Rate-base valuation methods and firm efficiency

The economic performance of public utilities under different rate-base valuation methods is examined in this paper. A unique procedure, involving Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis, examined data for all usable firms in states which have changed rate-base methods since World War II. The sample consists of 20 electric firms extending over 30 years of time-series data. Equations for individual firms were run to capture the effects of changes on rate-base methods on capital intensity and capacity utilization on each separate business. Contrary to expectations, there was no clear pattern indicating that firms in the sample increased the rate of capital intensity when their rate-base method was changed to fair value from original cost. Similarly, expected excess capacity was not found under fair-value regulation. The general conclusion is that there is no reason to believe that different rate-base valuation methods induce allocative inefficiency. Nevertheless, inefficiency may already exist in regulated monopolies in the form of X-inefficiency.     

Accounting earnings and firm valuation: the French case

Considering that the level of the association between stock returns and accounting earnings provides a measure of the extent to which earnings summarize the information which is useful for firm valuation, this paper analyses the contemporaneous association between stock returns and earnings changes or earnings level of individual French stocks and portfolios for periods of one, two and five years between 1981 and 1990. The empirical findings are as follows. (a) Stock returns are more linked to earnings changes than to earnings levels indicating that earnings provide more information about changes in firm value than about firm value. (b) Earnings prepared in accordance with the French accounting principles are not less value-relevant than those prepared in accordance with US or UK GAAP. (c) A cross-sectionally and time-aggregated data procedure provides a large increase in the explanatory power of earnings for returns which is consistent with a noise-in-earnings effect probably induced by accounting measurement and valuation principles and with a recognition lag effect due to the fact that value-relevant events are not integrated into earnings exactly when they occur. These two effects are shown to be the major causes of the low association between earnings and returns generally observed in studies based on short period data for individual stocks.     

High-frequency returns,jumps and the mixture of normals hypothesis

Previous empirical studies find both evidence of jumps in asset prices and that returns standardized by ‘realized volatility’ are approximately standard normal. These findings appear to be contradictory. Using a sample of high-frequency returns for 20 heavily traded US stocks, we show how microstructure noise distorts the standard deviation and kurtosis of returns normalized using realized variance. When returns are standardized using a recently developed realized kernel estimator, the resulting series is clearly platykurtotic and the standard normal distribution is soundly rejected. Moreover, daily returns standardized using realized bipower variation, an estimator for integrated variance that is robust to the presence of jumps, are more consistent with the standard normal distribution. These results suggest that there is no empirical contradiction: jumps should be included in stock price models.     

The underwriter’s early lock-up release: Empirical evidence

A lock-up agreement is an arrangement between the underwriter and certain pre-IPO shareholders. This paper examines the influence of an underwriter’s early lock-up release on shareholder wealth. The study found significant negative abnormal returns associated with the early lock-up release annoucement. Negative abnormal returns are more pronounced for venture capital backed firms than for firms not venture capital backed. In addition, scheduled lock-up release day abnormal returns, found in previous studies to be significantly negative, are reduced for firms announcing the early lock-up release.(JEL G24, G30)     

The Impact of Accounting Conservatism on the Compensation Relevance of UK Earnings

Abstract

It has long been established that because of accounting conservatism, the contemporaneous correlation between returns and earnings is lower (higher) for good (bad) news firm-years. Meanwhile, prior analytical agency work suggests that the compensation role of accounting earnings is potentially greater (for tasks such as noise filtering and incentive balancing) when the contemporaneous correlation between earnings and returns is lower. Hence, since accounting conservatism implies that earnings have a lower correlation with returns in good news firm-years, the present paper hypothesises that UK CEO cash compensation exhibits a stronger (weaker) sensitivity to accounting earnings in good (bad) news firm-years. The empirical findings offer substantial support for this hypothesis and are robust to alternative estimation methodologies. In addition, the results appear not to be attributable to the well-established impact of earnings persistence on the compensation–earnings association. Overall, the findings are consistent with the notion that UK compensation committees appear to take cognisance of the impact of accounting conservatism when awarding earnings-based compensation. In addition, the present work offers additional insights into the nature of the interaction between the contracting and valuation roles of accounting numbers.     

Wealth Effects of International Investments and Agency Problems for Korean Multinational Firms

This paper recognizes the recent surge in cross‐border investments by MNCs from newly industrialized countries and investigates the wealth effects of FDI announcements by Korean firms, which are the leading FDI providers in Asia. The empirical results indicate that for Korean MNCs: 1) cross‐border investments increase shareholder wealth; and 2) they do not obtain the firm‐specific technological advantages over international competitors. The paper also presents evidence that cross‐border investments do not increase shareholder wealth for the 30 largest chaebol‐affiliates, and that shareholder wealth losses are greater when corporate ownership is concentrated, as suggested by Shleifer and Vishny (1997) and La Porta et al. (1998, 2000) .     

