The risk relevance of International Financial Reporting Standards: Evidence from Greek banks

The main purpose of the paper is to estimate market, interest rate and exchange rate risk of Greek financial institutions and to explore the relationship between market-based measures of risk and accounting variables before and after the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in order to examine whether IFRS introduction enhances the information content of accounting data. Empirical results reveal that all banks are exposed to market risk while interest rate and exchange rate risk affect them occasionally. Moreover, the IFRS introduction reinforces the explanatory ability of accounting data, on systematic and non-systematic risks. Concerning the risk-relevance of accounting ratios, liquidity measures, credibility, earnings per share and provisions for credit loss are inversely related to systematic and non-systematic risks under IFRS. Moreover, loans to total assets ratio, interest rate spread and income diversification are directly associated with market measures of risk, while bank size is negatively related to both risk measures under IFRS. Our findings imply that the fair value orientation of IFRS is responsible for the higher risk-relevance of fundamentals as opposed to the historically oriented Greek Accounting Standards (GAS).     

Trust and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This paper examines the impact of social trust on stock price crash risk. Social trust measures the level of mutual trust among the members of a society. Using a large sample of Chinese listed firms for the 2001–2015 period, we find that firms headquartered in regions of high social trust tend to have smaller crash risks. This result is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests and is more prominent for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), for firms with weak monitoring, and for firms with higher risk-taking. Moreover, we observe that firms in regions of high social trust are associated with higher accounting conservatism and fewer financial restatements. Our study suggests that social trust is an important variable that is omitted in the literature investigating the predictors of stock price crashes.     

Operating cash flow opacity and stock price crash risk

We examine the relation between operating cash flow (OCF) opacity and stock price crash risk. We find that OCF opacity is positively associated with future stock price crash risk after controlling for accruals opacity and other determinants known to influence crash risk. This finding suggests that OCF opacity facilitates bad news hoarding and enables managerial resource diversion, which in turn increases crash risk. We also find that the positive relation between OCF opacity and crash risk is more pronounced when external monitoring is weak, information asymmetry is high, OCF importance is low, and cost of accruals management is high. Overall, our evidence highlights the severe consequence of OCF opacity in that it boosts crash risk; our study should alert the researchers, investors, and regulators to pay more attention to OCF management.     

Religion and stock price crash risk:Evidence from China

This paper investigates whether religious traditions influence firm-specific crash risk in China.Using a sample of A-share listed firms from 2003 to 2013,we pro...     

Zero-leverage policy and stock price crash risk: Evidence from Korea

This study examines the difference in stock price crash risk between zero-leverage and non-zero-leverage firms. We find that zero-leverage firms have a significantly higher future stock price crash risk than non-zero-leverage firms. Next, we find that the positive relation between zero-leverage policy and future stock price crash risk is more pronounced when firms have higher controlling shareholders' ownership and foreign ownership. We also find that the positive relation is more pronounced for firms with low cash holdings than for those with high cash holdings. Further, we find that the positive relation is stronger for dividend-paying firms than non-dividend-paying firms. Our results are robust to alternative estimation specifications and endogeneity concerns. Overall, our findings shed light on the extent to which extreme corporate financial policy has an impact on future stock price crash risk. Our empirical evidence also provides meaningful implications for how stakeholders (especially investors) predict stock price crash risk in the context of extremely conservative capital structure.     

Excess perks and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

We investigate the impact of excess perk consumption on crash risk in state-owned enterprises in China. To enjoy excess perks, executives in state-owned enterprises have an incentive to withhold bad news for extended periods, leading to higher future stock price crash risk. Consistent with this assertion, we find a positive correlation between excess perks and crash risk. The findings are robust to the inclusion of other determinants of crash risk identified in the literature, such as earnings management, conditional conservatism, and firm-level corporate governance mechanisms. The results still hold after accounting for possible endogeneity issues using a two-stage least squares estimation. Earnings management (conditional conservatism) helps amplify (lessen) this impact. Moreover, better external monitoring mitigates the impact of excess perks on firm crash risk. We further find that the impact of excess perks on crash risk is more pronounced in firms whose executives are approaching retirement and persists for at least two years.     

Party leadership,corporate governance and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

In this paper, we provide evidence supporting the negative effect of corporate party organizations on Chinese state-owned enterprises' stock price crash risk. To illustrate the underlying mechanisms, we verify the impact of corporate party organizations on chairmen of different ages and positions and find that the restraining effect only exists in companies with strong promotion incentives for senior executives, supporting the governance role of the corporate party committee. Further, the impact of corporate party organization is weakened when the chairman is more powerful and alternative governance mechanisms work. In contrast, the governance effect is more pronounced in the companies controlled by local governments and after the new anti-corruption policy. We adopt several methods to address endogeneity concerns and find our results robust. Overall, this paper contributes to the mixed evidence on governance and stock price crash risk from the perspective of a unique arrangement, corporate party organizations.     

