Consumption, Dividends, and the Cross Section of Equity Returns

We show that aggregate consumption risks embodied in cash flows can account for the puzzling differences in risk premia across book‐to‐market, momentum, and size‐sorted portfolios. The dynamics of aggregate consumption and cash flow growth rates, modeled as a vector autoregression, are used to measure the consumption beta of discounted cash flows. Differences in these cash flow betas account for more than 60% of the cross‐sectional variation in risk premia. The market price for risk in cash flows is highly significant. We argue that cash flow risk is important for interpreting differences in risk compensation across assets.     

Ambiguous Information,Portfolio Inertia,and Excess Volatility

I study the effects of risk and ambiguity (Knightian uncertainty) on optimal portfolios and equilibrium asset prices when investors receive information that is difficult to link to fundamentals. I show that the desire of investors to hedge ambiguity leads to portfolio inertia and excess volatility. Specifically, when news is surprising, investors may not react to price changes even if there are no transaction costs or other market frictions. Moreover, I show that small shocks to cash flow news, asset betas, or market risk premia may lead to drastic changes in the stock price and hence to excess volatility.     

Hedging,speculation, and shareholder value

We document that gold mining firms have consistently realized economically significant cash flow gains from their derivatives transactions. We conclude that these cash flows have increased shareholder value since there is no evidence of an offsetting adjustment in firms’ systematic risk. This finding contradicts a central assumption in the risk management literature that derivatives transactions have zero net present value, and highlights an important motive for firms to use derivatives that the literature has hitherto ignored. Although we find considerable evidence of selective hedging in our sample, the cash flow gains from selective hedging appear to be small at best.     

Coincident correlations of growth and cash flow in banking

Prior empirical research indicates that loan growth in the banking industry is positively related to cash flow. I offer an alternative methodology that is better able to capture the effect of cash flow on loan growth while controlling for the potentially coincident effect of loan growth on cash flow. Using a sample of 171,389 observations on banks, 1986–2007, I find that causality runs more consistently from growth to cash flow than from cash flow to growth. This extends prior empirical research by Houston and James (1998) and Campello (2002) on cash flow sensitivities in the banking industry.     

自由现金流量创造力与违约风险——来自A股公司的经验证据

本文基于我国A股上市公司数据,研究了企业自由现金流量创造力与违约风险之间的关系。研究发现：(1)企业自由现金流量创造力越强,其违约风险越低。经过一系列稳健性检验后,该结论依旧成立。(2)自由现金流量创造力越强的企业往往有更低的债务规模、更高的资产收益率和更低的股票波动,因而其违约风险更低。(3)自由现金流量创造力与违约风险的负相关关系,主要存在于货币政策紧缩时期以及外部信息环境较差的企业。本文发现意味着,监管部门和投资者应重视上市公司自由现金流量创造力不足所带来的潜在债务违约风险,通过不断提高公司自由现金流量创造力,助力我国宏观经济与微观企业高质量发展。     

Financial constraints on credit ratings and cash-flow sensitivity

This study investigates whether financial constraints, as measured by the level of credit ratings and their migrations would affect the firm's cash flow allocation policies and reflect the main financial constraints on a firm's cash flow sensitivity of cash. For a given credit quality shock, control for firm-level characteristics and endogeneity of cash flow allocation, our results suggest that firms with higher credit financial constraints have significantly higher cash flow sensitivities on cash holding, investment, and debt financing activities. Our results provide evidence that credit rating risk has a larger impact on cash flow allocation and drives the financial constraints on cash flow sensitivity for various reasons, including precautionary motivation and restricted access to external financing.     

Subsidiary debt,capital structure and internal capital markets

I study external debt issued by operating subsidiaries of diversified firms. Consistent with Kahn and Winton's [2004. Moral hazard and optimal subsidiary structure for financial institutions. Journal of Finance 59, 2537–2575] model, where subsidiary debt mitigates asset substitution, I find firms are more likely to use subsidiary debt when their divisions vary more in risk. Consistent with subsidiary debt mitigating the free cash flow problem, I find that subsidiaries are more likely to have their own external debt when they have fewer growth options and higher cash flow than the rest of the firm. Finally, I find that subsidiary debt mitigates the “corporate socialism” and “poaching” problems modeled in theories of internal capital markets.     

