The Incidence of Accounting-based Covenants in UK Public Debt Contracts: An Empirical Analysis

Accounting-based covenants are of particular interest to accounting researchers in view of their potential to influence management's accounting policy choices and their attitudes to new accounting standards. This exploratory paper provides evidence on the incidence of accounting-based covenants in 108 UK public debt contracts for the period 1987-1990. Thirty percent of the agreements contain such covenants, the majority of which are affirmative gearing covenants. Focusing on the institutional differences between the UK and the US, the paper examines relationships between the presence of accounting-based covenants and (a) characteristics of the issuing firm, and (b) other control mechanisms included in the debt agreement. UK firms raising public debt are of good credit quality and UK insolvency procedures afford unambiguous protection to secured creditors. As a result, accounting-based covenants are associated with long-term unsecured debt and with firms having high values for assets-in-place but, in contrast with US findings, are unrelated to gearing. Convertibility appears to reduce the need for accounting-based covenants, especially when the debt is also subordinated. The relationship between accounting- based covenants and security depends on the nature of the security (fixed or floating). Longer term non-convertible debt agreements are, therefore, particularly likely to contain covenants that could influence management's accounting behaviour. This paper provides a starting point for further research into these issues.     

The Management of Foreign Exchange Risk in UK Multinationals: An Empirical Investigation

This paper reports the results of an empirical study undertaken during 1988 into how UK multinational corporations try to manage their foreign exchange exposures. The paper concludes, with reservations due to the limited nature of the study, that accounting exposure was managed actively by the majority of respondents, that transaction exposure management was seen as the Centrepiece of their foreign exchange risk management, and that the management of economic exposure was subject to very heterogeneous practices. Further, the surveyed MNCs showed a lower degree of centralisation than could have been expected on the basis of the relevant literature, and the majority of respondents described their companies as ‘totally risk averse’.     

The Choice Between Equity and Debt: An Empirical Study

This empirical study of security issues by UK companies between 1959 and 1974 focuses on how companies select between financing instruments at a given point in time. It throws light on a number of interesting questions. First, it demonstrates that companies are heavily influenced by market conditions and the past history of security prices in choosing between debt and equity. Second, it provides evidence that companies appear to make their choice of financing instrument as if they have target levels of debt in mind. Finally, the results are consistent with the notion that these target debt levels are themselves a function of company size, bankruptcy risk, and asset composition.     

The Review Report: An Empirical Investigation

A laboratory study was used to investigate two questions of relevance to the expectations gap: (1) what differences do the users of financial statements perceive between an audit and a review?, and (2) what impact does changing the format of the audit report from the short form wording used in the UK prior to September 1993 to an expanded version (based on the expanded US audit report) have on these perceptions? Results of investigating (1) indicate that users perceive a number of differences between the audit and the review. Results of investigating (2) demonstrate that expansion of the audit report increases the number of differences perceived by users. The paper goes on to discuss the results in the context of the differences between an audit and a review suggested by IFAC guidelines. It was found that, in a number of respects, IFAC guidelines are inconsistent with user perceptions irrespective of the expansion of the audit report. The implication for audit policy is that any proposal to promote the use of reviews in the UK should address this inconsistency either by reappraising and refining IFAC's guidance on the review and/or by sharpening user perceptions of the review through careful wording of both the review and the audit reports.     

Valuing Commercial Mortgages: An Empirical Investigation of the Contingent-Claims Approach to Pricing Risky Debt

This paper empirically investigates a contingent-claims model of commercial mortgage pricing. We find that the magnitude of the observed default premia for a sample of nonprepayable fixed rate bullet mortgages can be explained by the contingent-claims model. In addition, the model explains a significant proportion of the period-to-period changes in the default premia. However, given an assumed negative correlation between building value changes and interest rate changes, the model's risk structure tends to increase less steeply with increasing maturity than the observed risk structure.     

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.     

