State ownership and corporate performance: A quantile regression analysis of Chinese listed companies

This study assesses the impact of government shareholding on corporate performance using a sample of 643 non-financial companies listed on the Chinese stock exchanges. In view of the controversial empirical findings in the literature and the limitations of the least squares regressions, we adopt the method of quantile regression and report a robust and significant negative relation between government shareholding and corporate performance among, and only among, the more profitable firms. This new finding, which the conditional mean-focused regressions do not capture, suggests that while Chinese government still exerts influences on the performance of these partially privatized firms, the relationship parameter changes across quantiles of the distribution of performance variables.     

公司相互持股与中国企业改革——对发展条件、利弊影响及管制对策的分析

公司相互持股在中国形成的一些条件正在具备,许多同相互持股相似的现象与后果已经在中国出现,公司相互持股正在成为中国企业改革中一个引入瞩目的新问题。公司相互持股的出现对于中国经济发展和企业改革将产生许多新的影响,包括促进企业之间长期交易关系,保护专用性人力资产投资,导致企业资本虚增,出现新的内部人控制等。因此,对于公司相互持股的管制必须根据相互持股的效率,明确管制原则,采取新的对策措施。     

Foreign investment,corporate governance and performance in the Chinese listed A Share companies

We present a novel lens on the presence and impact of qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) in top shareholdings of the non-financial domestically listed Chinese ‘A’ share firms. The initial results suggest that the presence of a QFII as a top shareholder in these companies is associated with their better performance, using both Tobin’s Q and ROA as the performance measures. Our models include variables representing corporate governance mechanisms, foreign legal person shares, a proxy for international affiliations and a number of time-variant firm characteristics. Economically, the coefficient of impact on the market measure is the more significant, while the effect of having a QFII in top shareholdings on both performance measures is empirically significant. Previously, studies have often ignored the potential for reverse causality beyond using lagged regressors. This is problematic. Therefore, we follow up with a 2SLS instrumental variables and system GMM model to further mitigate this potential and find the empirical relationship holds. Contrary to earlier work on QFIIs and governance post-implementation of the QFII scheme, the findings from our models suggest that the presence of a QFII top shareholder augments market performance holding equal existing corporate governance mechanisms and other controls.     

The Effect of CFO Personal Litigation Risk on Firms’ Disclosure and Accounting Choices

In Gantler v. Stephens (2009), the Delaware Supreme Court makes explicit that corporate officers owe the same fiduciary duty to the firm and shareholders as do board members. The decision increased the risk of non‐board‐serving officers being added as named defendants to investor litigation but did not change the risk of corporate litigation. Analyzing the effect of the Gantler ruling on non‐board‐serving CFOs, we find a significant change in their behavior as well as in their firms’ disclosure and accounting choices. Specifically, speech tone during earnings calls of non‐board‐serving CFOs becomes more negative when compared to board‐serving CFOs and the firm's CEO, and non‐board‐serving CFO firms disclose bad news earlier and report more conservatively. Results are stronger for firms incorporated in Delaware. Our findings suggest that CFOs respond to personal litigation risk over and above corporate litigation risk.     

Does stock market listing impact investment in Japan?

We provide the first large sample comparison of investment by Japanese listed and unlisted public firms. We show that listed firms invest more and have greater sensitivity to investment opportunities than comparable unlisted companies. Our findings suggest that the role of listing in alleviating financial constraints and agency costs is more important than potential underinvestment due to myopic behavior. However, the positive relationship between listing and investment is primarily driven by standalone firms. Further analysis confirms that as the number of subsidiaries in a business group increases the positive impact of listing on investment declines. Additionally, we find that the positive impact of listing on investment is greater for financially constrained firms. We also document a positive association between stock liquidity and investment for listed firms. Taken together, our results suggest that stock markets play an important role in easing financial constraints and preventing managerial shirking both of which increase investment. Finally, we show that higher levels of ownership by financial institutions, board members, and foreign investors increases corporate investment.     

