对投资者的保护并规定了若干新的保护措施,     

完善我国证券投资者保护机制的设想

本文从证券投资者权益保护的内涵出发,在借鉴国际投资者权益保护经验的基础上,描述了我国证券投资者权益保护的基本格局,同时从投资者保护流程、投资者保护手段以及政府、法律、市场三者间的关系等角度,提出了构建以政府监督、市场自律、法律制度为基础,法律保护、行政保护、行业自律保护、社会监督与自我保护、保护基金制度、信息披露制度"六位一体"的投资者保护体系及保护机制的总体思路。     

我国投资者保护立法现状研究

健全的投资者保护制度是促进证券市场持续健康发展之基。我国立法与司法实践逐步彰显出对投资者保护的重视。就立法而言,我国基本建立了投资者保护立法体系,具体包括宪法法律制度、公司法律制度、证券法律制度、中介机构法律制度以及行政法规与部门规章。     

公众投资者利益保护法律问题浅析

目前公众投资者利益保护存在的主要问题是大股东滥用其控股地位侵犯公众投资者利益,国家监管部门对公众投资者保护不力。公众投资者利益保护问题的存在是我国证券市场开始时的定位造成的,保护公众投资者的法律法规不完善,上市公司制度有结构性缺陷。完善公众投资者利益保护需要维持市场大盘稳定,完善股市规则,提高上市公司质量,建立股票红利的分配机制。     

Diversification and ownership concentration

If controlling shareholders can divert profits, equity ownership is more concentrated the higher the stock returns correlation. A higher returns correlation reduces the benefits of diversification, giving rise to both a higher investment by the controlling shareholder in the asset that he controls and a lower investment by the non-controlling shareholders. The empirical analysis supports the predictions of the model: equity ownership is more concentrated in countries where the stock returns correlation is higher; moreover the intensity of the relationship between the stock returns correlation and ownership concentration is amplified by poor investor protection.     

Investment allocation decisions,home bias and the mandatory IFRS adoption

We examine the familiarity hypothesis of home bias by studying how foreign ownership of Swedish firms is affected by the mandatory adoption of IFRS. We decompose foreign investors into institutional and non-institutional investors. Foreign investors are further decomposed into EU (IFRS adopting countries) and non-EU residents (non-IFRS adopting countries). We analyse the equity investments of these foreign investor groups in Sweden during the period of 2001–2007. We find that after the mandatory adoption of IFRS, foreign ownership/owners from countries that adopted IFRS and particularly those from the EU increased. These effects are particularly strong in small firms. Foreign institutional investors increased their ownership stake after the mandatory IFRS adoption, whereas foreign non-institutional investments were not affected significantly by the IFRS adoption. In contrast to ownership from non-adopting countries, ownership from the EU increased in firms with both more and less tangible assets. Similarly, foreign ownership from the EU increased in firms with both concentrated ownership and dispersed ownership after the adoption. Because Sweden has already had strict legal enforcement and a low level of earnings management prior to the adoption, our results suggest that increased foreign ownership is due to better abilities to compare firms rather than an improved quality.     

To Steal or Not to Steal: Firm Attributes, Legal Environment, and Valuation

Data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within‐country variation that decreases with the strength of investors' legal protection. A simple model identifies three firm attributes related to that variation: investment opportunities, external financing, and ownership structure. Using firm‐level governance and transparency data from 27 countries, we find that all three firm attributes are related to the quality of governance and disclosure practices, and firms with higher governance and transparency rankings are valued higher in stock markets. All relations are stronger in less investor‐friendly countries, demonstrating that firms adapt to poor legal environments to establish efficient governance practices.     

Postprivatization corporate governance: The role of ownership structure and investor protection

We investigate the role of ownership structure and investor protection in postprivatization corporate governance. Using a sample of 209 privatized firms from 39 countries over the period 1980 to 2001, we find that the government relinquishes control over time to the benefit of local institutions, individuals, and foreign investors, and that private ownership tends to concentrate over time. Firm size, growth, and industry affiliation, privatization method, as well as the level of institutional development and investor protection, explain the cross-firm differences in ownership concentration. The positive effect of ownership concentration on firm performance matters more in countries with weak investor protection.     

Investor Protection and the Role of Firm‐Level Financial Transparency in Attracting Foreign Investment

We ask if companies can attract foreign equity capital by improving the transparency of their financial statements. Using a large panel of firms across 51 countries outside the United States, we show that the answer is yes, but only in countries with relatively high levels of investor protection. In countries with poor investor protection, unilaterally increasing firm‐level transparency has no effect on foreign ownership. Furthermore, our results indicate that in countries with higher levels of investor protection, the positive association between transparency and foreign ownership is stronger following a country's adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards.     