Market conditions,default risk and credit spreads

This study empirically examines the impact of the interaction between market and default risk on corporate credit spreads. Using credit default swap (CDS) spreads, we find that average credit spreads decrease in GDP growth rate, but increase in GDP growth volatility and jump risk in the equity market. At the market level, investor sentiment is the most important determinant of credit spreads. At the firm level, credit spreads generally rise with cash flow volatility and beta, with the effect of cash flow beta varying with market conditions. We identify implied volatility as the most significant determinant of default risk among firm-level characteristics. Overall, a major portion of individual credit spreads is accounted for by firm-level determinants of default risk, while macroeconomic variables are directly responsible for a lesser portion.     

企业现金流风险识别研究

现金流是企业财务状况的综合表现,对现金流风险的识别研究是企业实施财务风险管理的关键.本文认为,对现金流风险识别应把握三方面工作:首先,要对现金流量表结构进行研究,通过现金流来源的不同构成形式,以及企业所处的生命周期阶段分析,探究企业现金流的综合风险状况.其次,要在现金流结构分析的基础上,理性构建风险评价指标体系.最后,通过建立主成分分析模型,合理界定风险临界区域,进一步分析现金流风险程度,使企业充分认识风险,加强现金流风险管理.     

Procyclicality of the comovement between dividend growth and consumption growth

Duffee (2005) shows that the amount of consumption risk (i.e., the conditional covariance between market returns and consumption growth) is procyclical. In light of this “Duffee Puzzle,” I empirically demonstrate that the conditional covariance between dividend growth (i.e., the immediate cash flow part of market returns) and consumption growth is (1) procyclical and (2) a consistent source of procyclicality in the puzzle. Moreover, I solve an external habit formation model that incorporates realistic joint dynamics of dividend growth and consumption growth. The procyclical dividend-consumption comovement entails two new procyclical terms in the amount of consumption risk via cash flow and valuation channels, respectively. These two procyclical terms play an important role in generating a realistic magnitude of consumption risk. In contrast to extant habit formation models, the conditional equity premium no longer increases monotonically when a negative consumption shock arrives because it might lower the amount of risk while increasing the price of risk.     

Analysts' Cash Flow Forecasts,Audit Effort,and Audit Opinions on Internal Control

We examine the economic impact of analysts’ cash flow forecasts by looking at how external auditors respond to financial analysts’ issuance of cash flow forecasts. Using a differences‐in‐differences approach, we find that financial analysts’ initiation of cash flow forecasts leads to reduced auditor fees and audit report lags. Moreover, after cash flow forecast initiation, firms report fewer Section 404(b) internal control weakness disclosures. These findings suggest that cash flow forecasts constrain earnings manipulation and improve management accounting behavior, thereby reducing inherent and control risk and strengthening firms’ internal control over financial reporting.     

基于现金流量模型的高校财务风险评价体系

高校资金运营的监管已成为高校风险管理的核心,本文从现金流量的角度来研究高校财务风险问题。在界定高校财务风险内涵的基础上,将其划分为高校日常运营风险、投资风险及筹资风险。基于现金流量表的编制,本文构建了现金流量模型下的高校财务风险评价体系,并通过算例检验了体系的适用性。结果表明,该体系有助于评价高校财务风险状况、说明高校财务风险的具体成因,为防范与控制高校财务风险提供了一种有效的诊断工具。     

Overinvestment,corporate governance,and dividend initiations

Firms with low Tobin's Q and high cash flow have significantly more positive dividend initiation announcement returns than do other firms. I interpret this result as consistent with the hypothesis that reductions in the agency costs of overinvestment at firms with poor investment opportunities and ample cash flow are reflected in higher dividend initiation announcement returns. Further tests, such as examining the impact of governance metrics on initiation announcement returns following the dividend tax cut of 2003 and examining the long-run cash-retention policies of dividend-initiating firms, are consistent with this interpretation. There is also some evidence that is consistent with the cash flow signaling hypothesis, as dividend-initiating firms with low Tobin's Q and low pre-initiation cash flow experience substantial revisions in analysts' earnings forecasts and significantly positive initiation announcement returns.     

