Corporate fraud,risk avoidance,and housing investment in China

This study investigates the impact of corporate fraud on household investment choices. We conjecture that by undermining trust in the financial and insurance market, corporate fraud behaviour would decrease households' investment in risky financial assets and increase investment in non-financial assets. Combining data on households' investment behaviour with information on fraudulent activities of listed companies in China, we find that households with more lifetime experience of corporate fraud invest less in stocks and are less likely to purchase private insurance. By contrast, fraud experience increases households' intention to invest in residential real estate. In addition, the impact of corporate fraud is stronger among individuals who pay more attention to economic information, among individuals who have more social interaction, and among individuals in better regulated regions. Furthermore, we find that different types of fraud have differentiated effects on household investment decisions. Our findings indicate that corporate misconduct could generate profound negative externalities on the whole financial system.     

儒家文化与家庭风险资产投资

儒家文化内生于降低家庭内部交易成本和提高家庭内部治理效率的需要,其家庭主义观念及伦理秩序可能不仅影响了人际信任的半径,而且有助于强化家庭组织的风险分担功能。因此,儒家文化可能对家庭风险资产投资行为有着重要的影响。本文使用2014年和2016年中国劳动力动态调查(CLDS)数据,以明清进士密度衡量儒家文化,并采用流行病学方法回归发现,以明清进士密度衡量的儒家文化显著提高了家庭投资风险资产的概率。对影响机制的检验发现,强化了家庭组织的风险分担功能可能是儒家文化促进家庭风险资产投资行为的最主要机制,但并未发现有儒家文化显著影响一般信任的经验证据。这一研究发现增进了对儒家文化与家庭金融之间关系的理论和经验认知,意味着弘扬传统文化对于中国金融市场发展和现代经济体系建设具有积极的促进作用。     

Diversification and financialization of non-financial corporations: Evidence from China

This paper examines whether and how business diversification affects financialization in non-financial corporations. Using data from the Chinese market, we find that business diversification strategy will significantly increase non-financial corporations' investment in financial assets. Furthermore, exacerbated agency problems, increased investment inefficiency and high operational risk are found to be the consequences of business diversification, which induce companies to hold high-risk financial assets. The impact of business diversification on financial investment is stronger in small-cap firms, SOEs, and firms with weak monitoring mechanisms. Finally, the diversification effect on corporate financialization is more significant where regional economic development and regulatory environment is weak.     

Family Composition and Investment in Household Capital: Contrasts in the Behavior of the Husband-Wife and Female-Headed Households

This paper estimates a portfolio model that includes investment in human capital, as well as traditional investments of housing, financial assets, and automobiles, and that contrasts portfolios of husband-wife households with female-headed households. Female headed households adjust their portfolios to disequilibria in various stocks more slowly than husband-wife households.     

Distributional Effects of Public Investment when Wealth and Classes are Back

In developed economies, wealth inequality is high, while public capital is underprovided. Here, we study the impact of heterogeneity in saving behavior and income sources on the distributional effects of public investment. A capital tax is levied to finance productive public capital in an economy with two types of households: high income households who save dynastically and middle income households who save for retirement. We find that inequality is reduced the higher the capital tax rate is and that low tax rates are Pareto‐improving. There is no clear‐cut trade‐off between efficiency and equality: middle income households’ consumption is maximal at a capital tax rate that is higher than the rate which maximizes high income households’ consumption.     

Contrarians or momentum chasers? Individual investors’ behavior when trading exchange-traded funds

Conducting the first study of momentum impact on households’ exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading behavior, we find that Finnish households are less contrarian when trading benchmark index ETFs than when trading common stocks. Also, their propensity to chase recent positive momentum is higher when purchasing ETFs than when purchasing stocks. As expected, results are stronger for ETF purchases than sales. Our findings are consistent with hypotheses that households are less overconfident trading index ETFs than common stocks, that contrarian behavior is more often rational when trading stocks than when trading ETFs, and that households trade ETFs for the long run.     

Foreign currency exposure and balance sheet effects: A firm-level analysis for Korea

If firms match the currency composition of their liabilities with that of their assets or income, a currency depreciation will have an ambiguous effect on investment of firms holding foreign debt. Using Korean firm-level data, we first find evidence of currency matching. We then show that foreign debt has a significant negative balance sheet effect on firm investment following a depreciation, once foreign assets and exports are controlled for. The balance sheet effect is particularly severe for firms subject to financial constraints. The inclusion of foreign assets is important for identifying the balance sheet effect separately from the competitiveness effect.     