Investor protection and cross-border acquisitions of private and public targets

We examine the announcement-period acquirer returns and target values for a large sample of cross-border acquisitions by U.S. firms, differentiating between private and public targets and paying particular attention to the legal protection of minority shareholders in the target country. For high-protection target countries, acquirer announcement-period returns are significantly negative for public targets and significantly positive for private targets. For low-protection target countries, the acquirer returns are significantly positive for public targets and insignificantly different from zero for private targets. For public targets, acquirer returns are decreasing and target-firm values and acquisition premia are increasing with the level of investor protection. For private targets, investor protection does not affect acquirer returns or target-firm values. We find that bidder returns decrease with the level of creditor protection in the target country and increase with the quality of accounting standards. Our results also show that in low- protection countries, firm-level corporate governance mechanisms, such as higher insider ownership, may substitute for the lower level of investor protection.     

Legal Institutions,Ownership Concentration,and Stock Repurchases Around the World: Signal Mimicking?

One of the central puzzles of signaling theory is how to assess signal quality, in particular the potential for signal mimicking. Our study provides evidence of signal mimicking in the context of stock repurchases. Employing an ex-ante proxy for the likelihood of mimicking stock repurchases and data on open market stock repurchases from 30 countries, we find that long-term operating and market performance following stock repurchases improve less for suspected mimicking firms. This finding contradicts the conventional characterization that managers use stock repurchases to signal undervaluation and enhanced future performance. We find that mimicking firms have smaller capital investments, need greater external financing, buy back fewer shares, and issue more new shares (and/or resell more treasury shares) in the year of the repurchase. Our analysis further shows that mimicking is more likely in countries with weak investor protections and in firms with higher ownership concentration. Further, mimicking associated with concentrated ownership is mitigated in countries with stronger investor protections and by the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Altogether, our findings provide evidence of signal mimicking in stock repurchases in international data that is influenced by market, ownership, legal, and financial reporting characteristics of countries.     

投资者利益保护效果评价研究

国内外已有的关于投资者利益保护的研究主要是从不同的制度、法律背景出发,探讨不同的投资者利益保护状况所导致的经济后果。但是这种研究方法不适用于评价同一制度背景下不同公司投资者利益保护效果的差异,以及这些差异所导致的不同经济后果的研究。针对这一问题,本文主要从微观公司组织这一角度,兼顾制度执行层面,对既定制度背景下,如何评价投资者利益保护效果进行了一定的思考。与Laporta等从事前角度评价投资者利益保护的方法不同的是,本文主要是从事后角度进行考量的,认为投资者利益保护效果应从效率和公平两个层次进行评价,主要的评价指标可以选择投资者获得的投资回报、公司质量和公司诚信三个方面。     

Agency Conflicts, Investment, and Asset Pricing

The separation of ownership and control allows controlling shareholders to pursue private benefits. We develop an analytically tractable dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to study asset pricing and welfare implications of imperfect investor protection. Consistent with empirical evidence, the model predicts that countries with weaker investor protection have more incentives to overinvest, lower Tobin's q, higher return volatility, larger risk premia, and higher interest rate. Calibrating the model to the Korean economy reveals that perfecting investor protection increases the stock market's value by 22%, a gain for which outside shareholders are willing to pay 11% of their capital stock.     

Investment–cash flow sensitivity and investor protection

We examine the role of country-level legal investor protection (i.e., shareholder and creditor protection) on firm investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS). Using underexplored research data on investor protection across 21 countries and working with a conservative empirical design, we extend prior literature on the relation between investor protection and ICFS and provide new evidence on how these country-level attributes interact to explain a firm's ICFS. We find that either the strong legal protection of minority shareholders or the strong legal protection of creditors reduces the sensitivity of investment to internal cash flow. However, in countries with strong levels of both minority shareholder and creditor protection, ICFS increases. Our results remain robust after controlling for several alternative explanations. The results support the argument that overregulation arises when policymakers increase investor protection at levels that lead firms to avoid external sources of finance, hampering firm investment. Our findings suggest that countries face a regulatory trade-off such that increasing investor protection (either shareholder or creditors protection) enhances financial markets efficiency, but excessive regulation can indeed lead to financial markets inefficiencies.