Investment in a New Technology as a Signal of Firm Value Under Regulatory Opportunism

We examine the question of whether a regulated firm that makes a long-term investment in infrastructure can credibly signal its private information regarding the future demand for its output to the capital market. We show that necessary conditions for a separating equilibrium in which the magnitude of investment signals high future demand may include a low degree of managerial myopia, large variability of future demand, a lenient regulatory climate, and low sunk cost. Our model suggests that in estimating valuation models of regulated firms it is important to separate firms into two groups: firms for which a separating equilibrium is likely to obtain and firms for which the equilibrium is likely to be pooling. The market value of a firm in the first group is positively correlated with its level of investment, but uncorrelated with the level of actual demand, whereas for the second group the opposite holds.     

Disclosure Policy in a Mixed Market

This paper investigates the optimal disclosure strategy for private information in a mixed duopoly market, where a state-owned enterprise (SOE) and a joint-stock company compete to supply products. I construct a model where the two firms compete in either quantity or price, and uncertainty is associated with either marginal cost or market demand. The model identifies the optimal disclosure strategies that constitute a perfect Bayesian equilibrium by type of competition and uncertainty. In Cournot competition, both firms disclose information under cost uncertainty, while only the SOE or neither firm discloses information under demand uncertainty. Alternatively, in Bertrand competition, only the joint-stock company discloses information under cost uncertainty or demand uncertainty. Recently, developed countries have required the same level of disclosure standards for SOEs as for ordinary joint-stock companies. The findings described in this paper warn that such mandatory disclosure by SOEs can trigger a reaction by joint-stock companies, putting the economy at risk of a reduction in welfare.     

EPA enforcement,firm response strategies,and stockholder wealth: an empirical examination

We investigate the effect of EPA pollution control enforcement activities and firm response strategies on stockholders' wealth. We find that the market reacts negatively upon learning that the firm has been targeted, and that losing a contest with the EPA is very costly to stockholders. Apparently firms are not expected to recover a significant part of pollution control costs from their customers. Somewhat surprisingly, losses are only weakly related to the presence of (unregulated) foreign competition, suggesting that untargeted domestic competitors may restrain cost recovery. Our analysis also indicates that firms may benefit by cooperating with the EPA; i.e., compliant strategies reduce (but don't avoid) wealth losses. The losses of firms that settle are about 40% less than those of firms that fight and lose, and we find no evidence of value gains for firms that fight and win. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

投资者认知、审计质量与公司价值

投资者认知是决定市场资源配置的重要因素,认知水平越高,公司价值越大。审计作为一种降低信息不对称的制度安排,能够影响公司信息传递,进而正向调节认知效应;审计还具有缓解代理冲突的功能,而代理成本与审计质量存在对应关系,因此审计质量也体现为对认知效应的负向调节。我国股市目前主要体现为后一种情况,表明审计提升公司价值的主要路径是缓解公司的代理冲突,公司对高质量审计的需求动机远比满足投资者信息需求的动机更为强烈。聘用大型事务所能够向市场投资者传递积极信号,对认知提升公司价值的效应有正向调节作用。审计模式选择需要考虑公司的信息传递特征,并与投资者对公司的认知水平相契合。     

Spillover effects within supply chains: Evidence from Chinese-listed firms

There is increasing attention on information transfers along supply chain partners for firm (extreme) events. This growing literature finds spillover effects following certain types of firm events. Using data from credit rating actions of Chinese-listed firms over the period between March 2007 and May 2020, we examine the spillover effects of supply chains by focusing on the market reactions of event firms to the action announcements. We find strong evidence of spillover effects driven by the market reactions of event firms, which are enhanced through information diffusion channels as supply chain partners receive more investor attention. Moreover, the effects are stronger when event firms' market reactions are negative, event firms are non-stated-owned, the industry concentration of event firms is higher, or the supplier-customer business relationship is closer. Overall, these findings highlight the role of investor attention and network characteristics in supply chain spillovers.     

