媒体监督能够起到外部治理的作用吗？——来自中国上市公司违规的证据

本文从中国上市公司违规频率的角度,直接研究媒体监督能否对公司治理产生影响,并挖掘其影响机制,同时详尽分析媒体监督对违规频率不同的公司的治理效果之差异,发掘出媒体监督治理作用的异质性。实证结果表明,媒体监督能够显著降低公司违规的频率,说明媒体监督确实可以起到外部治理的作用。进一步运用分位数回归模型研究发现,对于越是频繁违规的公司,媒体监督的治理效果越明显。另外还发现,媒体监督的治理效果逐年上升,说明我国媒体对上市公司的外部治理作用日益增强。最后本文还发现,媒体监督对公司治理产生作用的机制以行政介入机制为主而非声誉机制。     

投资者情绪、经理激励契约与企业投资

本文基于中国上市公司经理激励契约安排的制度背景,把经理激励契约纳入投资者非理性分析框架,就投资者情绪与经理激励契约如何相互作用影响企业投资进行了理论分析,并进行了实证检验。结果发现,高管持股会诱发高管利用投机的股市进行过度投资,而与股价弱相关的货币薪酬没有这种作用,而且经理薪酬的这种作用因企业实际控制人性质不同而有所差异。本研究表明高管持股在企业投资决策中具有负面的公司治理效应。     

媒体语气、投资者情绪与IPO定价

本文利用IPO公司在上市前不同时间段内主流财经媒体报道中的正负面词汇数据,构建了媒体语气这一度量公司层面投资者情绪的代理变量,从个股层面检验投资者情绪对IPO抑价率的影响。本文研究结果表明,相比正面媒体语气,负面媒体语气能够更好地解释IPO抑价率、首日换手率以及超募比例。具体而言,我们发现负面媒体语气与IPO抑价率、IPO超募资金比例以及承销商费用占比均显著负相关:负面语气每下降1%,IPO抑价率上升0.22%,超募资金比例提高0.13%,承销商费用占比上升1.44%。我们进一步发现发行公司和承销商有动机和激励通过媒体推介IPO公司,引导、煽动投资者情绪,从而厘清投资者情绪的影响因素以及其作用于资产价格的渠道。本文最后验证了媒体语气作为投资者情绪代理变量的可靠性。     

Influence of media coverage and sentiment on seasoned equity offerings

This article examines the role of media in seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) price and market reactions on SEO announcements. Using a sample of SEO deals in UK, we find that media coverage is significantly and negatively related to SEO price discounts and market returns around SEO announcements. Moreover, we document that more pessimistic media sentiment predicts larger SEO price discounts and more negative market reactions to SEO announcements. In summary, both media coverage and media sentiment influence investor decisions in SEOs, but through different mechanisms.     

Difference in interim performance and risk taking with short-sale constraints

Absent much theory, empirical works often rely on the following informal reasoning when looking for evidence of a mutual fund tournament: If there is a tournament, interim winners have incentives to decrease their portfolio volatility as they attempt to protect their lead, while interim losers are expected to increase their volatility so as to catch up with winners. We consider a rational model of a mutual fund tournament in the presence of short-sale constraints and find the opposite: Interim winners choose more volatile portfolios in equilibrium than interim losers. Several empirical works present evidence consistent with our model. However, based on the above informal argument, they appear to conclude against the tournament behavior. We argue that this conclusion is unwarranted. We also demonstrate that tournament incentives lead to differences in interim performance for otherwise identical managers and that mid-year trading volume is inversely related to mid-year stock return.     

Media coverage,board structure and CEO compensation: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper investigates the relationship between CEO cash compensation and media coverage of firms, analyst forecasts and board structure using data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange. We find that, other things being equal, CEO cash compensation is much higher for firms with greater media coverage, firms with more positive news, firms with more analyst forecasts, and firms with larger institutional holdings. There is little evidence that board size and board independence affect CEO cash compensation, and CEO duality is negatively associated with CEO cash compensation     

Board compensation practices and agency costs of debt

Extant theory and empirical evidence indicate that equity-based compensation can align the interests of managers with those of shareholders, but it has a side effect of aggravating bondholder-shareholder conflicts by increasing managers' risk-shifting incentives. Recent evidence confirms that extending equity-based compensation to outside directors also is effective in aligning their interests with those of shareholders, but its adverse effects on the debt-related agency problems are unknown. In this paper, we examine how stock and stock option compensation for outside directors affects corporate bond yields in the secondary market. Our results show that the greater the ratio of outside directors' stock and option compensation to total compensation, the lower the average yield spreads on the firms' outstanding bonds, with stock compensation having a larger impact than option compensation. Further, the effect of equity-based compensation on yield spreads is stronger for firms with lower-rated debt.     

Firm life cycle,corporate risk‐taking and investor sentiment

This study investigates the corporate risk‐taking and the performance consequences at different stages of the firm life cycle. We find that risk‐taking is higher in the introduction and decline stages of the life cycle, but lower in the growth and mature stages. We also find that risk‐taking during introduction and decline stage (growth and maturity stage) affects future performance adversely (positively). We also document that managerial risk‐taking propensities increase during periods of high investor sentiment and firms in different life cycle stages respond to sentiment differently. Collectively, these results suggest that the firm life cycle has explanatory power for corporate risk‐taking behaviour.     

The Effect of Tournament Incentives on Financial Restatements: Evidence From China

In this study, we examine the association between tournament incentives and financial restatements in China. Prior research documents that tournament incentives have a positive impact on firm performance. However, an alternative view suggests that tournament incentives can also have detrimental effects on firm performance. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies for the years 2008–2015, we find that tournament incentives, in the form of large pay disparities, reduce the occurrence of both core and non-core financial restatements. This negative association is more pronounced for SOEs as compared to non-SOEs. We further document that the negative association between tournament incentives and financial restatements is related to CEO turnover, and is stronger if the successor CEO is recruited from within the organization. This research contributes to a better understanding of tournament incentives, as a corporate governance mechanism, in constraining the occurrence of financial restatements in a unique institutional setting where state ownership is pronounced.