Investment Decisions and Managerial Discipline: Evidence from the Takeover Market

This article focuses on the relative importance of boards of directors and the hostile takeover market in disciplining managers who make poor acquisition decisions. The evidence shows a weak inverse relationship between acquisition performance and the likelihood of becoming a takeover target, but only after it becomes clear that the internal control mechanism has failed. A forced turnover of a top executive was more likely in the 1990s, the more negative the abnormal return associated with an acquisition announcement. The relationship between forced turnover and negative acquisition returns is stronger when hostile takeover activity is less intense. Hence, it appears that being disciplined for making a poor acquisition is a function more of the internal control mechanism than of the workings of the takeover market.     

Investment Decisions and Managerial Performance Evaluation

This paper considers incentive provisions for a manager who makes investment decisions. The manager's performance measure can be based on current accounting information: cash flow, depreciation, book value, and current investment. We argue that Residual Income is the unique (linear) performance measure that achieves goal congruence, i.e., the manager accepts all positive NPV projects, and only those. If the manager has the same discount rate as the owner, the depreciation rules remain indeterminate. However, if the manager's discount rate assumes potentially a whole range of values, then a particular depreciation policy combined with Residual Income is the unique way to achieve goal congruence.     

Managerial Entrenchment and Capital Structure Decisions

We study associations between managerial entrenchment and firms' capital structures, with results generally suggesting that entrenched CEOs seek to avoid debt. In a cross-sectional analysis, we find that leverage levels are lower when CEOs do not face pressure from either ownership and compensation incentives or active monitoring. In an analysis of leverage changes, we find that leverage increases in the aftermath of entrenchment-reducing shocks to managerial security, including unsuccessful tender offers, involuntary CEO replacements, and the addition to the board of major stockholders.     

Audit Firm Portfolio Management Decisions

We examine client acceptance and client continuance decisions of a large audit firm to provide empirical evidence on the extent and nature of risk avoidance that the firm uses to purposefully manage its client portfolio. Our results support several key new inferences regarding audit firm portfolio management decisions. First, the results show that this firm is shedding the riskier clients in its portfolio, consistent with the risk avoidance theory of audit firm portfolio management. Second, the results show that the firm's newly accepted clients are less risky than its continuing clients. Although results of both the client continuance and client acceptance decisions imply a less risky portfolio emerging over time, there are greater differences in risk between continuing and discontinued clients than between continuing and newly accepted clients. Third, we find that audit risk factors are more important in audit firm portfolio management decisions than are financial risk factors. Finally, we find no evidence that audit pricing affects the client acceptance and continuance decisions of this firm, controlling for risk and other client characteristics.     

Risks and Portfolio Decisions Involving Hedge Funds

This article characterizes the systematic risk exposures ofhedge funds using buy-and-hold and option-based strategies.Our results show that a large number of equity-oriented hedgefund strategies exhibit payoffs resembling a short positionin a put option on the market index and therefore bear significantleft-tail risk, risk that is ignored by the commonly used mean-varianceframework. Using a mean-conditional value-at-risk framework,we demonstrate the extent to which the mean-variance frameworkunderestimates the tail risk. Finally, working with the systematicrisk exposures of hedge funds, we show that their recent performanceappears significantly better than their long-run performance.     

Managerial Incentives and Corporate Investment and Financing Decisions

This paper examines the relationship between common stock and option holdings of managers and the choice of investment and financing decisions by firms. The authors find support for the hypothesis of a positive relationship between the security holdings of managers and the changes in firm variance and in financial leverage. This conclusion is based on samples of acquiring and divesting firms. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that executive security holdings have a role in reducing agency problems.     

Investment Decisions Depend on Portfolio Disclosures

A weekly database of retail money fund portfolio statistics is uneconomical for retail investors to observe, so it allows direct comparison of disclosed and undisclosed portfolios. This makes possible a more direct and unambiguous test for "window dressing" than elsewhere in the literature. The analysis shows that funds allocating between government and private issues hold more in government issues around disclosures than at other times, consistent with the theory that intermediaries prefer to disclose safer portfolios. Cross-sectional comparisons locate the most intense rebalancing in the worst recent performers.     

An Analysis of the Financing Decisions of REITs: The Role of Market Timing and Target Leverage

This paper examines the role of capital market conditions and target leverage on the marginal financing decisions of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which include both capital raising and capital reduction activities. We investigate the relevance of a hybrid hypothesis whereby REITs have target leverage, but they also choose and time their marginal financing decisions according to the capital market conditions. The empirical results suggest that target leverage behavior plays a secondary role to market timing behavior in the financing decisions of REITs. In particular, we find strong and consistent evidence that REITs exhibit market timing behavior in terms of when and what type of capital to issue or reduce. Such market timing practices, motivated by attempts to take advantage of capital market conditions, may shift the firms away from their target leverage. However, we observe that in the long run, most REITs do move their capital structure towards the target debt level.     

The Role of Learning in Dynamic Portfolio Decisions

This paper analyzes the effect of uncertainty about the meanreturn on the risky asset on the portfolio decisions of an investorwho has a long investment horizon. Building on the earlier workof Detemple (1986), Dothan and Feldman (1986), and Gennotte(1986), it is shown that the possibility of future learningabout the mean return on the risky asset induces the investorto take a larger or smaller position in the risky asset thanshe would if there were no learning, the direction of the effectdepending on whether the investor is more or less risk tolerantthan the logarithmic investor whose portfolio decisions areunaffected by the possibility of future learning. Numericalcalculations show that uncertainty about the mean return onthe market portfolio has a significant effect on the portfoliodecision of an investor with a 20 year horizon if her assessmentof the market risk premium is based solely on the Ibbotson andSinquefield (1995) data.     

