Market Making Contracts,Firm Value,and the IPO Decision

We examine the effects of secondary market liquidity on firm value and the IPO decision. Competitive aftermarket liquidity provision is associated with reduced welfare and a discounted secondary market price that can dissuade IPOs. The competitive market fails in particular for firms or at times when uncertainty regarding fundamental value and asymmetric information are large in combination. In these cases, firm value and welfare are improved by a contract where the firm engages a designated market maker to enhance liquidity. Such contracts represent a market solution to a market imperfection, particularly for small, growth firms.     

Implicit Employment Contracts: The Limits of Management Reputation for Promoting Firm Productivity

Implicit employment contracts are a common way to motivate firm productivity but also require that employees trust management to be fair when allocating postproduction firm resources between employees and owners. We use an experiment to study the problem of motivating firm productivity, which depends on levels of owner investment and employee productive effort, when managers have an incentive to favor the owner's interests over those of the employee. Drawing on research in psychology and behavioral economics, we argue that reputation concerns can more effectively promote firm productivity when manager compensation is relatively insensitive to how much the owner is allocated after production occurs. Consistent with our predictions, we find that reputation concerns lead to greater firm productivity and higher payoffs for all firm members, but only when manager pay is relatively insensitive to the owner's ex post allocation. In addition to offering testable empirical implications, our theory and results are important because they can help explain why executive compensation is, in practice, surprisingly insensitive to owner returns.     

Taxes, Financing Decisions, and Firm Value

We use cross-sectional regressions to study how a firm's value is related to dividends and debt. With a good control for profitability, the regressions can measure how the taxation of dividends and debt affects firm value. Simple tax hypotheses say that value is negatively related to dividends and positively related to debt. We find the opposite. We infer that dividends and debt convey information about profitability (expected net cash flows) missed by a wide range of control variables. This information about profitability obscures any tax effects of financing decisions.     

企业负债率、研发投资强度与企业价值

选取2003—2010年沪深A股上市公司R＆D数据,研究R＆D投入与上市公司债务融资的相关性和R＆D投入与上市公司市场价值关联性。实证研究发现：企业的负债率越高,其研发投入越少,非国有控股上市公司所面临的债务融资约束更大;企业的研发投入对公司价值具有正向影响,并且这种影响会因企业负债水平的高低而不同。在模型中进一步加入RDI＊D负债水平交叉项后发现,相对于负债水平较低的企业,负债水平较高企业的研发投入对公司价值的正向影响是减弱的,对于非国有控股上市公司,这种减弱效应更为显著。     

Diversification,Organization, and Value of the Firm

Because corporate diversification coevolves with organizational structure, a discount for diversification, which is widely documented in the literature, can be caused by organizational structure rather than by the industrial scope of the firm. I examine this possibility based on a large sample of Japanese firms for which the legal (parent–subsidiary) structure of the organization is easily observable. I identify a significant discount for diversified firms with and without control over the organizational structure. I also find that firms with a legally segmented structure (e.g., holding companies) are deeply discounted. My results suggest that diversification and organization are both important determinants of firm value.     

Global Diversification, Industrial Diversification, and Firm Value

Using a sample of 44,288 firm–years between 1984 and 1997, we document an increase in the extent of global diversification over time. This trend does not reflect a substitution of global for industrial diversification. We also find that global diversification results in average valuation discounts of approximately the same magnitude as those for industrial diversification. Analysis of the changes in excess value associated with changes in diversification reveals that increases in global diversification reduce excess value, while reductions in global diversification increase excess value. These findings support the view that the costs of global diversification outweigh the benefits.     