The Stewardship Role of Analyst Forecasts,and Discretionary Versus Non-discretionary Accruals

We examine the interaction between discretionary and non-discretionary accruals in a stewardship setting. Contracting includes multiple rounds of renegotiation based on contractible accounting information and non-contractible but more timely non-accounting information. We show that accounting regulation aimed at increasing earnings quality from a valuation perspective (earnings persistence) may have a significant impact on how firms rationally respond in terms of allowing accrual discretion in order to alleviate the impact on the stewardship role of earnings. Increasing the precision of more timely non-accounting information (analyst earnings forecasts) increases the ex ante value of the firm and reduces costly earnings management. There is an optimal level of reversible non-discretionary accrual noise introduced through revenue recognition policies. Tight rules-based accounting regulation, as opposed to leaving firms more choice over non-discretionary accrual policies, may lead firms to rationally respond by inducing costly earnings management. More generally, regulating both earnings persistence and the tightness of admissible auditing policies may not result in less equilibrium earnings management.     

Are small firms really credit constrained? Empirical evidence from Kosova

This article uses firm level data from an SME survey conducted by Riinvest Institute in 2006 in order to examine the determinants of obtaining bank finance conditional upon applying. The results of the survey show that not all the firms receive credit they apply for, suggesting a slight excess of demand over supply of credit. Unlike some other studies in transition economies this article corrects for sample selection bias. Econometric evidence indicates that commercial banks base their decision to loan firms primarily on the basis of collateral. Well performing firms are more likely to ask for credit because of better business prospects in the future, but profitability as a measure of firm performance does not seem to be sufficient signaling for banks in order to allocate credits. Banks seems to prefer more to secure themselves from likely opportunistic behavior of potentially “bad borrowers” with use of collateral. Findings are in line with theoretical and empirical arguments that systematic use of collateral can mitigate the adverse selection by banks in choosing whom to allocate the credit especially in country with turbulent political environment and weak property right system. However, unlike other studies findings suggest that the rhetoric of financial constraints to some extent has been exaggerated in a transition context.     

Knowledge capital,CEO power,and firm value: Evidence from the IT industry

Disruptive innovation dramatically changes the demand of a product market in the information technology (IT) industry. In response to the impact of disruptive innovation, IT firms that may be eliminated from the competitive race actively develop innovative products and adjust their operating strategies to strengthen their survivability in the fiercely competitive market. Thus, this study explores the factors that affect firm value in the IT industry under the impact of disruptive innovation. The empirical results reveal that knowledge capital and CEO power play crucial roles in explaining firm value. IT firms with powerful CEOs and increased knowledge capital have high firm values. The effects of knowledge capital and CEO power on firm value are especially significant for founder and duality CEO firms. Furthermore, the influence of CEO power is more prominent in periods of financial crisis.     

寡头竞争型审计市场的培育及其影响分析

本文运用新制度经济学原理,借鉴注册会计师职业发达国家的经验,提出我国应该借助非市场力量推动注册会计师事务所的合并,在审计市场上培育寡头型事务所,从而强化审计师的独立性,提高审计质量。寡头竞争型的审计市场并没有扼制事务所之间的竞争,而是将部分竞争行为内部化,提升了审计市场竞争的层次和水平,即寡头型事务所在审计服务质量、服务效率和服务深度上进行更为有效的竞争。     

Licensing and innovation with imperfect contract enforcement

Licensing promotes technology transfer and innovation, but enforcement of licensing contracts is often imperfect. We model contract enforcement as a game with perfect information but probabilistic enforcement and explore the implications of weak enforcement on the design of licensing contracts, the conduct of firms, and market performance. An upstream firm develops a technology that it can license to downstream firms using a fixed fee and a per‐unit royalty. Strictly positive per‐unit royalties maximize the licensor's profit if competition among licensees limits joint profits. With imperfect enforcement, the licensor lowers variable royalties to avoid cheating. Although imperfect contract enforcement reduces the profits of the licensor, weak enforcement lowers prices, increases downstream innovation, and in some circumstances can increase total economic welfare.     

