Corporate governance and investment-cash flow sensitivity: Evidence from Russian unlisted firms

This paper investigates how corporate governance of unlisted firms in an emerging market economy affects financing constraints, measured by the sensitivity of investment to cash flow. In order to evaluate the quality of corporate governance, we develop two corporate governance indices based on a large-scale survey of Russian enterprises – one for shareholder protection and one for transparency. We estimate standard investment regressions where the cash flow variable is interacted with our corporate governance indices and variables capturing the ownership structure. The central result is that better shareholder protection diminishes the cash flow sensitivity of investment, particularly in firms with an outside controlling owner. In contrast, we do not find such an effect for transparency, which can be partially explained by the threat of hostile takeovers. We address the problem of the endogeneity of corporate governance by using fixed-effects regressions and a novel instrumental variable based on particular legal provisions for corporate governance in Russia depending on the number of shareholders.     

Do concentrated shareholdings mitigate the agency problem of “free cash flow”? some evidence

It is often argued that corporate managers tend to waste “free cash flow”. While the standard Berle-Means approach to corporate agency problems suggests that this behavior should be restricted to firms with atomistic shareholders, it is argued here that the effect of concentrated share ownership on the decision to disgorge “free cash flow” is ambiguous because concentrated ownership can blunt the disciplinary effect of a hostile takeover threat. The decision to pay out free cash flow in a sample of large U.S. corporations is found to be unrelated to the size of managerial, family or institutional blockholdings. This suggests that large shareholders are of no use in resolving the free cash flow problem, or that the importance of free cash flow as a source of agency problems has been greatly exaggerated.     

企业社会责任、现金股利与投资效率

本文选择我国2008-2016年沪深两市的A股上市公司作为研究样本,首先实证检验了企业承担社会责任对企业现金股利分配的影响。研究结果表明,社会责任表现越好的企业其更倾向于派发或连续派发现金股利,并且现金股利支付率越高。接下来本文对企业发放现金股利与投资效率的关系进行了研究。研究表明,企业发放现金股利通过减少企业的自由现金流抑制代理问题,缓解了自由现金流富余的企业的过度投资,连续派现向市场传递出的积极信号为企业带来新的融资,缓解了自由现金流紧缺的企业的投资不足。最后,本文进一步研究了企业社会责任在现金股利与投资效率的相关关系中发挥了何种调节作用,研究结果显示企业通过履行社会责任增加现金股利的发放,进而可以显著提高现金股利对过度投资的抑制作用。履行社会责任的企业更倾向于连续派现,从而提高了现金股利对投资不足的缓解程度。     

ANTITAKEOVER MEASURES…OBSTRUCTIONS TO THE MARKET FOR CORPORATE CONTROL? COMMENT ON POULSEN and JARRELL

Poulsen and Jarrell (hereafter PJ) review the literature on hostile takeovers and conclude that such takeovers are beneficial to society in general and to shareholders of the target firm in particular. Their prediction that a coalition of corporate and community leaders will eventually succeed in neutralizing hostile bids does not bode well for the market for corporate control. Despite their assertion as to the social cost of antitakeover measures either regulated by the states or implemented by incumbent management of target firms, PJ do not support intervention to limit abusive practices of target firms.     

Effect of political connections on corporate financial constraints: new evidence from privatization in China

Taking advantage of the SOEs privatization events in China, our research looks to identify the causal effect of political connections on corporate financial constraints. In a difference-in-differences framework, we demonstrate that after the transfer of control from state to private owners, privatized SOEs hoard more cash, save more cash from incremental cash flow, and exhibit higher cash flow sensitivity of investment.     

自由现金流量和债务控制假说检验--来自中国上市公司审计费用的经验证据

本研究在控制相关变量下,采用oLs经验检查自由现金流量和审计费用之问的关系,从审计费用视角检验自由现金流量假说和债务控制假说。本研究提供的经验证据表明：（1）自由现金流量和审计费用显著正相关．验证了自由现金流量假说。（2）债务控制效应在中国没有发挥应有的作用,我们从中国的制度角度对这一现象进行了解释;（3）行业特征、公司规模、公司业务复杂性、资产流动性是影响审计费用的重要因素。（4）速动比率和盈利能力对审计费用的影响不显著。     

Firm investment and financial conditions in the euro area: evidence from firm-level data

We explore whether the sensitivity of firm-level investment to cash flow, typically associated with an external financing premium, is time-varying and in particular whether it varies with overall financial conditions. We find that financial conditions have indeed played a significant role in corporate investment decisions over recent years, rendering financing constraints even more binding. This finding appears to be robust to a number of control variables and robustness tests. Moreover, the impact of credit conditions is not uniform across firms, but rather it varies depending on firm size and leverage, with constrained firms being substantially more likely to condition their investment decisions on overall credit conditions. Our results cast new light on the interplay between financial and real cycle downturns and underline the need for monetary, fiscal and macroprudential policy to be countercyclical with respect to financial conditions.     

