Relationships,corporate governance,and performance: Evidence from private placements of common stock

Using data from private placement contracts, we analyze relationships between investors and issuers, and their impact on corporate governance and performance. Most investors have a relationship with the issuer pre-placement and many new relationships are formed through the placement agreement. New relationships are largely governance-related (board seats and/or 5% or greater blocks), but also include key business partnerships and/or employment arrangements. We have three main findings. First, new relationships drive the positive stock price response at announcement; placements lacking new relationships are non-events. Second, investors with relationship ties to the issuer are more likely to gain directorships as part of the placement. Third, new relationships are associated with stronger post-placement profitability and stock price performance. Overall, our findings are consistent with private placements creating value when they are associated with increased monitoring and strong governance.     

Executive compensation and corporate risk-taking: Evidence from private loan contracts

We examine how management stock options affect corporate risk taking. We exploit exogenous variation in stock option grants generated by FAS 123R and use loan spreads to infer risk taking. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the spreads of loans taken by firms that did not expense options before FAS 123R (treated firms) significantly decrease after FAS 123R relative to firms that either did not issue stock options or voluntarily expensed stock options before 123R (control firms). We also find that the effect is stronger for firms with high agency conflicts associated with risk-shifting. Furthermore, loans taken by the treated firms are less likely to contain collateral requirements and are less likely to have covenants restricting capital investment post FAS 123R.     

Does good corporate governance include employee representation? Evidence from German corporate boards

Within the German corporate governance system, employee representation on the supervisory board is typically legally mandated. We propose that such representation of labor on corporate boards confers valuable first-hand operational knowledge to corporate board decision-making. Indeed, we find that labor representation provides a powerful means of monitoring and reduces agency costs within the firm. Moreover, we show that the greater the need for coordination within the firm, the greater the potential improvement there is in governance effectiveness through the judicious use of labor representation. These benefits do not appear to hold for union representatives.     

The accuracy of the tick test: Evidence from the Australian stock exchange

In the absence of information regarding whether a trade is buyer or seller initiated, many researchers have employed the ‘tick’ rule as a proxy. These researchers have been supported in their endeavours by the work of Lee and Ready (1991) which suggests that the tick rule is 90% accurate. Unfortunately, the difficulty of securing data on this issue has made Lee and Ready's paper somewhat unique in that there have been few attempts to confirm their result in US markets and no attempts in other markets. The purpose of this work is to test the robustness of their result in the Australian securities market. Using cleaner intra-day data we mimic the Lee and Ready study to cast some doubt upon the robustness of their findings in different markets. Our results suggest an overall accuracy of approximately 74% as opposed to Lee and Ready's 90%. However, accuracy in excess of 90% is documented when zero ticks are excluded. Further analysis provides evidence that a volatile or trending market will decrease the accuracy of the tick rule. It is also demonstrated that the tick rule is less likely to accurately classify seller initiated trades and small buyer initiated trades.     

Fiduciary duty or loyalty? Evidence from co-opted boards and corporate misconduct

We examine the effect of co-opted boards on corporate misconduct and document a significant positive relationship. Utilising a large sample of public U.S. companies from the period 2001 to 2015, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the proportion of co-opted directors on a board leads to a 4.3% rise in corporate misconduct. This outcome is robust to a series of sensitivity tests and continues to hold after accounting for potential endogeneity concerns. Further analyses indicate that co-opted directors propose fewer board agenda items, exhibit lower attendance at board meetings, and receive compensation packages in excess of industry norms, which exacerbate stakeholder-agency conflicts. Cross-sectional analysis demonstrates that the documented relationship is most pronounced among firms with weak external monitoring, greater CEO-board social ties, boards whose members have high career concerns, and where CEO power is low. Additional tests reveal that co-opted directors engage in more environmental- and workplace-related violations than other types of stakeholder violations. Overall, our investigation generates original evidence that the presence of co-opted directors aggravates the incidence of corporate wrongdoing. Our study contributes to the continuing debate on the role of boards of directors and has policy implications for those responsible for devising and monitoring effective systems of corporate governance.     

