Defensive Changes in Corporate Payout Policy: Share Repurchases and Special Dividends

This paper examines defensive payouts announced in response to hostile corporate control activity. The evidence indicates that the announcement of defensive share repurchases is associated with an average negative impact on the share price of the target firm. In contrast, special dividend payments generally increase the wealth of target firm shareholders. Regardless of payout type, those firms remaining independent after the outcome of the corporate control contest experience an abnormal share price increase over the duration of the contest. Among these firms there are substantial post-contest changes in capital, asset, and ownership structure and abnormally high rates of top management turnover.     

Payout policy in the 21st century

We survey 384 financial executives and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional 23 to determine the factors that drive dividend and share repurchase decisions. Our findings indicate that maintaining the dividend level is on par with investment decisions, while repurchases are made out of the residual cash flow after investment spending. Perceived stability of future earnings still affects dividend policy as in Lintner (1956. American Economic Review 46, 97–113). However, 50 years later, we find that the link between dividends and earnings has weakened. Many managers now favor repurchases because they are viewed as being more flexible than dividends and can be used in an attempt to time the equity market or to increase earnings per share. Executives believe that institutions are indifferent between dividends and repurchases and that payout policies have little impact on their investor clientele. In general, management views provide little support for agency, signaling, and clientele hypotheses of payout policy. Tax considerations play a secondary role.     

Dividends and economic policy uncertainty: International evidence

We provide the first international evidence on the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on dividend policy. Using data from 19 countries, we find that a high level of EPU is positively associated with dividend payout. This evidence is robust to using alternative dividend payout measures, to controlling for other sources of uncertainty, and to addressing endogeneity. We further find that the effect of EPU on dividend policy is moderated by firms' free cash flows and governance quality, and by the quality of country-level indicators of shareholder protection, disclosure, enforcement, and creditor protection. Collectively, our novel evidence suggests that dividends help mitigate agency problems during high-EPU periods.     

Payout policy and ownership structure: The case of Islamic and conventional banks

Using a sample of Islamic and conventional financial institutions domiciled in 16 countries for the period 2000–2015, we examine how ownership structure affects dividend policy. Our main findings indicate that ownership identity is important in explaining dividend policy in these banks, albeit in different patterns. In particular, the results suggest that government ownership seems to exert negative effects on dividend payouts in both types of banks, which is in line with the preference of governments towards bank stability. With respect to family ownership, the impact is negative for conventional banks but positive for Islamic ones, consistent with agency theory. These results are to some extent similar in the case of foreign ownership where it is associated with a higher payout policy in Islamic banks, but not significant in conventional ones. Our results are robust to an array of additional analyses including propensity score matching.     

会计师事务所股份转让引出的思考

一、案件的由来 甲某是某会计师事务所有限责任公司的股东,在事务所改制成立时出资10万元,拥有股份10%,当时事务所章程和出资人协议规定:"出资人在成为事务所股东三年后方可提出退股."半年后由于种种原因,甲某向董事会提出退股离所的书面报告,事务所股东大会经讨论后同意并决定将其股份按原价转让给其他六名股东.     

Expected versus unexpected monetary policy impulses and interest rate pass-through in euro-zone retail banking markets

This paper investigates the interest rate pass-through in the euro-zone’s retail banking markets by differentiating between expected and unexpected monetary policy impulses. The paper introduces interest futures as measures of expected interest rates into pass-through studies. By allowing various specifications of the pass-through process, including asymmetric adjustment, we find a faster pass-through in loan markets when interest rate changes are correctly anticipated. In contrast, deposit markets are found to be more rigid. Overall, our results suggest that a well-communicated monetary policy is important for a speedier and a more homogenous pass-through but may also be complemented by competition policies.     

Optimal financial contracting: dept versus outside equity

This article presents a theory of outside equity based on thecontrol rights and the maturity design of equity. I show thatoutside equity is a tacit agreement between investors and managementsupported by the equity-holders' right to dismiss managementregardless of performance and by the lack of a prespecifiedexpiration date on equity. As a tacit agreement outside equityis sustainable despite management's potential for manipulatingthe cash flows and regardless of how costly it is for equityholders to establish a case against managerial wrongdoing. Iestablish that the only outside equity that investors are willingto hold in equilibrium is that with unlimited life, the veryoutside equity that corporations issue. Consistent with empiricalevidence, this model predicts that debt-equity ratios are higher(lower) in industries with low (high) cash flow variability     

Macroeconomics of bank interest spreads: evidence from Brazil

Bank interest spreads in Brazil are up to ten times larger than international benchmarks. This paper shows that such high spreads can be largely accounted for by a policy that requires banks to invest about half of their deposits in mandatory reserves and selected loans. Using a general equilibrium model, augmented with a banking sector and tailored to the Brazilian economy, the paper also shows that the policy has significant positive and normative implications. It accounts for about half of the spread in the model and a third of the actual spread, and generates welfare costs of almost 2% of current consumption.     

Dividends versus Share Repurchases Evidence from Canada: 1985–2003

This paper provides out-of-sample evidence on the payout policy in Canada during the 1985–2003 period. First, we show that the proportion of nonfinancial firms paying dividends has decreased, while the proportion initiating repurchase programs has increased. We also show that Canadian firms paying dividends and repurchasing shares are extremely concentrated. Second, we focus on the factors that could affect the choice between repurchases and dividends. We find that dividends and repurchases are used by different types of firms. While we do not confirm the financial flexibility hypothesis, our results are consistent with the substitution hypothesis after controlling for selection bias and endogeneity.     