Does board gender diversity matter in the banking sector? Evidence from Tunisia

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of board gender diversity on banks’ performance and risk for the case of a developing African country. Our sample includes a unique data set of Tunisian banks during the period 2005–2018. We use the two‐way cluster regression proposed by Petersen. This approach corrects for the unobserved firm effect (time‐series dependence) and time effect (cross‐sectional dependence). It gives robust standard errors adjusted for heteroscedasticity, serial correlation, and cross‐sectional correlation. Our results support a positive relationship between gender diversity and banks’ performance measured by ROA and ROE, while women board members are associated with more default risk measured by Z‐score. Our results remain robust to various measures of gender diversity, banks’ performance and risk. The findings contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence from Tunisia, an African emerging economy, where the examination of the role of board gender diversity on bank governance is unexplored.     

Director Tenure Diversity and Board Monitoring Effectiveness

This study examines the impact of director tenure diversity on board effectiveness. We find that tenure‐diverse boards exhibit significantly higher CEO performance‐turnover sensitivity and that firms with tenure‐diverse audit committees are less likely to experience accounting restatements. Furthermore, we document that tenure‐diverse compensation committees also award less excess compensation and are less likely to overcompensate. Even though tenure‐diverse boards seem to exhibit superior monitoring performance, there is limited evidence that their firms exhibit superior financial performance. The findings suggest that recent calls for board renewal, to the extent that it would increase tenure diversity rather than just decrease average board tenure, may help enhance board monitoring.     

The origin of FDI and domestic firms’ productivity—Evidence from Vietnam

This study examines how the origin of foreign investors affects the degree of horizontal and vertical technological spillovers, using firm-level panel data from Vietnam in 2002–2011. The results show a positive association between the presence of Asian firms in downstream sectors and the productivity of Vietnamese firms in supply industries, but no significant relationship in the case of European and North American affiliates. Within Asia, we find that foreign direct investment from China and Taiwan generates positive vertical spillovers to local suppliers. We hypothesize that distance, preferential trade agreements, and institutional or technological differences that affect the degree of local sourcing significantly impact vertical spillovers from foreign direct investment. The horizontal spillover effects are in general negative and statistically significant. Various robustness checks are performed.     

Independent directors and firm performance in family controlled firms: evidence from Indonesia

We analyse the relationship between board structure and firm performance in family‐controlled firms using a sample of Indonesian non‐financial companies. We find that the share of independent directors on the board has an insignificant relationship with firm performance. We suspect that the result is driven by the lack of institutional reforms in relation to the appointment of independent directors. Our analysis shows strong empirical support for the proposition that family control (family ownership and family involvement on the board) is negatively related to firm performance. However, the significant effect of family ownership disappears when family involvement on the board is taken into the model. This result indicates that family ownership is more detrimental to firm performance whenever the family is highly involved in control decisions. Our results suggest that Indonesia needs to implement governance reforms that prevent majority owners from exercising excessive control over firms.     

The role of FDI in domestic exporting: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of FDI on domestic exporting firms. We show that domestic firms respond to an increase in the presence of FDI by increasing their exports even though the increase in foreign presence can drive up production costs and make the domestic market more profitable. Our test case for this hypothesis is China, where we confirm the significant positive impact of FDI on domestic firms’ exports. This finding sheds light on the massive exports and rapid inflow of foreign investment that have been observed in China in the past three decades.     