Intangible assets and value relevance: Evidence from the Portuguese stock exchange

We assess the value relevance of the amounts for identifiable intangible assets and goodwill reported in the financial statements of all non-finance companies listed on the main market of the Portuguese Stock Exchange from 1998 to 2008. Additionally, we use panel data to explore the impact on value relevance of Portugal’s formal adoption of International Accounting Standards [IAS] and International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS] in 2005. A distinctive feature of the accounting by our sample companies is that when they adopted IAS 38 and IFRS 3 in 2005, they were no longer required to recognise some intangible assets (such as start-up costs and research expenditures) and were no longer required to amortise goodwill.We find that net earnings, reported goodwill and other intangible assets are highly significantly associated with stock price. However, whereas earnings are related positively to stock prices when Portuguese Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) were applied prior to 2005, the value relevance of earnings appears to have declined after the adoption of IAS/IFRS in 2005. Although the change to IAS/IFRS had no impact on the value relevance of identifiable intangibles as a whole, the evidence suggests that there was a positive effect on the value relevance of goodwill. When the subclasses of identifiable intangible assets are considered, we found evidence of an increase in value relevance of goodwill, other intangible assets, and research and development expenditures.     

The effects of changes in index composition on stock prices and volume: Evidence from the Istanbul stock exchange

Previous evidence has shown that stocks included in (excluded from) an index exhibit significant positive (negative) abnormal returns on the announcement day, and that trading volume is affected by the event. This study examines the price and volume effects on stocks associated with the changes in the value-weighted index composition of two indices, of the ISE, where the index funds and index derivatives do not exist. Consistent with previous evidence, stocks included in (excluded from) the index tend to generate positive (negative) abnormal returns in ISE. Volume and volume volatility are also significantly affected. Our results seem to support the hypotheses of price-pressure, imperfect substitute and attention due to the lack of index-funds and derivatives market in Turkey.     

Multi-dimensional corporate social responsibilities and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

Worldwide, there has been an ongoing debate about whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) can lead to better financial market performance, or whether corporations can do well by doing good. Working with a sample of all listed companies in China from 2010 to 2017, this study examines the impacts of three dimensions of CSR on stock price crash risk. We find that CSR, especially firms' responsibility to the environment and stakeholders, significantly reduces stock price crash risk, while social contributions such as charitable donations have no significant effect on stock crash risk. Attracting long-term institutional investors is the primary mechanism through which CSR can curb crash risk. Mitigating earnings management is also a channel through which overall CSR and stakeholder responsibility contribute to a lower stock crash risk. Finally, we find that stakeholder responsibility and environmental responsibility can help improve stock market performance.     

Testing the transparency benefits of inflation targeting: Evidence from private sector forecasts

Using inflation forecast data for 11 IT adoption countries, IT adoption is found to promote convergence in forecast errors, suggesting that it enhances transparency. This result, which is subjected to several robustness checks and found to be robust, supports Morris and Shin's (2002) contention that better public information is most beneficial for forecasters with bad private information. However, it does not support their hypothesis that better public information could make private forecasts less accurate.     

The impact of reporting changes on hidden liquidity: Evidence from the Chicago stock exchange

This paper analyzes the NYSE Chicago's move to the Pillar integrated trading platform in November 2019. Following the move to Pillar, reported trading volume increases significantly for both equities and exchange traded funds (ETFs). The increase in trading volume and volume share in the NYSE Chicago is largely driven by trades against hidden liquidity. This increase in hidden liquidity is economically significant and is largely determined by the reporting of qualified contingent trades, QCTs. Although these trades were reported in the NYSE's Daily Trades and Quotes (DTAQ) files, these trades were not reported to the SEC's MIDAS database until to the move to Pillar. This paper shows the cross trade volume in the CHX comprises a significant amount of hidden volume in the U.S.     