Markup Pricing and the Auto Industry: A Partial Explanation of Stagflation in an Oligopolistic Economy

A bstract . Price leadership firms and especially wage leadership unions frequently are not operating at points of maximization in the neoclassical sense, because contrived high level demand has brought low price consciousness or elasticity of demand for their commodities or services. Accordingly, they can get higher profits or wages anytime they choose to raise their price except during severe recession. If output falls as a consequence, goveniment and the central hank have stood ready to expand total spending. The contrived high demand has interacted with oligopolistic practices to obviate the distinction between elasticity for the firm and that of its industry, with empirical studies showing demand elasticity commonly not much above unity. The automobile industry is the focus of attention in this study. It appears that stable and high employment market capitalism no longer is possible, because at a minimum t requires generalized maximization behavior, which involves operation against constraining supply and demand parameters.     

Misallocation,informality, and human capital: Understanding the role of institutions

The aim of this paper is to quantify the role of formal-sector institutions in shaping the demand for human capital and the level of informality. We propose a firm dynamics model where firms face capital market imperfections and costs of operating in the formal sector. Formal firms have a larger set of production opportunities and the ability to employ skilled workers, but informal firms can avoid the costs of formalization. These firm-level distortions give rise to endogenous formal and informal sectors and, more importantly, affect the demand for skilled workers. The model predicts that countries with a low degree of debt enforcement and high costs of formalization are characterized by relatively lower stocks of skilled workers, larger informal sectors, low allocative efficiency, and measured TFP. Moreover, we find that the interaction between entry costs and financial frictions (as opposed to the sum of their individual effects) is the main driver of these differences. This complementarity effect derives from the introduction of skilled workers, which prevents firms from substituting labor for capital and in turn moves them closer to the financial constraint.     

Does environmental law enforcement matter for financial reporting quality?

The Chinese government’s recent Environmental Inspection Program (EIP) eliminates a layer of regulatory actions and holds local government officials accountable for enforcement of environmental laws. We examine two aspects of the impact of the EIP on financial reporting quality. First, we derive a simple analytical model to show that the level of earnings management (EM) depends on the cost and probability of EM detection. This increase in environmental law enforcement (due to the EIP) raises the cost of environmental violation to a firm and managers. To respond to the increased costs, a firm engages in less EM. Second, consistent with the model prediction, we find firms subject to the EIP engage in less EM than otherwise equivalent firms located in non-EIP jurisdictions. The effect of the EIP on EM is more pronounced for firms with adverse agency problems and poor internal controls. Additional analysis suggests that air quality level is a moderating factor for the impact of the EIP on EM. Collectively, using the natural experiment of the EIP, we find a new determinant of EM. Environmental law enforcement deters EM and enhances financial reporting quality.     

Adherence to environmental law: the strategic complementarities of compliance decisions

In this paper we address why firms comply with environmental regulations when enforcement is weak by suggesting that firms choose their level of environmental compliance strategically. Our theoretical model shows that compliance decisions among firms are strategic complements—increased compliance by one firm will positively influence the compliance rate of its rival. In our empirical analysis we find that the compliance rates of other regulated entities have a positive and significant effect on a regulated source's compliance behavior in three of our four heavily regulated industries. If compliance decisions are strategic complements, this may partially explain high compliance rates in the presence of limited regulatory pressure.     

Quotas,Productivity, and Prices: The Case of Anchovy Fishing

I exploit a 2009 reform that introduced individual fishing quotas (catch shares) for Peruvian anchovy—the largest fishery in the world—to assess the causal impact of production quotas on within‐firm productivity and market prices. Unique features of the data allow me to create two alternative counterfactuals: (i) anchovy fishing operations in a region of the country that was mandated to implement quotas with a delay, and (ii) variation in quota allocations across ships. I find that quotas do not increase within‐asset or within‐firm productivity in quantities. Instead, a 200% increase in anchovy prices benefits extraction firms through higher revenues, consistent with two mechanisms enacted by individual fishing quotas: more orderly industry operations reducing excess supply and an increase in bargaining power of extraction firms with respect to fish‐processing. Several market characteristics across geographies differentially affect market prices after the quota regime. Supplementary evidence on fewer operational infractions, higher product quality, and a lower banking delinquency observed during the quota regime suggests the existence of efficiency gains rather than purely rent transfers.     