Productivity Measurement and the Relationship between Plant Performance and JIT Intensity*

The management accounting and operations management literatures argue that the adoption of advanced manufacturing practices, such as just‐in‐time (JIT), necessitates complementary changes in a firm's management accounting and control systems. This study uses a sample of JIT and non‐JIT plants operating in the Canadian automotive parts manufacturing industry to study the interaction among performance outcomes, intensity of JIT practices, and productivity measurement. This study provides evidence that productivity measurement mediates the relationship between performance outcomes and intensity of JIT practices. Specifically, both JIT and non‐JIT plants that use a broader range of productivity measures are more efficient and profitable than other plants. Also, plants that employ industry‐driven productivity measures are more profitable and efficient than plants that employ idiosyncratic productivity measures, especially if the former are more JIT‐intensive than the latter. Furthermore, plants that employ quality productivity measures are less efficient and less profitable than those that do not, especially if they use more intensive JIT practices. The latter result is consistent with JIT‐intensive plants overinvesting in quality. This study also finds that plants that invest more in buffer stock are less efficient and less profitable, especially if they use more intensive JIT practices. Despite the fact that plant profitability and efficiency are highly correlated, JIT‐intensive plants are more profitable but less efficient than plants that are not JIT‐intensive, after controlling for productivity measures, plant size, and buffer stock. This result suggests that despite wasting resources, JIT‐intensive plants are still able to generate relatively higher profits than plants that are not JIT‐intensive.     

Audit Committees,Boards, and the Quality of Reported Earnings*

I use data on 252 U.S. firms between 1994 and 2000 to study the relationship between audit committees and boards of directors with financial reporting quality. I initially document several changes in committee and board profile during the sample period. Results from logistic regressions suggest that measures of audit committee and board structure are related to earnings quality in a manner that is generally consistent with the predictions of agency theory. This study contributes to extant knowledge by employing different earnings quality measures from prior studies, and by expanding the range of audit committee attributes deemed important in determining audit committee performance.     

Do Corporate Site Visits Impact Stock Prices?

We examine the stock price impact of corporate site visits using a unique data set of site visits to listed firms in China. Our main findings are as follows. First, the market reaction around corporate site visits is statistically and economically significant and is stronger for group visits, visits conducted by mutual fund managers, visits covering accounting and finance topics, visits to firms with poor information environments, and visits to manufacturing firms. Second, the stock returns around site visits are positively associated with firms’ future performance. Third, the changes in visiting funds’ holdings are more predictive of firms’ future performance than those of nonvisiting funds. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that site visits are important venues for investors to collect information about firms and make informed trades.     

On corporate philanthropy of private firms and trade credit financing in China

This paper examines the impact of corporate philanthropy on trade credit financing for listed private firms in China viewed from the heterogeneous perceptions of credit suppliers. A positive relationship is found between corporate philanthropy and trade credit financing, suggesting that in general firms donating more can obtain more trade credits. However, this relationship is significant only for those firms with positive free cash flows and no political connections. It is striking to find that such a relationship does not exist when firms have negative free cash flows or political connections. Moreover, the relationship between corporate philanthropy and trade credits is affected by the local social trust environment. A good social trust environment is amicable for firms to use corporate philanthropy in obtaining trade credits. The research findings have important policy implications. This paper makes valuable contributions to the current literature through highlighting the importance of supplier heterogeneous perceptions towards corporate philanthropy as well as the effect of the local trust environment on the effectiveness of philanthropy in trade credit financing of the Chinese listed private firms.     

Financial performance and corporate governance in microfinance: Evidence from Asia

Good corporate governance is considered a building block of success for microfinance institutions (MFIs) as it is presumed to help them in achieving their social and financial goals. This paper analyzes the corporate governance and financial performance relationship for MFIs in Asia. We make use of a panel dataset involving 173 MFIs in 18 Asian countries for the period 2007–2011. We construct a corporate governance index based on seven measures pertaining to board size and composition, CEO characteristics, and ownership type. We then estimate the two-way relationship between this index and each of five different financial performance indicators. To address the likely simultaneity between corporate governance and financial performance, we adopt a two-stage least squares estimation approach with instrumental variables. Our results confirm the endogenous nature of corporate governance and financial performance. We conclude that profitability and sustainability of MFIs improve with good governance practices and conversely that more profitable and sustainable MFIs have better governance systems.     