企业并购对财务风险的影响——基于管理者过度自信视角的实证研究

基于行为财务理论,从管理者过度自信的视角,构建回归模型分析了管理者过度自信对企业并购进而对财务风险的影响,并利用2010—2012年发布年度业绩预告的我国沪深两市上市公司的数据进行实证检验。研究结果表明:管理者过度自信与企业并购活动之间不存在显著关系;当企业自由现金流量充裕时,过度自信的管理者会实施更多的并购活动,而这些并购活动会加大企业的财务风险。     

终极控制权、法律环境与公司财务风险——来自我国民营上市公司的证据

以我国2004-2008年民营上市公司为研究对象,从终极控制人的视角,研究了终极控制权、法律环境及其相互作用对公司财务风险的影响.研究表明:终极控制股东现金流权与公司财务风险负相关.终极控制股东控制权与现金流权的分离加重了其对上市公司进行"掏空"获取私有收益的行为,加重了公司财务风险,两权分离程度与公司财务风险正相关.较高的地区法治水平能够有效遏制控股股东的"掏空"行为,上市公司所处的法律环境越好,其财务风险就越小.法律环境的改善不仅有助于直接降低公司财务风险,还有助于减轻由终极控制股东两权分离所导致的财务风险.     

Waste disclosure and corporate cash holdings

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we address an important and emerging question: Can firms’ voluntary waste disclosure affect corporate cash holdings? Using a sample of S&P 500 firms, we find strong evidence for a positive relationship between waste disclosure and the cash holding policy of firms. Furthermore, we find that waste disclosure significantly increases cash holdings only for firms with strong corporate governance quality. We also find that the significant relationship between waste disclosure and cash holdings remains unchanged only for firms that operate in environmentally sensitive industries. Our paper provides novel evidence on the role of voluntary waste disclosure as an environmental dimension that influences the cash policy of firms and highlights the little-known issue of waste disclosure as a significant research topic.     

论股票回购影响企业价值的路径

本文认为,股票回购是成熟资本市场上上市公司一种常用的财务工具,而在我国却未能得到足够的重视。股票回购影响企业价值主要有四种路径。研究股票回购对于规划财务战略、完善公司治理、优化资本结构、改善公司业绩、防御敌意收购、推行员工激励计划、积极引导股价具有重要的现实意义。     

The Influence of Financial Factors on Corporate Investment

Abstract
Recent theoretical developments have shown that cash flows and the structure of a firm's balance sheet may have an important influence on investment. Establishing a link between cash flows, leverage and investment provides insights into the way that monetary policy and cyclical factors more generally influence the corporate sector. If cash flows are an important determinant of investment then changes in monetary policy (by changing interest rates) will influence investment through a cash flow effect as well as through altering the rate at which the returns to investment are discounted. If this is the case, the higher leverage of the corporate sector implies, other things being equal, that monetary policy may have a larger impact on investment than in the past .
In this article we use panel-data analysis to examine the impact of financial factors on investment decisions of firms in the Australian corporate sector. We find strong support for the influence of financial factors on investment decisions. Leverage, internally generated cash flows, and the stock of cash and liquid financial assets are all important influences on investment behaviour, particularly for smaller firms, highly leveraged firms, and firms with high retention ratios .     

Commercial corporate governance ratings: an alternative view of their use and impact

The rise in the popularity of commercial corporate governance ratings is at once a source of dismay and a cause for alarm: the former because they do not appear to give accurate predictions of corporate performance and the latter because they add to the pressure on corporations to adapt their governance structures to a benchmark model that takes no account of the conditions in which they operate. This paper gives an alternative view of the potential use and impact of the commercially marketed governance ratings. It argues that their importance to institutional investors lies in providing them with information that accurately summarises corporate loyalty to shareholders rather than accurately predicts corporate performance. It goes on to argue that the commercial governance ratings can bring benefits to an economy by contributing to a new type of managerial control mechanism that is not only more efficient than hostile takeovers and stock options but also helps to reduce the governance role of these instruments.     