Disclosure Regulation in Duopoly Markets: Proprietary Costs and Social Welfare

Abstract

The argument of proprietary costs is commonly used by firms to object against proposed disclosure regulations. The goal of this paper is to improve our understanding of the welfare consequences of disclosure in duopoly markets and to identify market settings where proprietary costs are a viable argument for firms to remain silent. We, therefore, solve the optimal disclosure strategies and distinguish two different potentially costly effects of disclosing private information: the strategic information effect and the market information effect. We identify the market settings for which a regulator prefers to impose disclosure regulation so as to maximise consumer surplus or total surplus. Regulation may be necessary because (i) the increase in welfare outweighs proprietary costs to the firms, or (ii) firms are trapped in a prisoners' dilemma. The first primarily applies to Bertrand competition with demand uncertainty and, to a lesser extent, to Cournot competition. The second applies primarily to Cournot competition and Bertrand competition with cost uncertainty.     

Debt financing,first-mover advantage,and vertical product differentiation

This paper examines the impact of the strategic use of debt financing as a commitment device, in a vertically differentiated duopoly with demand uncertainty. We consider various possible game sequences for two firms with asymmetric financial structures to enter the market. The results show that (i) having access to external debt does not necessarily promote the firm to provide a higher quality product; (ii) strategic debt improves the degree of product differentiation and benefits both firms; and (iii) a firm's optimal debt level is positively related to the first-mover advantage of introducing its product to the market.     

A Positive Theory of Moral Management, Social Pressure, and Corporate Social Performance

This paper provides a theory of firm behavior motivated by moral duty, self-interest, and social pressure. A morally managed and a self-interested firm compete in a market in which their corporate social performance (CSP) provides product differentiation. Some citizens have altruistic or warm glow preferences for products with associated CSP, personal giving to social causes, holding shares in firms providing CSP, and contributing to social pressure to increase CSP. Social pressure is delivered by an activist NGO funded by voluntary contributions by citizens. The model characterizes an equilibrium in the product market, the capital market, and the market for social pressure. The equilibrium establishes a price for CSP and for activist-induced social pressure. The theory provides predictions of the market values of firms, the prices of products, firm profits, target selection, contributions to the activist, and the amount of CSP supplied. For example, if citizens do not distinguish between morally motivated CSP and CSP induced by social pressure, the activist is more likely to target the softer, morally motivated firm. Higher quality activists are better funded, target self-interested firms, and obtain greater corporate social performance. Lower quality activists target morally managed firms.     

Corporate social responsibility,durable‐goods and firm profitability

Utilizing a two‐period durable‐goods framework, we show that in uncommitted sales markets a firm may earn higher profits as it increases its level of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that this occurs even though CSR has no direct impact other than increasing the durable‐goods firm's manufacturing costs. We show that in sales markets, CSR may allow the firm to credibly commit itself to lower production in the future. This, in turn, can enhance their profits even though the CSR activities are costly and provide no direct demand or marketing benefit in our model. This is important because it provides another, hereto unexplored, strategic rationale for the willingness of profit‐maximizing firms to undertake costly CSR activities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effectiveness of quality standards regulation considering the behavior of government and firms

We construct an analysis framework consisting of the central government, a local government, a representative firm, and consumers. This study analyzes how the local government's enforcement, the firm's compliance, and their interaction influence the effectiveness of regulation after the central government has established policies regarding quality standards. We construct three scenarios: perfect enforcement, imperfect enforcement, and collusion. We show that when the local government imperfectly enforces the regulation, the firm's utility and the local government's utility are higher, whereas the degree of the firm's compliance, consumers' utility, and the level of social welfare are lower. When there is collusion between the local government and the firm, the firm's utility and the local government's utility are the highest, but the degree of the firm's compliance, consumers' utility, and the level of social welfare are the lowest among the different scenarios. This study proves that the behavior of governments and firms plays a vital role in the effectiveness of quality standards regulation.