An Empirical Investigation of Determinants of Audit Reports in the UK

Prior studies of audit reporting in the UK only analyse either very small, private companies, or large listed companies. In addition, these studies focus on narrowly defined types of modified audit reports, respectively the 'small company' audit qualification, and going‐concern related modifications. In contrast, this paper employs a multinomial logit model to analyse the determinants of both going‐concern and non going‐concern related audit modifications, including modifications for disagreements and limitations on scope. Furthermore, this paper analyses reports over a wide range of both private and public (listed and non‐listed) companies. The determinants of audit reports are shown to differ between different types of audit modification. In addition, subsidiary companies hiring large auditors are significantly less likely to receive non going‐concern related modifications, whereas non‐subsidiary companies hiring large auditors are significantly more likely to receive going‐concern related modifications.     

我国人寿保险信托制度创新初探

目前,我国信托和保险的合作仅限于保险企业参股信托公司以及利用信托拓宽保险资金运用渠道,在合作开发创新性金融产品方面还未取得很大进展。人寿保险信托作为一种结合保险与信托功能的创新型金融业务,具有保障未成年受益人合法权益、资产管理以及避税等功能,是保险业与信托业合作的新途径,在国外已得到广泛研究和发展。在我国目前的金融监管环境和金融机构发展水平下,建立人寿保险信托制度不存在法律障碍,可以采用"保险中介"型的运作模式,由保险公司为保险信托提供中介服务,信托公司担任受托人,最终实现保险客户、保险公司和信托公司三赢的局面。     

Nonlinear Drift And Stochastic Volatility: An Empirical Investigation Of Short-Term Interest Rate Models

In this article I provide new evidence on the role of nonlinear drift and stochastic volatility in interest rate modeling. I compare various model specifications for the short‐term interest rate using the data from five countries. I find that modeling the stochastic volatility in the short rate is far more important than specifying the shape of the drift function. The empirical support for nonlinear drift is weak with or without the stochastic volatility factor. Although a linear drift stochastic volatility model fits the international data well, I find that the level effect differs across countries.     

Managers,Owners, and The Pricing of Risky Debt: An Empirical Analysis

This article examines managerial ownership structure and return premia on corporate bonds. It is argued that when managerial ownership is low, an increase in managerial ownership increases management's incentives to increase stockholder wealth at the expense of bondholder wealth. When ownership increases more, however, it is argued that management becomes more risk averse, with incentives more closely aligned with bondholders. This study finds a positive relation between managerial ownership and bond return premia in the low to medium (5 to 25 percent) ownership range. There is also weak evidence for a nonpositive relation in the large (over 25 percent) ownership range.     

The Information Content Of Calls Of Debt: Evidence From Long-Run Stock Returns

We examine the long‐run performance of the common stock of firms following calls of both straight and convertible debt from 1945 to 1995. Using a sample of 718 calls of straight debt, we find an average abnormal return in the five years following the call of between 0.16% and 0.34% per month, which compounds to an economically and statistically significant 11% to 22% over the five‐year period. This evidence of overperformance following calls shows a distinct symmetry between the straight debt and equity markets. Issues of debt and equity are both followed by long‐term underperformance, whereas stock repurchases and debt calls are both followed by long‐run overperformance. For our sample of 713 calls of convertible debt, we find little systematic evidence of abnormal performance following the call. Some researchers suggest that calls of convertible debt provide negative signals to the market. Our results provide no support for this claim. In contrast, our evidence of marginal positive long‐run returns provides weak support for the model that calls of convertible debt signal the realization of profitable investment options, and for the price pressure hypothesis.     

债转股企业经营业绩实证分析

随着债转股企业从改制阶段向股权管理阶段的过渡,债转股政策的效果、债转股企业的经营业绩倍受关注.通过对样本企业三年多的相关财务资料进行经营业绩实证分析,得出了债转股企业的经营现状和政策效果等相关结果,并提出了今后的政策建议.     