保险资金投资管理中的风险分散问题研究

组合投资是利用投资组合内各个风险资产之间的相关性来分散风险的,而均值—方差投资组合模型采用的相关性度量—相关系数无法准确地度量风险资产之间的相关性,这必将对组合投资的风险分散效果产生不利影响。本文提出,用理论性质更好的相关性度量来度量风险资产之间的相关性,并建立基于Kendallτ的投资组合模型。通过实证研究发现,在保险资金投资管理中,采用基于Kendallτ的投资组合模型能够取得比均值—方差投资组合模型更好的风险分散效果。     

First‐Year Impacts on Savings and Economic Well‐Being from the Assets for Independence Program Randomized Evaluation

Individual development accounts (IDAs) help low‐income families save by providing a savings account and a potential match toward personal savings for specific investments, such as a first home, business capitalization, or postsecondary education and training. The Assets for Independence (AFI) program uses AFI IDAs—commonly coupled with financial education—with the goal of helping low‐income households achieve greater self‐sufficiency. Using a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate the impact of AFI after one year and find that the median level of liquid assets was $657 higher for the treatment group than the control group (before matching funds). We also find that the treatment (vs control) group experienced less material hardship (by 34%) and was less likely to use nonbank check‐cashing services (by 39%).     

Low Interest Rates and Household Portfolio Behaviour in Euro Area Countries

This paper examines whether household portfolio structures change in favour of riskier assets when interest rates fall. Using euro area financial accounts data from the financial crisis through the present day, it is shown that the current low interest rate environment has not, up to this point, induced euro area households to add further risky assets to their investment portfolios.     

Good Apples,Bad Apples: Sorting Among Chinese Companies Traded in the U.S.

Committing financial fraud is a serious breach of business ethics. However, there are few large scale studies of financial fraud, which involve ethical considerations. In this study, we investigate the pervasive financial scandals, which by the end of 2012 involved more than a third of the US-listed Chinese companies. Based on a sample of 262 US-listed Chinese companies, we analyze factors that differentiate between firms that commit financial fraud and those that do not. We find that firms more predisposed to unethical behavior, due to their low regional social trust in the home country and low respect for regulations and laws as proxied by political connections, are more likely to commit accounting and financial fraud. They take advantage of low hurdles for listing via reverse mergers and avoid third-party monitoring through poor governance and auditors. Finally, we find evidence, after these scandals, of non-fraudulent firms differentiating themselves from the fraudulent firms by sending costly signals such as insiders purchasing shares, increasing dividends, and going private.     

The Challenges of Detection and Enforcement of Insider Trading

Taking advantage of the China’s recent anti-corruption campaign, we attempt to examine the effect of public governance on a firm’s incentive to commit fraud. Using enforcement actions data from the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) from 2004 to 2014, we find that, due to enhanced public governance, firms are less likely to commit fraud in the post-campaign period than in the pre-campaign period. We further show that the effect of public governance is more evident in privately held listed firms, in firms with weak legal environment, and in firms in areas with poor local economies. In addition, we find that older CEOs respond less actively to the public governance caused by anti-corruption regulations. This paper offers clear policy implications for business ethics by indicating that public governance provides external monitoring of corporate decisions.     

Endogenous Property Rights in a Hold‐up Experiment

In a hold‐up experiment designed to test theoretical predictions following from Hart and deMeza and Lockwood regarding investment behavior, Sonnemans, Oosterbeek and Sloof (SOS) find only a partial confirmation of theory. According to SOS these deviations from standard theory can be explained by positive reciprocal behavior. In this paper, we replicate the experiment by SOS and add another group of treatments in which asset ownership is endogenized by auctioning off the assets. Our experiment shows that the results by SOS crucially depend on the ownership structure being exogenously assigned by the experimenter. We present experimental evidence that, by and large, corroborates the theoretical predictions made by Hart.     

Financial Liberalisation and Growth in China’s Economic Reform

This paper summarises China’s financial liberalisation experience and examines the contributions of financial resources on economic growth during the post‐reform period. Financial liberalisation has resulted in the reallocation of the four sources of total investment in fixed assets: state budget appropriation, national bank loans, self‐raised funds, and foreign investment. We find that the growth of GDP and industrial production are positively related to the growth of self‐raised funds and foreign investment. We conclude that the use of foreign investment and funds raised by the enterprises themselves are more efficient than the government’s appropriation and provision of bank loans.     

What drives firms’ intent to seek strategic assets by foreign direct investment? A study of emerging economy firms

What drives firms, particularly those from emerging economies, to engage in competitive catch-up with world leaders? We study the first step leading to catch-up, namely the managerial intent to acquire strategic assets that help closing the gap. Theoretically grounded in the awareness–motivation–capability (AMC) framework of competitive dynamics, we identify key factors contributing to firms’ strategic intent to catch-up by acquiring strategic assets abroad. Using a sample of 154 Chinese firms, we find that firms’ strategic assets seeking intent of foreign direct investment is influenced by their exposure to foreign competition, their governance structure, and relevant financial and managerial capabilities.     