Female CEOs on Japanese corporate boards and firm performance

This paper examines the effects of female chief executive officers (CEOs) on firm performance. Using data on nonfinancial listed firms in Japan, we show that only 0.8% of some 42,000 firm-year observations have female CEOs. There is also little evidence that firms appoint more females as CEOs during our sample period. While the stock market reacts positively to the introduction of a firm's first female CEO, the relationship between CEO gender and firm accounting performance is generally not strong. However, when we classify the type of female CEO, the estimated coefficient for a founder female CEO and Tobin's Q is positive and significant.     

The determinants of capital structure: Evidence from China

This paper employs a new database containing the market and accounting data (from 1994 to 2003) from more than 1200 Chinese-listed companies to document their capital structure characteristics. As in other countries, leverage in Chinese firms increases with firm size and fixed assets, and decreases with profitability, non-debt tax shields, growth opportunity, managerial shareholdings and correlates with industries. We also find that state ownership or institutional ownership has no significant impact on capital structure and Chinese companies consider tax effect in long-term debt financing. Different from those in other countries, Chinese firms tend to have much lower long-term debt.     

Does Mandatory Adoption of IFRS Improve Accounting Quality? Preliminary Evidence

We provide evidence on the preliminary effects of mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on accounting quality for a relatively broad set of firms from 20 countries that adopted IFRS in 2005 relative to a benchmark group of firms from countries that did not adopt IFRS matched on the strength of legal enforcement, industry, size, book‐to‐market, and accounting performance. Relative to these benchmark firms, we find that IFRS firms exhibit significant increases in income smoothing and aggressive reporting of accruals, and a significant decrease in timeliness of loss recognition; however we do not find significant differences across IFRS and benchmark firms in meeting or beating earnings targets. Our findings contrast with findings in earlier studies which suggest that IFRS adoption leads to increased accounting quality. Our findings primarily hold for firms in strong enforcement countries, which suggests that enforcement mechanisms in these countries were not able to counter the initial effects of greater flexibility in IFRS relative to domestic GAAP.     

The Effect of Business Risk on Capital Structure of Indian Corporate Firms: Business Groups vs. Stand-alone Firms

Abstract

This study estimates the relationship between leverage and business risk for Indian corporate firms by applying semi-parametric regression method for three time points, namely 2001, 2007 and 2012. We observe that the relationship is non-linear for all the three measures of RISK in 2001 and 2012. Since we get different results for different measures of risk, we lay more emphasis on RISK2 as the better measure of risk here. From the graphical plots, we find that the relationship between leverage and RISK2 appears to be a polynomial of degree 5 or more. Thus, it invalidates the previous argument of a quadratic relationship between leverage and risk. We then check if the quadratic specification between leverage and risk, as proposed in the existing studies, is appropriate by applying Hardle and Mammen's test. We observe that the relationship varies over the measures of risks and it differs between group-affiliated firms and stand-alone firms. Moreover, the relationship changes over time. Thus, our findings raise questions about the predictions of Castanias, Kale et al. and others on the relationship between capital structure and business risk as a U-shaped one. We conclude that the generalization of a U-shaped relationship between capital structure and business risk is not true.     

Export spillover from foreign direct investment in China during pre- and post-WTO accession

This study investigates the effects of export spillover from foreign direct investment (FDI) before and after China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) accession, with particular consideration of the FDI source country and firm ownership structure. It uses a Chinese manufacturing firm-level panel dataset, for the period 1998–2007. In general, there are no spillover effects among state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This study finds negative horizontal and positive vertical spillovers associated with FDI from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (HMT) among non-SOEs. Furthermore, non-HMT FDI, which is predominantly from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, have statistically significant positive horizontal and vertical spillover effects on the export performance of private Chinese firms. Positive forward spillovers occurred only after China joined the WTO, while positive backward spillovers existed during both the pre- and post-WTO periods. China’s entry into the WTO intensified the forward linkage of production, implying that greater availability of high-quality inputs produced by non-HMT foreign multinationals benefited the export performance of private domestic firms.