Housing Price Dispersion: An Empirical Investigation

The efficiency of a market is challenged when price dispersion occurs. Previous studies focused on non-durable consumption goods. This study extends the analysis to the case of residential property, whose transactions are dominated by a second-hand market with many potential buyers and sellers. We demonstrate that housing price dispersion exists, and the degree of dispersion changes systematically with some macroeconomic factors, though the second and the third moment of the price distribution react differently to the macroeconomic variables. Some directions for future research are suggested.     

金融生态环境、负债的治理效应与债务重组:经验证据

本文研究金融生态环境、负债的治理效应与上市公司以债务人身份发生债务重组的关系,利用2001—2004年上市公司的数据研究发现,金融生态环境越差的地区的公司更可能发生债务重组;金融生态环境较好地区的上市公司的财务杠杆水平与债务重组之间的正相关关系更弱。这意味着,切实改善金融生态环境,提高金融机构等的经营独立性和信贷风险控制能力,促进公司负债发挥治理效应是非常重要的。本文还发现,存在机构投资者股东、高管持股比例更高和独立董事比例更高的公司更少可能发生债务重组,上市年龄越长的公司更可能发生债务重组。认为发展机构投资者,提高董事会的独立性和适当提高经理人基于股权的激励,并改进资本市场关于IPO公司质量审核的制度安排,可提高上市公司质量。     

The Choice of Debt Source by UK Firms

We examine the choice of borrowing source among public debt, syndicated bank loans, bilateral bank loans and non‐bank private debt. Using a sample of 400 non‐financial firms over the period 2000–2012, we find strong support for the reputational theory of borrowing source. Larger firms are more likely to borrow in public debt markets. Bank dependent firms are less likely to borrow in public debt markets and choose between bank and non‐bank private debt based on maturity, collateral available to lenders and other firm characteristics. These results are consistent with the role of borrower reputation being the primary determinant of borrowing source for UK listed firms.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Pricing of Collateralized Debt Obligations

We use the information in collateralized debt obligations (CDO) prices to study market expectations about how corporate defaults cluster. A three‐factor portfolio credit model explains virtually all of the time‐series and cross‐sectional variation in an extensive data set of CDX index tranche prices. Tranches are priced as if losses of 0.4%, 6%, and 35% of the portfolio occur with expected frequencies of 1.2, 41.5, and 763 years, respectively. On average, 65% of the CDX spread is due to firm‐specific default risk, 27% to clustered industry or sector default risk, and 8% to catastrophic or systemic default risk.     

江西粮食生产周期实证分折

从1978-2002年江西省粮食生产情况看,江西粮食生产有明显周期性,不仅与自然因素有关,还与粮食生产条件、粮食市场发展和政府支农措施等密切相关,只有采取有力措施,熨平粮食生产周期性波动,才能保持粮食生产的稳定协调发展.     

Mutual Fund Advisory Contracts: An Empirical Investigation

We investigate marginal compensation rates in mutual fund advisory contracts and find the following. Equity and foreign fund advisors receive higher marginal compensation than debt and domestic fund advisors. Advisors of funds with greater turnover receive higher marginal compensation. Also, closed-end fund advisors receive higher marginal compensation than open-end fund advisors. Finally, we find that marginal compensation is lower for advisors of large funds and members of large fund families. We argue that these differences in marginal compensation reflect differences in advisor marginal product, differences in the difficulty of monitoring performance, differences in control environments, and scale economies.     

International Arbitrage Pricing Theory: An Empirical Investigation

In this paper, we test the arbitrage pricing theory (APT) in an international setting. Inter-battery factor analysis is used to estimate the international common factors and the Chow test is used in testing the validity of the APT. Our inter-battery factor analysis results show that the number of common factors between a pair of countries ranges from one to five, and our cross-sectional test results lead us to reject the joint hypothesis that the international capital market is integrated and that the APT is internationally valid. Our results, however, do not rule out the possibility that the APT holds locally or regionally in segmented capital markets. Finally, the basic results of both the inter-battery factor analysis and the cross-sectional tests are largely invariant to the numeraire currency chosen.