董事会内部联结、税收规避与企业价值

本文通过构建基于董事会成员相似特征形成的内部联结指数,考察了独立董事治理机制对于企业税收规避激进程度的影响及其对于企业价值的作用效果。研究发现,董事会内部联结显著正向影响企业税收规避程度,但是影响力度随着税收规避激进程度的提升而有所减弱。董事会内部联结对于企业避税活动的这种适度监管显著提升了企业价值。     

Book Value,Residual Earnings,and Equilibrium Firm Value with Asymmetric Information

The residual income valuation model (RIM) by Ohlson (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson (1995) assumes that investors are risk-neutral with homogenous beliefs. Thus, the present value of expected dividends represents firm value. The purpose of the present study is to derive a RIM in a market setting of the Kyle (1985) type. Since traders are asymmetrically informed in the Kyle setting, firm value is no longer equivalent to the present value of the firm's expected dividends. In the present model, the informed investor observes a signal about the firm's profitability, which the market maker (who sets the price) is unable to observe. The market maker infers the informed investor's private signal based on the total order flow, which is an informative but noisy signal. The analysis identifies the equilibrium firm value as a linear function of current book value, current residual income, and the aggregate order flow.     

International Diversification and Firm Value

In this paper the impact of multinationalism is examined using a valuation model incorporating geographically segmented accounting information. The results indicate that multinational companies are more highly valued than their domestic counterparts and that the valuation difference lies in all their operations and not just their foreign operations. The value advantage of MNCs appears too large to be realistically explained by cost of capital reductions and would support either that high value firms become multinationals, rather than MNCs gaining valuation benefits from foreign investments, or a pricing fad. Preliminary results support the latter explanation.     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Tax Aggressiveness,and Firm Market Value

This paper examines the relationship of corporate social responsibility (CSR), tax aggressiveness, and firm market value. An economic model has been developed to show that profit‐maximization firms are willing to incur additional costs in CSR, such as paying more taxes, as long as they can differentiate their products from non‐CSR firms, and that socially conscious consumers will buy products from CSR firms at prices higher than those of non‐CSR firms. The empirical study in this paper indicates that the higher the CSR ranking of a firm, the less likely a firm is to engage in tax aggressiveness. It also indicates that a reputation of higher CSR will enhance firm market value. Using Canadian companies listed in the S&P/TSX 60 index, I find that both firms’ five‐year effective tax rates and annual effective tax rates are positively associated with their overall CSR scores as well as with their social scores. Firms’ five‐year effective tax rates are also positively associated with their governance index. I also find that firms’ overall CSR ranking and governance scores are positively associated with their market value.     

Value, Survival, and the Evolution of Firm Organizational Structure

We examine corporate product diversification as a dynamic process. Consistent with prior research, we find that the average diversification discount is about 8% when using the standard value-multiple approach. However, we find that a significant portion of the diversification discount arises from benchmark comparisons of value ratios of mature firms with those of very young firms that are more likely to have high value multiples. The magnitude of the diversification discount falls by 15% to 30% when we control for firm age. We also show that diversification reduces the mortality rate of firms, and we provide evidence that mature firms pursue diversification strategies partly as a means to exit stagnant business segments for industries that are more highly valued.     

Firm Value,Information Problems and the Internal Capital Market

We examine how information problems between the firm and the investor affect the value of an internal capital market. While the extant literature finds that, on average, the diversified firm's access to an internal capital market is positively related to firm value, this paper finds that the results hold only for firms which face low levels of information problems. Firms facing the high levels of information problems realize no value from internal capital market access, consistent with the Jensen Free Cash Flow hypothesis. When information problems are large, agency costs dominate any savings that result from using an internal capital market to avoid selling under-priced securities in the external capital markets.     

管理者特质、负债融资与企业价值

本文基于行为金融理论和高层梯队理论,选用2008-2013年我国A股上市公司数据作为研究样本,区分企业产权性质,实证检验了拥有不同特质的管理者对负债融资行为与企业价值的影响。研究结果显示:我国上市公司的负债融资可以降低企业代理成本,对企业价值有正面的治理效应;管理者为男性、教育水平越高、任期越短、有财务相关工作经历时,越容易出现过度自信,也更偏好使用负债融资,其中管理者性别、教育水平、工作经历更是可以显著提高负债融资对企业价值的提升作用。进一步区分产权性质后发现,和国有公司相比,非国有公司负债融资对企业价值的提升效果更好;非国有公司管理者教育水平、工作经历与负债融资的正相关更强,也更能显著提高负债融资对企业价值的提升作用。本研究不仅丰富了管理者特质和企业融资研究领域的文献和经验证据,而且也表明了在研究负债融资对企业价值的治理效应时,管理者特质和公司的产权性质是重要的考量因素。     