Internal capital markets,empire building,and capital structure

Internal funds generated by assets in place are available to finance the bulk of new investment by nonfinancial firms. Self-interested management has incentives to misallocate these funds in order to increase their control rents. There are two ways to impact future discretionary investment. First, using debt diverts funds to creditors and away from management. Second, having in place more assets that do not provide internal financing reduces the funds subject to managerial discretion. Investment in such assets and debt financing are inversely related in controlling self-interested management. As a result, firms borrow more and own proportionally more assets that provide internal funds as the average profitability of these assets, or that of future investment, increases. Firms may borrow less while increasing investment in the less valuable assets that do not supply internal financing as the expected profitability of these assets increases.     

Home Equity Use and the Life Cycle Hypothesis

The life cycle hypothesis of consumption assumes the household to take a life-time perspective on all resources available for consumption, and to use the assets accumulated during the life-time to fund later consumption. Typically, households in the middle, high earning years, are able to save; younger and older households borrow or dissave. For many, a large share of accumulated household assets reside in home equity. This paper analyzes the propensity to use home equity to fund current consumption using a logit analysis of homeowners. The results support earlier criticism of the life cycle hypothesis in finding that older households do not rely on dissaving from assets. Older homeowners are less likely to use home equity to fund current consumption than others. Both sociodemographic determinants of life cycle changes as well as income variables are significant determinants of willingness to use home equity. Liquidity considerations appear to be less important.     

Regulatory Sanctions on Independent Directors and Their Consequences to the Director Labor Market: Evidence from China

We investigate the regulatory sanctions imposed on independent directors for their firms’ financial frauds in China. These regulatory sanctions are prima-facie evidence of significant lapses in business ethics. During the period 2003–2010, 302-person-time independent directors were penalized by the regulator (the China Securities Regulatory Commission—the CSRC), and the two stock exchanges. We find that the independent directors with accounting experiences are more likely to be penalized by the CSRC, though they do not suffer more severe penalties than do the other sanctioned independent directors. We also find that independent directors suffer less severe penalties than do the insider directors. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the sanctions on independent directors are tied to their assumed ethical and legal responsibilities. Following a regulatory sanction, penalized independent directors experience a significant decline in the number of other board seats held. However, they can gain board seats in better quality firms. We find that interlocked firms that share penalized independent directors with the fraud firm do not suffer from a valuation decline. Overall, our results suggest that regulatory sanctions have not triggered further sanctions on the penalized directors in the labor market but they have, instead, created a disincentive for these directors to serve on the company boards of high-risk firms.     

Professional financial advice,self‐control and saving behavior

This study investigates whether professional financial advice (“PFA”) can assist households in making better‐informed financial decisions and whether PFA may help households achieve better self‐control in implementing financial plans. In particular, we examine the effects of PFA and self‐control ability on saving behavior, as well as the interaction of PFA and self‐control on saving behavior. We extend the dual‐self model of impulse control and derive three hypotheses: (a) people with higher levels of self‐control save more than those with lower levels of self‐control; (b) PFA has a positive effect on saving behavior; and (c) people with lower levels of self‐control benefit more from obtaining PFA than those with higher levels of self‐control. We use a German household panel dataset SAVE, which was collected annually from 2005 to 2009. Respondents are asked whether they have discussed financial matters with financial advisors in banks, insurance companies or financial service providers. Using a number of behavioral proxies of self‐control, we create an aggregate measure of self‐control through factor analysis. We estimate a fixed‐effects model to identify the effects of PFA and self‐control on financial assets. Empirical results show that both PFA and self‐control have a significant positive relationship with financial assets. The interaction term of PFA and self‐control is a significant predictor of financial assets. We discuss conclusions for the financial advising industry and public policy aimed at consumer financial literacy.     

Internationalization of business angel investments: The role of investor experience

In this study, we examine business angels (BAs)’ appetite for investing abroad and the role played by investment and entrepreneurial experience. To investigate BAs’ propensity to internationalize their investments, we study cross-border deals and culturally distant investments. Using an international sample of US and European BA deals, we find that both individual investment and entrepreneurial experience foster the internationalization of BAs’ investments, consistent with the predictions based upon the local bias theory. When splitting experience into domestic and foreign, we find that the former increases while the latter decreases local bias. When we separate US and European BAs, we find that the experiential background of BAs does not matter in the same way in Europe and in the US: while the general results are confirmed in Europe, both investment and entrepreneurial experience have a reduced impact in the US. We interpret these results in light of the reduced risk aversion of US BAs that lowers transaction costs.