Earnings management following chief executive officer changes: the effect of contemporaneous chairperson and chief financial officer appointments

Using a sample of listed Australian firms from 1999 to 2007, we examine the relationship between discretionary accruals and concurrent senior management appointments. Employing panel data regression models and focusing on a measure of discretionary accruals that excludes the effect of transparent write‐downs such as restructuring charges, we find that chief executive officer (CEO) appointments, as a general phenomenon, are not significantly associated with opaque earnings management in the year of appointment or the following year. However, we find that CEO changes accompanied by a concurrent change in board chairperson are associated with significant income‐decreasing earnings management in the year of appointment. We detect no significant relationship between contemporaneous CEO and chief financial officer changes and discretionary accruals. We find no evidence of earnings management in the first compete financial period following CEO appointment, regardless of whether or not concurrent Chair or chief financial officer appointments occurred.     

Australian chief executive officer remuneration: pay and performance

International studies document strong evidence that chief executive officer (CEO) remuneration is positively correlated with corporate performance. Prior Australian studies, however, find no positive link between CEO pay and market performance. In the present paper we re‐examine the association between Australian CEO remuneration and firm performance using standard empirical models from the international literature. We find that in every respect the Australian evidence is consistent with international findings for firms of the USA, UK and Canada. In particular, we document CEO pay–performance association as positive and statistically significant.     

Generalists versus specialists: Lifetime work experience and chief executive officer pay

We show that pay is higher for chief executive officers (CEOs) with general managerial skills gathered during lifetime work experience. We use CEOs' résumés of Standard and Poor's 1,500 firms from 1993 through 2007 to construct an index of general skills that are transferable across firms and industries. We estimate an annual pay premium for generalist CEOs (those with an index value above the median) of 19% relative to specialist CEOs, which represents nearly a million dollars per year. This relation is robust to the inclusion of firm- and CEO-level controls, including fixed effects. CEO pay increases the most when firms externally hire a new CEO and switch from a specialist to a generalist CEO. Furthermore, the pay premium is higher when CEOs are hired to perform complex tasks such as restructurings and acquisitions. Our findings provide direct evidence of the increased importance of general managerial skills over firm-specific human capital in the market for CEOs in the last decades.     

Corporate governance and chief executive officer dismissal following poor performance: Australian evidence

This paper investigates the association between corporate performance and the probability of chief executive officer (CEO) dismissal for large corporations in Australia. Consistent with prior US and UK studies, corporate performance is negatively related to the probability of CEO dismissal, using both accounting and market‐based performance measures. This paper also investigates whether key corporate governance characteristics affect the likelihood of CEO dismissal, by examining their effect on the strength of the negative association between corporate performance and CEO dismissal. The only significant variable is size of the board. Although its effect is opposite to that hypothesized, this paper provides a plausible explanation. Overall, the results are consistent with shareholder wealth considerations dominating board behaviour in Australia.     

The effectiveness of chief financial officer board membership in improving corporate investment efficiency

The key roles of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in firm operating performance, corporate strategic choices, and corporate governance have been increasingly emphasized in recent decades. In this study, we empirically investigate the relation between CFO board membership and corporate investment efficiency to determine whether CFO presence on the board reduces firms’ propensity to over- or underinvest. We find that CFO board membership is significantly associated with a decreased level of corporate over- and underinvestment. Further, the positive effects of CFO board membership on corporate investment efficiency are greater for firms with greater information asymmetries. Last but not least, we find that the improved investment efficiency experienced by firms with CFOs on their boards has a positive effect on the firms’ future performance. Overall, we find that CFO board membership is associated with improved investment efficiency and firms’ future profitability. By documenting the real business impact of CFO board membership on investment efficiency and firms’ future performance, we add bricks to the literature on board composition and how it influences firms’ strategic choices and performance. Our findings suggest that having CFOs on boards could benefit firms’ investment practices, which directly relate to corporate strategic performance.

     

The implied cost of equity capital,corporate investment and chief executive officer turnover

This study investigates how the cost of equity capital, along with corporate investment, affects chief executive officer (CEO) turnover decisions. We hypothesize that the cost of equity conveys information about firm performance uncertainty that is informative of CEO talent. Consistently, our empirical results show that the likelihood of CEO turnover is positively associated with the implied cost of equity, after controlling for earnings and stock performance measures and risk factors. Additional analysis of reverse causality supports the causal effect of the high cost of equity on CEO dismissals. We also find that the positive association is more pronounced for firms that are more likely to suffer from underinvestment problems. These results suggest that the cost of equity plays a more important role in assessing CEO performance when the firm needs more external equity capital to pursue investment opportunities.     

Translation-rule命令在VoIP中的应用

VoIP是近年来快速发展的一种语音技术，此技术在很多领域得到应用，如银行的呼叫中心系统，企业内部的语音通信等。     

Pricing,exit, and location decisions of firms: Evidence on the role of debt and operating efficiency

We compare pricing and exit decisions of discounters across the business cycle. Cities containing high debt and/or low efficiency firms display higher prices during non-recession years. During recessions, prices increase in cities with less efficient incumbents, but decrease in cities with a mix of high and low debt firms. High debt firms are more likely to exit cities with lower prices, and high debt exiting firms are more likely to be efficient. Apparently, low debt firms strategically lower prices during recessions to force exit of efficient, financially constrained rivals. Weaker competitors face another cost. New entrants locate closer.     