Price discovery in the CDS market: the informational role of equity short interest

This paper documents a negative relation between equity short interest and future returns on credit default swaps (CDS). This relation is most consistent with the theory that equity short interest telegraphs relevant information to secondary market CDS investors about credit spread not transmitted into prices in other ways. The CDS return predictive pattern also strengthens negatively for equity short-interest positions subject to an outward shift in the demand for shortable stocks, which we view as a proxy for the expected benefits of private information (Cohen et al. in J Finance 62(5):2061–2096, 2007). This suggests that features of the shorting market may help explain the lagged response of CDS spreads to equity short interest. Our tests of economic significance, however, do not support the view that the CDS return predictive pattern is strong enough to cover the round-trip cost of trading in the secondary CDS market.     

关于货币政策长期利率目标制研究

央行直接调节长期利率是救助此次国际金融危机的重要手段。文章综合实务界和理论界观点,分析常规货币政策框架和非常规货币政策框架下,中央银行调节长期利率的不同机制和效果;在此基础上,对央行能否将长期利率调节作为常规货币政策工具的相关研究进展进行综述和评析。     

The choice of equity selling mechanisms: PIPEs versus SEOs

We examine the firm's choice between an SEO and a PIPE, an innovation in follow-on equity selling mechanism seen in the late 1990s. Our primary finding indicates that the rapid rise of the PIPE market fills the capital needs of firms which may not have access to more traditional alternatives. This lack of access is driven mainly by information asymmetry and weak operating performance. We also show that firms are more likely to choose PIPEs when the general market and the firm's stock are performing poorly. Furthermore, we find that selected firms with access to the public market may prefer a PIPE due to specific cost considerations.     

State owned banking: gaining policy support and investor interest

State owned banking has staged a major comeback. Finding a place among the top 25 banks in the world in terms of market cap and assets apart, state owned banks have emerged as hot stocks for domestic and international investors. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, privatization of the financial sector, which has been the major policy thrust evident in numerous countries, took a backseat with governments taking over banking institutions and providing various forms of support ranging from capital injections to outright nationalization of the global banks adversely affected by the crisis. The current crisis also may encourage governments to keep their stakeholding in the public banks in view of the need to support the vital sectors of the economy and also pursue financial inclusion that emerged as a major policy priority. This article presents a brief perspective on the comeback of the state owned banking, and also its own transformation that led to its growing acceptance and endorsements from policymakers investors and customers.     

Banking and interest rates in monetary policy analysis: A quantitative exploration

The paper reconsiders the role of money and banking in monetary policy analysis by including a banking sector and money in an optimizing model otherwise of a standard type. The model is implemented quantitatively, with a calibration based on US data. It is reasonably successful in providing an endogenous explanation for substantial steady-state differentials between the interbank policy rate and (i) the collateralized loan rate, (ii) the uncollateralized loan rate, (iii) the T-bill rate, (iv) the net marginal product of capital, and (v) a pure intertemporal rate. We find a differential of over 3% p.a. between (iii) and (iv), thereby contributing to resolution of the equity premium puzzle. Dynamic impulse response functions imply pro- or counter-cyclical movements in an external finance premium that can be of quantitative significance. In addition, they suggest that a central bank that fails to recognize the distinction between interbank and other short rates could miss its appropriate settings by as much as 4% p.a. Also, shocks to banking productivity or collateral effectiveness call for large responses in the policy rate.     

Deconstructing credibility: The breaking of monetary policy rules in Brazil

Can political interference deconstruct credibility that was hardly-earned through successful stabilization policy? We analyze the recent switch in the conduct of monetary policy by the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB). Brazil is the largest Emerging Market Economy to formally target inflation, having adopted the Inflation Targeting (IT) regime in 1999. In the early years of IT, the BCB engaged in constructing credibility with price setting agents and succeeded to anchor inflation expectations to its target even under adverse conditions such as exchange rate crises. We argue that this effort to maintain IT rules-based policy ended in 2011, as a new country president and BCB board came to power. We then discuss the consequences of this credibility loss. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) we provide strong empirical evidence of the BCB’s shift toward looser, discretionary policy after 2011; (ii) preliminary evidence suggests that this shift has affected agents’ inflation expectations generating social and economic costs.     

Monetary policy and portfolio rebalancing: Evidence from European equity mutual funds

In this study, we provide empirical evidence on the portfolio rebalancing of European equity mutual funds following both conventional (CMP) and unconventional monetary policies (UMP). We use 1772 equity mutual funds’ portfolio holdings over the period 2002Q4–2016Q4. This level of granularity allows us to characterise the funds’ asset allocation in different portfolio dimensions: the size, style, currency, and domicile of the stocks, and managers’ preferred investment strategies. Using a panel fixed effect estimator, our results support the existence of portfolio rebalancing across equity categories following UMP. European equity mutual funds’ assets are, on average, reallocated towards mid-cap, and core stocks and developing economies, and shifted away from small-cap and value stocks and home as well as developed countries. Furthermore, mutual funds seem to concentrate on their preferred and historical investment strategies. These two results suggest that managers are more willing to invest in safer and familiar stocks following UMP announcements thereby decreasing the risk of asymmetry of information. We finally show that the funds size, returns volatility and expense ratio affect the strength of the rebalancing.     

Price disparity between Chinese A- and H-shares: Dividends,currency values,and the interest rate differential

We provide new evidence on price disparity between Chinese A- and H-shares for cross-listed companies in the period 2006–2019. Our panel-data results show that the A-share price premium is negatively related to cash dividends and expected relative currency values between mainland China and Hong Kong. International investors in H-shares prefer companies that pay dividends regularly, and they buy when the Chinese currency is expected to appreciate. A discounted dividend theoretical model explains these results.