Credit supply and corporate capital structure: Evidence from Japan

In this paper we examine how financial constraints, especially fluctuations in the supply of credit, affect the capital structure of 1537 publicly listed Japanese firms from 1980 to 2007, in a data set with 33,000 observations. It is one of the first studies to do so and is inspired by the recent studies of Leary (2009) and Faulkender and Petersen (2006). Japan was selected due to the extreme credit supply fluctuations observed during the last 30 years. It thus offers an ideal natural experiment to test the impact of credit supply on corporate capital structure. In particular, in our panel data study we investigated the impact of the asset bubble in the 1980s and the credit crunch of the late 1990s on corporate capital structure decisions. The results of this paper show, among other findings, that financial policy decisions are indeed influenced by monetary conditions and the supply of credit. In particular, smaller sized firms face financial constraints, especially during economic downturns.     

The effect of financial reporting quality on corporate investment efficiency: Evidence from the Tunisian stock market

Positive Accounting Theory (Watts and Zimmerman, 1978) stipulates that financial reporting has two dimensions: market signaling and monitoring managerial behaviors. Through these signaling and stewardship means, a better financial reporting quality would have significant economic consequences in terms of efficient resources allocation, which results in improving firms’ investment decision. In this paper, we examine the impact of financial reporting quality on corporate investment efficiency. Our sample is based on 25 Tunisian listed companies for the period 1997–2013. The findings confirm that some characteristics of the financial information, namely, reliability and smoothness, appear to increase the investment inefficiency, while others, i.e., conservatism and relevance, seem have no significant effect on investment decisions. We attribute such results mainly to the contextual specificities of the Tunisian environment, such as, the institutional bodies and settings, the cultural values and some characteristics of the corporate governance system.     

Credit market shocks and economic fluctuations: Evidence from corporate bond and stock markets

To identify disruptions in credit markets, research on the role of asset prices in economic fluctuations has focused on the information content of various corporate credit spreads. We re-examine this evidence using a broad array of credit spreads constructed directly from the secondary bond prices on outstanding senior unsecured debt issued by a large panel of nonfinancial firms. An advantage of our “ground-up” approach is that we are able to construct matched portfolios of equity returns, which allows us to examine the information content of bond spreads that is orthogonal to the information contained in stock prices of the same set of firms, as well as in macroeconomic variables measuring economic activity, inflation, interest rates, and other financial indicators. Our portfolio-based bond spreads contain substantial predictive power for economic activity and outperform—especially at longer horizons—standard default-risk indicators. Much of the predictive power of bond spreads for economic activity is embedded in securities issued by intermediate-risk rather than high-risk firms. According to impulse responses from a structural factor-augmented vector autoregression, unexpected increases in bond spreads cause large and persistent contractions in economic activity. Indeed, shocks emanating from the corporate bond market account for more than 30 percent of the forecast error variance in economic activity at the two- to four-year horizon. Overall, our results imply that credit market shocks have contributed significantly to US economic fluctuations during the 1990-2008 period.     

Determinants and consequences of voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure: Evidence from private firms

We examine whether and how private firms differ from public firms in determining corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure policies. We document that private firms are less likely to issue CSR reports compared with their public peers. Adopting a bivariate probit model that accommodates partial observability, we find that the effect is mainly driven by a supply-side force rather than a demand-side force. From a debtholder-oriented perspective, while public firms enjoy more favorable credit ratings and a lower cost of debt due to CSR disclosure, private firms do not reap similar benefits from CSR disclosure. Corporate governance and CSR assurance alleviate debtholders' concern on private firms’ engagements in CSR.     

Dynamic relationship between exchange rate and stock price: Evidence from China

The paper empirically analyzes the dynamic relationship between Renminbi (RMB) real effective exchange rate and stock price with VAR and multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models using monthly data from January 1991 to June 2009. The results show that there is not a stable long-term equilibrium relationship between RMB real effective exchange rate and stock price. There are also not mean spillovers between the foreign exchange and stock markets. Furthermore, the paper examines the cross-volatility effects between foreign exchange and stock markets using likelihood ratio statistic. There exist the bidirection volatility spillovers effects between the two markets, indicating the past innovations in stock market have the great effect on future volatility in foreign exchange market, and vice versa.     

