How do firms finance their investments?: The relative importance of equity issuance and debt contracting costs

This paper examines the financing decisions of firms in response to changes in investments and profits. We find that information frictions play important roles in firms' financing decisions. However, we find no evidence that asymmetric information about the value of a firm's assets causes equity to be used only as a last resort. Indeed equity is the predominant source of finance in situations, such as profit shortfalls, investment in intangible assets, and internally generated growth opportunities, where informational asymmetries and agency costs are likely to be high. We also find that firms respond asymmetrically to positive and negative profit shocks. In financing fixed assets, high asymmetric information firms use more short-term debt and less long-term debt, whereas firms with high potential agency problems use significantly more equity and less long-term debt and cash.     

An empirical investigation of the relative effect of trust and switching costs on service loyalty in the UK retail banking industry

The crisis in the UK financial services industry has led to retail banking customers treating transactions with growing scepticism. Retail banks are having to work very hard to regain customer trust. Despite recent research in marketing that acknowledges the importance of service loyalty to service firms, studies that have examined the relative effects of trust and the different types of switching costs on attitudinal and behavioural loyalty are scant. Therefore this article aims to build a model to examine the strength of the relationships between these constructs. Using survey data collected from a convenience sample of 290 retail banking customers in the United Kingdom, the article reveals that the main drivers of attitudinal loyalty are trust and relational switching costs. In contrast, the main drivers of behavioural loyalty are trust, relational switching costs and attitudinal loyalty. Interestingly, financial and procedural switching costs exert no significant effect on either attitudinal or behavioural loyalty. Trust and relational switching costs exert a stronger effect on attitudinal than behavioural loyalty.     

International equity valuation: the relative importance of country and industry factors versus company‐specific financial reporting information

The relative importance of country‐ and industry‐specified factors vis‐à‐vis company‐specific financial statement–based information in explaining equity valuation multiples in an international setting is examined. Both country‐specific effects via previously identified variables and an indicator variable approach are analysed. While company‐specific factors are predominant in explaining cross‐sectional differences in valuation, country and industry factors have sizable incremental explanatory power over them; the latter are not independent, so their relative importance is influenced by how we adjust for this commonality. Using country indicators provides larger incremental explanatory power than using country‐specific factors, suggesting that previously identified factors may be measured with sizeable error or omitted factors are important.     

The Gender Gap in Housing Returns

Using detailed transactions data across the United States, we find that single women earn 1.5 percentage points lower annualized returns on housing relative to single men. Forty-five percent of the gap is explained by transaction timing and location. The remaining gap arises from a 2% gender difference in execution prices at purchase and sale. Consistent with a negotiation channel, women list for less and experience worse negotiated discounts. The gender gap shrinks in tight markets, where negotiation is replaced by quasi-auctions. Overall, gender differences in housing explain 30% of the gender gap in wealth accumulation for the median household.     

审计期望差异相关问题研究

审计期望差异是由于审计执业人员对自身责任的理解和社会公众对审计认识的偏差而产生的,尽管无法完全消除这一差异,但可以尽可能地缩小。引起审计期望差异的原因包括社会公众对审计的理解存在误区、管理层舞弊、审计职能的复杂性、审计师角色的冲突性以及审计制度的时滞性等。解决这一问题的有效途径是加强与公众的沟通以及改进审计制度。     

产出缺口测量的不确定性研究

本文通过对中国经济产出缺口的误差因素分析,认为端点问题是造成中国经济产出缺口实时测量误差的主要原因.产出缺口实时测量的误差,使得中央银行不能及时准确识别不同类型的冲击,货币政策福利损失有所增大.为避免货币政策出现过大的系统性偏差,中央银行通常会降低对产出缺口测量值的反应系数来进行调节.     

Output Gap Estimation and Monetary Policy in China

Using the Bayesian multivariate Beveridge-Nelson decomposition method, this paper estimates China's output gap based on a multivariate dynamic model featuring distinct interactions among real output, inflation, money, and the exchange rate in China during the period 1980-2010. The authors compare the statistical nature and potential forecasting effects of the resulting multivariate gap measure on monetary policy with those of the output gap measures based on univariate models. The empirical results show that only the measure based on the multivariate system significantly predicts monetary policy, which indicates that the output gap estimated by the multivariate system contains more information than the traditional measures for macroeconomic policy adjustments do.     

收购资金封闭管理创新的探索

实行收购资金封闭管理是农业发展银行的一项十分重要的任务.收购资金封闭管理不仅要有完善的政策和科学的方法,而且要有创新的思维和探索的精神.本文就农业发展银行在收购资金封闭管理运行中管理制度如何落实的问题,进行了富有成效的探索,并将其上升到理论层面进行思考,颇有启迪意义.     