VALUATION AND RISK-ADJUSTED DISCOUNT RATES

There is a continuing controversy as to whether the use of a constant risk adjusted discount rate in capital budgeting decisions implies that the risk of the cash flows increases over time. This paper shows that valuation using these discount rates implies an increasing premium for risk over time but that the increasing premium is due to the net impact of the uncertainty in the cash flow; uncertainty in future market expectations of the cash flow; and changes in the market price of risk. The risk of the cash flow itself need not be increasing over time.     

Tax Rate Uncertainty, Investment Decisions, and Tax Neutrality

This article deals with the effects of tax rate uncertainty (TRU) on individual investment behavior. We show that under risk neutrality as well as under risk aversion, increased TRU has an ambiguous impact on investment, depending on the investment project's structure of cash flows and depreciation deductions. Although the investment effects are small the popular view that tax policy uncertainty depresses real investment is rejected. Further, tax neutrality in the light of tax policy uncertainty is defined more precisely. Neutrality results for the Johansson-Samuelson tax and the cash flow tax that are known from certainty are confirmed under TRU.     

企业分红能力之理论研究

本文对企业分红能力进行理论研究。本文首先较为深入地研究了自由现金流之界定与计量问题,并创新性地提出和研究了自由现金和现金增加值的界定与计量问题,然后提出了关于净利润、留存收益和利润分配之本质的新见解。基于自由现金和留存收益概念及其本质理解,本文研究提出,企业分红能力是指,企业股东是否有在正值的留存收益边界内可持续地分走企业自由现金的能力;企业在某个时点具备分红能力的充要条件是企业留存收益为正值的同时还拥有源自自由现金流的自由现金,亦即,企业分红能力受制于源自自由现金流的自由现金和留存收益这双重边界。     

Free Cash Flow,Issuance Costs,and Stock Prices

We develop a dynamic model of a firm facing agency costs of free cash flow and external financing costs, and derive an explicit solution for the firm's optimal balance sheet dynamics. Financial frictions affect issuance and dividend policies, the value of cash holdings, and the dynamics of stock prices. The model predicts that the marginal value of cash varies negatively with the stock price, and positively with the volatility of the stock price. This yields novel insights on the asymmetric volatility phenomenon, on risk management policies, and on how business cycles and agency costs affect the volatility of stock returns.     

Does SEC FRR No. 48 disclosure communicate risk management effectiveness?

We hypothesize that the quality of market risk disclosure mandated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Financial Reporting Release No. 48 (FRR No. 48) provides useful information for assessing risk management effectiveness. Measuring risk disclosure quality as the degree of modification, we find that higher-than-expected disclosure modification is associated with lower future cash flow volatility. On average, an increase in risk disclosure modification from the lowest to the highest decile is associated with a 5.34 percent decrease in cash flow volatility. Given the significant impact of cash flow volatility on firm value and capital investment, our results highlight the importance of market risk disclosures and should be of interest to investors and analysts.     

THE INFLUENCE OF FIRM‐ AND CEO‐SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS ON THE USE OF NONLINEAR DERIVATIVE INSTRUMENTS

We examine why firms use nonlinear derivatives (e.g., options). Our results suggest that option characteristics in investment opportunities and debt, the payoff structure of incentive compensation, and free cash‐flow agency problems influence the firm's choice. Investment opportunities, internally generated cash flow, business risk, and option compensation positively influence the use of nonlinear currency derivatives. Option feature in bonds positively influence the use of nonlinear interest rate derivatives, whereas bonus and stock compensation, and CEO tenure have a negative influence. In sum, nonlinear cash flow characteristics in investment opportunity, debt, and executive compensation all relate positively to nonlinear derivative usage.     

Economic policy uncertainty and corporate cash policy: International evidence

I investigate the influences of economic policy uncertainty on corporate cash policy. The findings show that there is a positive association between economic policy uncertainty and cash holdings, as well as the propensity to save cash out of operating cash flow. Further analyses suggests that economic policy uncertainty affects corporate cash policy by influencing firms’ precautionary saving motives and the effect is larger when firms have difficulty in raising external finance. Using the new index developed by Baker et al. (2016), I extend the literature on economic policy uncertainty and show that it is an important macro-level factor in influencing corporate cash policy.