First Financial Restructuring and operating efficiency: Evidence from Taiwanese commercial banks

This paper investigates the effect of the “First Financial Restructuring” (FFR) on the operating efficiency of commercial banks in Taiwan. Applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) to operations data for 40 commercial banks over the 6-year period 2000–2005, we find that while the banks have lower operating efficiency on average during the reform period (2002–2003) compared to the pre-reform period (2000–2001), improved operating efficiency is reflected in the post-reform period (2004–2005). Our results remain unchanged even after controlling for the non-performing loan ratio, capital adequacy ratio, bank ownership, size, and GDP growth rate. These results suggest that the improved efficiency in the post-reform period is possibly due to enhanced banking and risk management practices and benefits obtained from compliance with the FFR.     

Employee relations and stock price crash risk: Evidence from employee lawsuits

In this paper, we examine the effect of firms' employee relations, measured by the number of employee lawsuits divided by the total number of employees, on stock price crash risk. Firms with higher employee lawsuit ratios tend to have higher stock price crash risk. Our results are robust after addressing possible endogeneity and using alternative measures of employee relations and stock price crash risk. We also find that the association between the employee lawsuit ratio and stock price crash risk is less prominent for state-owned enterprises, for firms with stringent external monitoring, and for firms with positive earnings news. Finally, earnings aggressiveness appears to be the channel through which the employee lawsuit ratio affects stock price crash risk. Collectively, our study is in line with the stakeholder theory, and highlights the importance of employee lawsuit for preventing crash of stock price.     

Audit firm's Confucianism and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the association between audit firm's Confucianism and stock price crash risk. We postulate that Confucian moral standards predict a mixed relationship between audit firm's Confucianism and stock price crash risk. Using a large sample of listed firms in China during 2006–2018, we find that audit firm's Confucianism is positively related with client's future stock price crash risk, implying that Confucianism of audit firm aggravates client's bad news hoarding behavior. The effect is more pronounced for client without female auditors and/or with closer personal relationship with auditors. Mechanism analysis shows that audit firm's Confucianism exacerbates crash risk by worsening audit quality and information transparency. Political discipline and external monitoring help to alleviate the negative influence of audit firm's Confucianism on stock price crash risk.     

Patent pledge policy and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the influence of China’s patent pledge policy on the stability of stock prices for Chinese listed businesses. We find that when businesses use patent rights as collateral for loans, the probability of stock price crash increases. Additionally, this unfavorable effect is more pronounced in businesses with strong financial standing, excessive managerial confidence, and serious agency problems than in businesses with weak financial standing, non-excessive managerial confidence, and non-serious agency problems. Indeed, a mechanism analysis reveals that the patent pledge policy aggravates management’s excessive investment and contributes to stock price instability. Furthermore, the pledge financing process and corporate financing goals are not sufficiently transparent and lack internal and external supervision, due to the challenges associated with determining the value of patent rights, the lack of awareness of risk control in the pledge process, and the imperfections in pertinent policies and systems.     

Executive team heterogeneity,equity pledges,and stock Price crash risk: Evidence from China

Heterogeneous characteristics of executive teams have drawn wide concern as a factor highly related to economic decisions. Using data from 2015 to 2020 among Chinese A-share listed companies, we examine the moderating role played by executive team heterogeneity in the positive impact of controlling shareholder equity pledges on stock crash risk. We find that executive team heterogeneity of overseas background and age reduce the positive impact, while tenure heterogeneity increases the positive impact. Further evidence shows that political connections, ownership property and D&O liability insurance can induce different moderating effects of executive team heterogeneity in the relationship between equity pledges and stock price crash risk. Our study also contributes to helping listed companies effectively manage stock crash risk connected with equity pledges.     

Minority shareholders' activism and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study investigates the effect of minority shareholders' activism on stock price crash risk in the Chinese stock market. Using a novel dataset on minority shareholders' attendance at annual general meetings (AGMs), we find that minority shareholders' attendance, especially the onsite attendance, significantly exacerbates firms' future crash risk. The results are robust to instrumental variable approach, placebo tests, and alternative measures of minority shareholders' attendance and crash risk. We also find three channels: incremental analyst following, media coverage and retail attention, all of which expand market pressure and exacerbate managers' incentives to withhold bad news. Extended analyses show that the impact of minority shareholders' attendance is less pronounced among firms with better investor protection. Overall, our findings are helpful to understand the importance of minority shareholders' activism and its unintended consequences on stock market in the emerging economies.     

Bank governance,regulation, supervision,and risk reporting: Evidence from operational risk disclosures in European banks

This paper investigates the direct and joint effects of bank governance, regulation, and supervision on the quality of risk reporting in the banking industry, as proxied for by operational risk disclosure (ORD) quality in European banks. After controlling for the endogeneity between bank stability and risk reporting quality, we find that banks having a higher proportion of outside board directors, lower executive ownership, concentrated outside non-governmental ownership, and more active audit committee, and operating under regulations promoting bank competition (i.e., less stringent entry to banking requirements) provide ORD of higher quality. In addition, we find that the contribution of bank supervisors to the enhancement of ORD quality depends on the ownership structure of the bank. Specifically, powerful and independent bank supervisors mitigate the incentives for entrenched bank executives to withhold voluntary ORD. Moreover, bank supervisors and largest shareholders perform substitutive roles in monitoring the bank management's compliance with mandatory ORD requirements. For the sake of enhancing risk reporting quality in banks, our findings recommend sustaining board independence, enhancing audit committee activity, easing entry to banking requirements, and promoting a more proactive role for bank supervisors.     