浅议智能服务后台支撑

<正>随着互联网金融的快速发展和同业竞争的日趋激烈,为适应新环境、新变化,国内众多商业银行积极探索并实现了以自助设备为承载基础的智能服务,替代了传统柜面人工服务和纯自助服务的模式,覆盖了90%以上的个人常用非现金交易。在智能服务模式普及后,网点服务在客户体验感受、业务处理能力、人员优化配置等方面均有较大提升。据统计,2019年银行自助设备业务量占比网点业务总量的68%,已成为智慧网点业务受理的核心渠道。在业务快速发展的同时,智能服务渠道是否能对监管政策要求、产品创新优化等需求进行快速响应部署,     

Short-term relative arbitrage in volatility-stabilized markets

We answer in the affirmative the following open question posed in Fernholz and Karatzas (Ann Finance 1:149–177, 2005): do there exist relative arbitrage opportunities over arbitrarily short time horizons in the context of certain volatility-stabilized market models?     

Peer firms in relative performance evaluation

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) in chief executive officer (CEO) compensation provides insurance against external shocks and yields a more informative measure of CEO actions. I argue that empirical evidence on the use of RPE is mixed because previous studies rely on a misspecified peer group. External shocks and flexibility in responding to the shocks are functions of, for example, the firm's technology, the complexity of the organization, and the ability to access external credit, which depend on firm size. When peers are composed of similar industry-size firms, evidence is consistent with the use of RPE in CEO compensation.     

发展银行自助服务优化银行服务环境

在计算机应用技术尚未在我国普及之时,银行面向客户的窗口仅仅是营业网点的柜台,而在计算机应用技术日趋成熟的今天,银行面向客户的窗口也日趋丰富.     

我国产出缺口与货币政策效应

本文对我国自1984年以来的产出缺口变动轨迹进行了研究,并以此为基础重点探讨了我国货币政策的产出效应.在研究方法上主要应用了向量自回归VAR系统.研究结果表明,我国产出缺口的主要决定因素是实体经济本身,货币因素对产出缺口的影响相对较小,并且具有明显时滞效应.所以在当前的保增长政策措施中,坚持财政刺激政策为主、货币扩张为辅的原则是正确的,但政策当局应尽早制定经济刺激政策的退出机制,从而最大化降低刺激政策的负作用.     

The relative value of growth

Most executives would say that adding a point of growth and gaining a point of operating-profit margin contribute about equally to shareholder value. Margin improvements hit the bottom line immediately, while growth compounds value over time. But the reality is that the two are rarely equivalent. Growth often is far more valuable than managers think. For some companies, convincing the market that they can grow by just one additional percentage point can be worth six, seven, or even ten points of margin improvement. This article presents a new strategic metric, called the relative value of growth (RVG), which gives managers a clear picture of how growth projects and margin improvement initiatives affect shareholder value. Using basic balance sheet and income sheet data, managers can determine their companies' RVGs, as well as those of their competitors. Calculating RVGs gives managers insights into which corporate strategies are working to deliver value and whether their companies are pulling the most powerful value-creation levers. The author examines a number of well-known companies and explains what their RVG numbers say about their strategies. He reviews the unspoken assumption that growth and profits are incompatible over the long term and shows that a fair number of companies are effective at delivering both. Finally, he explains how managers can use the RVG framework to help them define strategies that balance growth and profitability at both the corporate and business unit levels.     

Optimal wage re-negotiation in a closed and open economy

This paper investigates an economy in which there are short-term wage contracts that are re-negotiated under certain conditions. The paper determines the optimal frequency of wage re-negotiation and shows that it depends positively on measures of aggregate variability and Phillips curve slope. The role of optimal wage re-negotiation is to mitigate the output effects of various shocks. In the context of an open economy, it is shown that the desirable exchange rate regime in an economy with optimal wage re-negotiation depends on the stochastic structure of the economy.     

Perceived importance of corporate boards in October 1987

This study provides empirical evidence from the U.S. firms that shareholders perceived corporate boards to be more important during than surrounding the October 1987 stock market crisis. The results indicate that during the crisis market-adjusted stock returns are negatively associated with CEO–chair duality, board size, and the presence of inside blockholders on board. The valuation effects of CEO–chair duality, percent of inside directors, and the presence of inside blockholders on board are stronger during than surrounding the crisis. The results are consistent with the view that corporate boards have valuation effects.