The adverse selection effect of corporate cash reserve: Evidence from acquisitions solely financed by stock

Corporate cash reserve has an adverse selection effect. Specifically, if investors know a company does not have to issue to invest, an attempt to do so sends a strong signal of overvaluation. This notion has not been explicitly studied in the extant empirical literature, despite its intuitiveness. Using a sample of acquisitions solely financed by stock to exclude the potential complications of free cash flow, I find that announcement returns are lower for a bidder with a higher excess cash reserve. This effect is stronger in hot equity market years or when a bidder's standalone value is more difficult to evaluate. I also find evidence supporting the idea that targets request cash payment to remove “lemon” bidders in normal (non-hot equity market) years, but accept too many stock offers in hot equity market years. After acquisitions, high-excess-cash-reserve bidders operationally outperform low-excess-cash-reserve bidders. Further, they spend more funds on reducing debt but not more on investments, compared with low-excess-cash-reserve bidders. Combined, these results show that cash reserve has information costs. Further, they highlight the importance of the two-sided information asymmetry framework of Rhodes-Kropf and Viswanathan (2004) in describing merger outcomes without resorting to behavioral or agency explanations.     

Party leadership,corporate governance and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

In this paper, we provide evidence supporting the negative effect of corporate party organizations on Chinese state-owned enterprises' stock price crash risk. To illustrate the underlying mechanisms, we verify the impact of corporate party organizations on chairmen of different ages and positions and find that the restraining effect only exists in companies with strong promotion incentives for senior executives, supporting the governance role of the corporate party committee. Further, the impact of corporate party organization is weakened when the chairman is more powerful and alternative governance mechanisms work. In contrast, the governance effect is more pronounced in the companies controlled by local governments and after the new anti-corruption policy. We adopt several methods to address endogeneity concerns and find our results robust. Overall, this paper contributes to the mixed evidence on governance and stock price crash risk from the perspective of a unique arrangement, corporate party organizations.     

Importance of skewness in decision making: Evidence from the Indian stock exchange

In this paper our goal is to examine the importance of skewness in decision making, in particular on investor utility. We use time-series daily data on sectoral stock returns on the Indian stock exchange. We test for sectoral stock return predictability using commonly used financial ratios, namely, the price-to-book, dividend yield and price-earnings. We find strong evidence of predictability. Using this evidence of predictability, we forecast sectoral stock returns for each of the sectors in our sample, allowing us to devise trading strategies that account for skewness of returns. We discover evidence that accounting for skewness leads not only to higher utility compared to a model that ignores skewness, but utility is sector-dependent.     

The impact of Saturday trading on stock returns: Evidence from the Tokyo stock exchange January 1976 to January 1989

This paper examines the impact of TSE Saturday trading on daily TOPIX returns and TSE trading volume over the January 1976 to January 1989 period. Saturday trading is shown to have no significant impact on mean stock returns for the other days of the week. However, a significant shift in the pattern of Monday and Tuesday TOPIX returns is documented in the post-August 1986 period. This shift does not appear to be related to Saturday trading. TSE Saturday trading is found to have a significant impact on the variance of stock returns on surrounding days. In addition, trading volume is significantly lower on trading days surrounding Saturday trading. These findings are relevant to the timing of portfolio adjustment decisions.     

Do informed option investors predict stock returns? Evidence from the Taiwan stock exchange

In this paper, we set out to investigate the information content of options trading using a unique dataset to examine the predictive power of the put and call positions of different types of traders in the TAIEX option market. We find that options volume, as a whole, carries no information on TAIEX spot index changes. On the other hand, however, although foreign institutional investors do not engage in much trading, there is strong evidence to show that the trading in which they do engage has significant predictive power on the underlying asset returns. We also find that foreign institutional investors have greater predictive power with regard to in near-the-money and middle-horizon options.