Bank regulatory capital and liquidity: Evidence from US and European publicly traded banks

The theory of financial intermediation highlights various channels through which capital and liquidity are interrelated. Using a simultaneous equations framework, we investigate the relationship between bank regulatory capital and bank liquidity measured from on-balance sheet positions for European and US publicly traded commercial banks. Previous research studying the determinants of bank capital buffer has neglected the role of liquidity. On the whole, we find that banks decrease their regulatory capital ratios when they face higher illiquidity as defined in the Basel III accords or when they create more liquidity as measured by Berger and Bouwman (2009). However, considering other measures of illiquidity that focus more closely on core deposits in the United States, our results show that small banks strengthen their solvency standards when they are exposed to higher illiquidity. Our empirical investigation supports the need to implement minimum liquidity ratios concomitant to capital ratios, as stressed by the Basel Committee; however, our findings also shed light on the need to further clarify how to define and measure illiquidity and also on how to regulate large banking institutions, which behave differently than smaller ones.     

Controlling shareholder share pledging and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

Using the unique setting of the Chinese market from 2003 to 2018, this study examines how share pledging behavior affects firms' stock price crash risk by analyzing the costs and benefits of the controlling shareholder's pledging decision to hoard bad news. We find that during the controlling shareholder share-pledging period, pledged firms exhibit significantly higher future stock price crash risk than their non-pledged counterparts. The risk is also higher during this period relative to in shareholders' own pre-pledging and post-pledging benchmark periods. Considering the internal and external information environment, we further observe a less pronounced increase in stock price crash risk for pledged firms with a strong internal control system and for those with more media attention. Together, our results reveal controlling shareholders' hedging motivations for engaging in pledging activities and the role played by the internal and external information environment in constraining the opportunistic behavior of controlling shareholders.     

Multi-dimensional corporate social responsibilities and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

Worldwide, there has been an ongoing debate about whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) can lead to better financial market performance, or whether corporations can do well by doing good. Working with a sample of all listed companies in China from 2010 to 2017, this study examines the impacts of three dimensions of CSR on stock price crash risk. We find that CSR, especially firms' responsibility to the environment and stakeholders, significantly reduces stock price crash risk, while social contributions such as charitable donations have no significant effect on stock crash risk. Attracting long-term institutional investors is the primary mechanism through which CSR can curb crash risk. Mitigating earnings management is also a channel through which overall CSR and stakeholder responsibility contribute to a lower stock crash risk. Finally, we find that stakeholder responsibility and environmental responsibility can help improve stock market performance.     

Economic policy uncertainty,corporate investment decisions and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

We examine the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and stock price crash risk via the corporate investment in Chinese listed firms. Results show that higher EPU is associated with lower crash risk. Firms increase financial asset holdings and reduce overinvestment when EPU rises, leading to lower future crash risk. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and firms with lower management incentives tend to reduce overinvestment, whereas non-SOEs tend to increase financial asset holdings. Thus, firms tend to be cautious in their investments when EPU is high, which reduces crash risk. Our study provides new insights into the validity of the Lucas critique in China.     

Top management abnormal turnover and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

The activities and decisions of the top management have garnered considerable attention. The general phenomenon of management turnover has gradually become the focus of investors in capital market, especially top management abnormal turnover. This paper examines the correlation between top management abnormal turnover and stock price crash risk. The research finds that the higher the abnormal turnover rate of top management, the greater the risk of stock price crashes, indicating that top management abnormal turnover can exacerbate the stock price crash risk. Considering that directors' and officers' liability insurance is an instrument for enterprises to protect their own interests, this paper finds D&O insurance can mitigate the stock price crash risk caused by top management abnormal turnover. Based on China's special national conditions, further researches also consider political associations and the nature of property right. The results advance our understanding of top management abnormal turnover and directors' and officers' liability insurance, and remind companies to reduce stock price crash risk when the top management leaves.     

Environmental engagement and stock price crash risk: Evidence from the European banking industry

This paper investigates the impact of banks' environmental engagement on their future stock price crash risk. Given the strong commitment of European institutions towards a low carbon economy, we focus on European banks, which are expected to be crucial actors in driving this challenge. Using a sample of 447 bank-year observations across 22 European countries from 2015 to 2021, we find a negative relationship between banks' environmental engagement and future stock price crash risk, in accordance with the signalling theory, suggesting that a high level of environmental engagement corresponds to high ethical standards of bank managers and high levels of financial transparency.