税率差异、关联交易与企业价值

本文考察税率差异如何影响企业的关联交易行为,并分析基于避税动机的关联交易如何影响企业价值。我们以2005-2010年所有A股上市公司为样本,实证分析发现:母子公司税率差异越大,关联交易规模越大;同时,基于避税动机的关联交易会增加企业价值。进一步分析发现,企业所得税法的实施并没有改变母子公司基于避税动机而进行关联交易的程度。本文的结果为所得税法如何影响企业避税行为提供了重要的证据,同时也对相关决策机构在税收优惠、税收征管等方面有一定的启示意义。     

Thirty Years of Shareholder Rights and Firm Value

This paper introduces a new hand‐collected data set that tracks restrictions on shareholder rights at approximately 1,000 firms from 1978 to 1989. In conjunction with the 1990 to 2006 IRRC data, we track shareholder rights over 30 years. Most governance changes occurred during the 1980s. We find a robustly negative association between restrictions on shareholder rights (using G‐Index as a proxy) and Tobin's Q. The negative association only appears after judicial approval of antitakeover defenses in the 1985 landmark Delaware Supreme Court decision of Moran v. Household. This decision was an unanticipated exogenous shock that increased the importance of shareholder rights.     

OSHA Sanctions and the Value of the Firm

Citations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) against companies for violating health and safety regulations are shown in this study to induce declines in the values of the subject firms. The declines are immediate and significant responses to the announcement of the OSHA citation, following the pattern predicted for efficient markets. Because firm values fall by more than proposed fines, OSHA citations are apparently forerunners of additional and significant costs to be borne by subject firms, perhaps in the form of capital costs to remedy safety conditions or losses in related lawsuits. Our findings point toward OSHA citations as an important part of the business environment.     

Explicit versus Implicit Contracts: Evidence from CEO Employment Agreements

We report evidence on the determinants of whether the relationship between a firm and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is governed by an explicit (written) or an implicit agreement. We find that fewer than half of the CEOs of S&P 500 firms have comprehensive explicit employment agreements. Consistent with contracting theory, explicit agreements are more likely to be observed and are likely to have a longer duration in situations in which the sustainability of the relationship is less certain and where the expected loss to the CEO is greater if the firm fails to honor the agreement.     

The Relation between Stakeholder Management,Firm Value,and CEO Compensation: A Test of Enlightened Value Maximization

Whether firms pursue shareholder value maximization or the maximization of stakeholder welfare is a controversial issue whose outcomes seem irreconcilable. We propose that firms are likely to compensate their executives for pursuing the firm's goal be it shareholder value maximization or the maximization of stakeholder welfare. In this paper, we examine the correlation between firm value, stakeholder management, and compensation. We find that stakeholder management is positively related to firm value. However, firms do not compensate managers for having good relationships with its stakeholders. These results do not support stakeholder theory. We also find an endogenous association between compensation and firm value. Our results are consistent with Jensen's (2001) enlightened value maximization theory. Managers are compensated for achieving the firm's ultimate goal, value maximization. However, managers optimize interaction with stakeholders to accomplish this objective.     

Don't Believe the Hype: Local Media Slant,Local Advertising,and Firm Value

When local media report news about local companies, they use fewer negative words compared to the same media reporting about nonlocal companies. We document that one reason for this positive slant is the firms' local media advertising expenditures. Abnormal positive local media slant strongly relates to firm equity values. The effect is stronger for small firms; firms held predominantly by individual investors; and firms with illiquid or highly volatile stock, low analyst following, or high dispersion of analyst forecasts. These findings show that news content varies systematically with the characteristics and conflicts of interest of the source.     

Understanding the Endogeneity Between Firm Value and Shareholder Rights

I explore the relation between firm value and the shareholder rights-based Governance Index "G," which has become a popular measure of governance quality among researchers and investors. I show that the relation is not spuriously driven by unobservable firm heterogeneity or an assortment of observable firm characteristics, such as firm growth potential and profitability. The causality seems to run from G to firm value, rather than from firm value to G. My results suggest that granting more rights to shareholders could be an effective way to reduce agency costs and enhance firm value.