The Role of Learning in Dynamic Portfolio Decisions

This paper analyzes the effect of uncertainty about the mean return on the risky asset on the portfolio decisions of an investor who has a long investment horizon. Building on the earlier work of Detemple (1986), Dothan and Feldman (1986), and Gennotte (1986), it is shown that the possibility of future learning about the mean return on the risky asset induces the investor to take a larger or smaller position in the risky asset than she would if there were no learning, the direction of the effect depending on whether the investor is more or less risk tolerant than the logarithmic investor whose portfolio decisions are unaffected by the possibility of future learning. Numerical calculations show that uncertainty about the mean return on the market portfolio has a significant effect on the portfolio decision of an investor with a 20 year horizon if her assessment of the market risk premium is based solely on the Ibbotson and Sinquefield (1995) data.     

IPO Market Timing

I develop a model of information spillovers in initial publicofferings (IPOs). The outcomes of pioneers’ IPOs reflectparticipating investors’ private information on commonvaluation factors. This makes the pricing of subsequent issuesrelatively easier and attracts more firms to the IPO market.I show that IPO market timing by the followers emerges as anequilibrium clustering pattern. High offer price realizationsfor pioneers’ IPOs better reflect investors’ privateinformation and trigger a larger number of subsequent IPOs thanlow offer price realizations do. This asymmetry in the spillovereffect is more pronounced early on in a hot market. The modelprovides an explanation for recent empirical findings that illustratethe high sensitivity of going public decision to IPO marketconditions.     

Martingales and Portfolio Decisions: A User’s Guide

This article gives an overview and introduction to the Martingale approach to multi-period (dynamic) portfolio decisions. While Martingale pricing techniques have long been used with considerable success in the pricing of derivatives and financial assets in general, their potential to improve the practice of dynamic portfolio decisions is not sufficiently recognized yet. This article shows that the approach is, in principle, not difficult to implement for readers equipped with standard option replication techniques if markets are sufficiently “complete” in order to provide investors with the relevant information about the pricing of financial risks. The article provides a practical guide to implement the basic features of the approach in a binomial framework.     

控制权冲突、资本配置决策与投资组合选择

本文以长期股权投资和固定资产的投资组合选择为研究对象,从控制权私利的视角探讨了大股东自利性动机对资本配置决策的作用机理,并进行了相应的数值模拟。研究发现：（1）固定资产投资规模与长期股权投资高状态收益存在负相关关系,而长期股权投资规模则与其高状态收益概率正相关;（2）大股东自利性动机驱使下的资本配置决策偏离了分散持股时的资本配置水平,偏离程度会随着现金流权与控制权分离度的增加而展现出非线性变化态势。上述研究结论为当前有关加强上市公司大股东财务决策监管的政策导向提供了重要的经验启示。     

Portfolio Inertia and Stock Market Fluctuations

This paper uses population‐wide data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Survey of Consumer Finances to resolve the conflict between overtrading and inactivity shown in administrative data on brokerage and retirement accounts, respectively. Considerable inertia is found and linked to characteristics (e.g., limited education or resources), but less to index movements: the downswing has encouraged staying out, rather than getting out, of the market. The small minority with brokerage accounts exhibits important differences in trading patterns relative to the population and invests small fractions of wealth in brokerage accounts. Results strengthen the case for default options in retirement accounts and built‐in trading provisions in mutual funds.     

Market Timing and Capital Structure

It is well known that firms are more likely to issue equity when their market values are high, relative to book and past market values, and to repurchase equity when their market values are low. We document that the resulting effects on capital structure are very persistent. As a consequence, current capital structure is strongly related to historical market values. The results suggest the theory that capital structure is the cumulative outcome of past attempts to time the equity market.     

Do Managerial Motives Impact Dividend Decisions in REITs?

Conflict of interest between shareholders (principal) and managers (agent) is a potential weakness of the modern corporate form. Various monitoring mechanisms—pay for performance compensation schemes, mix of cash compensation and long term compensation, the independence of the board of directors, the market for takeovers, and capital structure—have been developed to discipline management and motivate them to maximize shareholder wealth. We test the hypothesis that dividend payout levels reflect the quality of and motivation for managerial decision making and are a function of performance and monitoring effectiveness. Consistent with this hypothesis, our analyses indicate that dividend payout, and dividend yield are functions of corporate performance, board structure, CEO tenure, and CEO ownership of company shares.     

The Effects of Guidance Frequency and Guidance Goal on Managerial Decisions

We conduct an experiment to examine the effects of guidance frequency (frequent vs. infrequent) and guidance goal (accuracy vs. meet/beat vs. truthful) on managers’ operating decisions. We find that frequent guiders sacrifice total earnings for quarterly earnings predictability irrespective of their guidance goals. Furthermore, when guidance is infrequent, guiders with accuracy goals opt for quarterly earnings predictability over total earnings more often than do guiders with either meet/beat goals or truthful goals. These findings have implications for regulators and investors in terms of the unintended consequences of requesting frequent earnings guidance. Further, while managers may perceive that accuracy goals can help their firms establish forecasting and reporting reputations, we show that accuracy goals may result in dysfunctional internal managerial decisions, particularly when guidance is issued infrequently.