抗击疫情,农业银行数据中心值班长在行动

新冠肺炎疫情发生以来,农业银行数据中心高度重视、深入学习贯彻习近平总书记关于疫情防控工作的重要讲话和指示批示精神,坚定把思想和行动统一到中央决策部署上来,全面贯彻行党委的工作要求,积极履职尽责,主动担当作为,充分发挥数据中心运维保障职能,成立疫情防控领导小组、园区指挥中心,制定生产运行应急预案、A/B组工作运行方案、疫情防控工作方案等,确保全行信息系统稳定运行。     

The role of founder decision rights and operating and disclosure mechanisms in firm value creation

We find that founder firms use operating performance and transparency as mechanisms more effectively than non-founder firms for creating value. The greater effectiveness comes from the founders choosing their inputs strategically. Specifically, they increase the gross margin in differentiated firms that demand organizational agility and they increase asset usage efficiency in cost‑leadership firms. Founder firms exhibit higher transparency than non-founder firms in differentiated and cost leadership firms. The improvements in operational performance, transparency, and value are all greater when founders have more decision rights. Our results are consistent with the interpretation that influential founders use organizational performance and transparency to increase the firm value more effectively than managers of similar non-founder firms by providing a unified vision and a single point of control.     

Hail to the chief: The effect of political alignment with the presidency on corporate investment

We examine the effect of political alignment between the CEO and the US president on corporate investment. We find that when the CEO is from the same party as the President that the adverse effects of policy uncertainty on corporate investment are significantly reduced or eliminated. We arrive at this result after having controlled for investment opportunities, economic uncertainty, and political alignment with Congress. We also find that the political alignment between the CEO and the President has a greater effect on corporate investment for firms in industries with significant exposure to government spending. Our results go to confirm the effects of a country's politics and the occupier of the White House on CEOs’ business and economic outlooks. The results also point out that the effect of the behavioral traits of executives changes depending on the external environment.     

Profiting from government stakes in a command economy: Evidence from Chinese asset sales

We examine the market response to an unexpected announcement of the sale of government-owned shares in China. In contrast to earlier work, we find a negative effect of government ownership on returns at the announcement date and a symmetric positive effect from the policy's cancellation. We suggest that this results from the absence of a Chinese political transition to accompany economic reforms, so that the benefits of political ties outweigh the efficiency costs of government shareholdings. Companies managed by former government officials have positive abnormal returns, suggesting that personal ties can substitute for government ownership as a source of connections.     

Foreign currency-denominated borrowing in the absence of operating incentives

It is well known that corporations issue foreign currency-denominated debt to hedge foreign currency cash flows with offsetting interest payments. We test an alternative “opportunistic” motive for foreign currency-denominated borrowing. We do so by constructing a comprehensive sample of foreign currency-denominated bonds issued by sovereign government and agency issuers with no foreign currency cash flows or foreign operations. We find strong and consistent evidence that the borrowers in our sample consider cross-currency differences in covered and uncovered interest yields in choosing the currency in which to denominate their international debt. We estimate the average gains to opportunistic covered yield borrowing to be 4 to 18 basis points. Interestingly, we also find that the average bond offering in our sample precedes a large and beneficial depreciation of the issue currency over the course of the following year. These results support what has been a frequent conjecture in the foreign debt market.     

ETFs的运作模式及借鉴

ETFs有既开放又封闭的特点，具有独到优势。对投资而言，其管理成本低，交易便利；对基金管理公司而言，采用股票赎回的方式能在一定程度上避免对基金管理的冲击；对监管当局而言，比一般封闭式基金在避免基金道德风险上有了进步。     

增速放缓 政策放松——2012下半年经济与政策展望

从经济先行指标和经济增长动力来看,目前中国经济增速出现明显放缓,经济形势较为严峻。2012年5月下旬以来,宏观调控政策已转向实质性宽松,预计下半年将出台更多"促增长"的宏观政策。     

我国创业板市场的风险防范

建立创业板市场是我国金融市场上一次难得的积累资本的机会，同时也是一次风险空前的制度创新尝试，我国证券市场仍处于发展的初级阶段，市场机制还不完善，上市公司的素质不高，投资的投资理念不够成熟，加上创业板市场对上市公司放宽了规模，盈利等量化要求，这一切决定了创业板市场面临着较大的风险，只有加强防范和化解这些风险，创业板市场才能得以顺利发展。     

Health care regulation and the operating efficiency of hospitals: Evidence from Taiwan

Using data from the Annual Survey of Hospitals compiled by the Department of Health in Taiwan for years 1994 through 1997, we employed Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the impact of a National Health Insurance (NHI) Program on the operating efficiency of district hospitals in Taiwan. We find that, on average, efficiency of district hospitals in Taiwan decreased following the implementation of the NHI Program. Our results are robust to the inclusion of control variables that have been shown to affect hospital operating performance in prior research, and alternative efficiency measurements.     

财政下半年要务

7月25日至26日召开的全国财政厅(局)长座谈会对做好下半年各项财政工作做出了部署。会议指出,当前我国经济发展态势总体良好,但面临的国内外环境仍然错综复杂。从财政看,经济保持平稳较快发展为财政收入增长奠定了基础。但提高个人所得税工薪所得减除费用标准、调整增值税和营业税征收范围、继续对部分小型微利企业实施所得税优惠政策等,会减少一些收     

Choice of Selling Mechanism at the IPO: the Case of the French Second Market

This study examines the choice of flotation mechanism within the framework of the French Second Market. Between 1983 and 1996, a firm that opted for a quotation on the Second Market, had the choice between (i) an auction‐like procedure (there were two variants) and (ii) a fixed‐price introduction procedure. Several interesting results are presented. First, the choice for an auction‐like procedure appears to be positively related to firm valuation uncertainty at the IPO. Second, the likelihood of opting for an auction‐like procedure decreases as the reputation of the investment bank guiding the flotation increases. Third, the likelihood of opting for an auction is increasing in the number of secondary shares sold by venture capitalists and investment banks.