中国企业投资与内部融资敏感性影响因素分析——来自中国制造行业上市公司的证据

以中国制造行业的上市公司为样本，研究投资一现金流敏感性的影响因素结果表明：投资支出对现金流很敏感，以企业规模作为度量融资约束的变量，未能支持融资约束影响投资与现金流敏感性的观点，以股利支付率作为度量融资约束的变量，检验结果为融资约束越强，投资与现金流敏感性程度越高的观点提供了证据。投资一现金流敏感性主要是信息不对称引起的融资约束所致。     

PAYOUT POLICY OF JAPANESE FIRMS: ANALYSIS ON THE SURVEY OF FOUR INDUSTRIES LISTED ON THE TOKYO STOCK EXCHANGE

Abstract.  This study reports the results of a 2007 survey of corporate managers' views on payout policy on Japanese firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange from four industries. The findings show that firms attach more importance to stable dividends than to performance linked dividends and they believe that dividends should be paid after investment spending and strengthening of the balance sheet are met. The reasons for an increase in dividends in recent years is due to consideration of fair returns to shareholders and of preventing hostile takeovers. This is a change from the traditional view on payout policy.     

Formation of the non‐state sector and privatisation in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

In this paper, we take a detailed look at one Polish bank's experiences with financial sector reforms focusing on a bank-led enterprise-restructuring plan that linked directly bank privatization and recapitalization to bad-debt workouts. Based on personal interviews and original statistical data, we evaluate the performance of Bank Depozytowo-Kredytowy (BDK) in promoting financial and operational restructuring of its clients. We found that BDK continued to provide soft lending to keep four old military‐industrial companies afloat and actually increased its exposure to these companies during the program. The five success stories among BDK's clients were companies that had external agents other than the bank promoting and monitoring their operational restructuring. From our case study of BDK, we conclude that, while banks may play a role in financial restructuring of their clients, their ability to affect operational restructuring is quite limited. Moreover, stateowned banks are particularly vulnerable to incentive problems when dealing with large state-owned enterprises that may be too big or too political to fail.     

Adoption and use of technology with low litigation risk – the case of financial reporting on Twitter by ASX companies

ABSTRACT

Corporate adoption of technology faces challenges such as resource constraints and litigation risk. To investigate if low litigation risk encourages technology adoption and its use, this paper investigates corporate financial reporting on Twitter, a voluntary corporate disclosure practice without obvious litigation risk in Australia. This study reviews 4,540 financial reporting related tweets from 222 ASX listed companies’ Twitter accounts. An examination of tweet sentiment reveals a positive reporting bias, as listed companies are more willing to disclose positive financial reporting information on Twitter. A comparison of corporate financial reporting tweets prior to and after 2013 reveals that use of Twitter for opportunistic voluntary disclosure is gaining popularity, a trend that warrants close attention by regulators in order to protect investors from selective disclosure with reporting bias.     

Exploring the relationship between CSR performance and financial constraints: empirical evidence from European firms

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and financial constraints. Our panel dataset consists of 397 European companies listed in the STOXX Europe 600 during 2009–2014. The findings reveal that firms with higher CSR performance exhibit lower degree of financial constraints. In addition, the link between CSR performance and financial constraints is a fully mediated relationship. The negative effect of CSR performance on financial constraints follows the path through mitigating agency conflicts of free cash flow and information asymmetry. The findings suggest that one mechanism linking CSR performance and financial constraints is a reduction of capital-market imperfections.     

企业环境业绩对财务业绩的影响分析

企业环境业绩可分为货币化的环境业绩和不能货币化的环境业绩两种类型,企业环境业绩会从财务状况、经营成果、现金流和企业价值四个方面影响企业财务业绩。因此,企业管理当局不应当仅仅重视企业财务业绩的提高,还应该注重提高其环境业绩,努力实现环境业绩与财务业绩的＂双赢＂。     

新冠肺炎疫情冲击下企业现金持有的预防价值研究

最近爆发的新冠肺炎疫情牵动着亿万民众的心,面对突如其来的疫情,企业资金面临着巨大压力。企业持有现金主要源于预防和交易动机,然而预防动机的特性决定了其在企业正常经营状态下难以直观体现,因而目前鲜有研究对企业现金持有的预防价值进行直接检验。本文以新冠肺炎疫情事件的冲击为研究切入点,通过考察不同现金持有水平的企业在面临危机冲击的市场反应,发现企业现金持有水平与事件窗口期内的累计超额收益率呈显著正相关关系,从而为现金持有的预防价值提供了更为直接的经验证据。而且,当公司受疫情冲击程度越大时,二者之间正相关关系越强。进一步发现,企业现金持有的预防价值在企业现金流压力大以及外部融资环境较差时更加凸显。本研究丰富了已有关于现金持有预防价值的相关文献,并对政府与企业应采取何种举措以应对突发事件具有一定的启示。