REALIZED BETA GARCH: A MULTIVARIATE GARCH MODEL WITH REALIZED MEASURES OF VOLATILITY

We introduce a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model that incorporates realized measures of variances and covariances. Realized measures extract information about the current levels of volatilities and correlations from high‐frequency data, which is particularly useful for modeling financial returns during periods of rapid changes in the underlying covariance structure. When applied to market returns in conjunction with returns on an individual asset, the model yields a dynamic model specification of the conditional regression coefficient that is known as the beta. We apply the model to a large set of assets and find the conditional betas to be far more variable than usually found with rolling‐window regressions based exclusively on daily returns. In the empirical part of the paper, we examine the cross‐sectional as well as the time variation of the conditional beta series during the financial crises. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The wealth effects of unethical business behavior

This study examines the shareholder wealth effects of specific unethical conduct involving bribery, illegal payments, employee discrimination, environmental pollution, and insider trading based on announcements in theWall Street Journal. It is hypothesized that the high costs of such reported acts would result in a negative shareholder wealth effect because of increases in monitoring costs and risks to stakeholders of the firm. The results show that the significantly negative abnormal returns were not short-term, but were persistent and cumulative for approximately one month following the announcement of unethical business conduct. Therefore, contrary to some earlier studies, unethical business behavior, as defined in this study, is not compatible with the goal of shareholder wealth maximization.     

The post-offering performance of IPOs in the health care industry

This paper investigates the post-offering performance of initial public offerings in the health care industry in a sample of 223 IPOs issued between 1985 and 1996. Statistically insignificant abnormal returns for IPOs relative to matched control firms and risk-adjusted health care index are evident for the whole sample. Thus, our empirical results support the overall information efficiency in the IPO market. However, numerical and statistical differences of the IPOs’ abnormal returns are documented in every subgroup specified according to the issuance years and sectors. We conjecture that such differences are due to the growing threat of government intervention and the significant structural changes.(JEL11, C11) The views expressed herein are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of our colleagues.     

Hedge funds versus private equity funds as shareholder activists in Germany — differences in value creation

We investigate the valuation effects of German firms targeted by hedge funds and by private equity investors. We argue that both types of investors differ from other blockholders by their strong motivation and ability to actively engage and reduce agency costs. Consequently, we find positive abnormal returns following a change in ownership structure. However, these effects differ markedly between both investors, as proxy variables for agency costs only explain the market reaction for our private equity subsample. We conclude that private equity funds seem to be more successful at creating shareholder value, which could be due to their longer-term perspective and a higher adaptability to the surrounding corporate governance system.     

Stock market reactions to upside and downside volatility of Bitcoin: A quantile analysis

We investigate how sensitive developed and emerging equity markets are to volatility dynamics of Bitcoin during tranquil, bear, and bull market regimes. Intraday price fluctuations of Bitcoin are represented by three measures of realized volatility, viz. total variance, upside semivariance, and downside semivariance. Our empirical analysis relies on a quantile regression framework, after orthogonalizing raw returns with respect to an array of relevant global factors and accounting for structural shifts in the series. The results suggest that developed-market returns are positively related to the realized variance proxy across various market conditions, while emerging-market returns are positively (negatively) correlated with realized variance during bear (normal and bull) market periods. The upside (downside) component of realized variance has a negative (positive) influence on returns of either market category, and the dependence structure is highly asymmetric across the return distribution. Additionally, we document that developed and emerging markets are more sensitive to downside volatility than to upside volatility when they enter tranquil or bull territory. Our results offer practical implications for policymakers and investors.     

The relationship between accounting numbers and returns: some empirical evidence from the emerging market of the Czech Republic

Generally, stock prices reflect future expectations of earnings, whereas accounting data reflect past performance. This paper attempts to discover the relationship between accounting data and market price returns of the companies listed on the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE). The Prague Stock Exchange was established in 1993 and provides an opportunity to make a comparison between a newly established market and the findings of studies of established markets. There has been a wealth of publications and accounting research studies on developed markets. Generally, accounting attributes are thought to be relevant because they tend to be contemporaneously statistically associated with stock prices. Some studies have suggested, and empirically tested, that stock prices lead earnings (e.g. Collins et al., 1987; Kothari, 1992; Kothari and Sloan, 1992; Kothari and Zimmerman, 1995). This study tests the existence of such a relationship in the Czech capital market, relying partially on the methodology proposed by Kothari and Sloan (1992) and Kothari (1992). This paper investigates whether there is a statistically significant permanent relationship between returns and accounting data on the Czech market. The study was conducted using accounting earnings and stock prices during the period 1993–8. The empirical evidence here suggests that a similar relation exists on the emerging Czech market. The relation is statistically significant for measurement windows of one year and longer. The increase in the mean response coefficient, reported later in this study, suggests that one-leading-year returns are as important as contemporaneous returns in terms of their sensitivity to annual earnings changes. However, one cannot infer with a degree of confidence that the Czech capital market views earnings changes to be largely permanent, which would be consistent with the time-series properties of annual earnings.     

Bewertung von Personalabbauprogrammen aus Aktionärssicht – Eine Bestandsaufnahme der empirischen Ereignisstudien-Forschung –

This paper reviews evidence from 32 event studies on effects of an announcement of a large scale reduction in work force (RIF) program on the share price/equity value of stock-quoted corporations and on factors suited to explain RIF impact variations. All in all the empirical data indicate that on average (Anglosaxon) capital markets do not respond to RIF notifications with significantly positive abnormal returns. Rather, they tend to display negative abnormal share price consequences, i.e. RIF announcements – as typically shaped by corporations – are likely to destroy shareholder value. On the whole, extant work suggests that abnormal returns following RIF disclosures tend to be worse if (1) the stated RIF reason is declining demand, (2) the reduction to total staff ratio is high and (3) the reduction is based mainly on layoffs instead of voluntary separations. Further methodologically improved research is required to explore the extent to which the present review’s conclusions hold in German-speaking countries.     

A THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE EQUITY RISK PREMIUM*

Abstract In historical perspective, equity returns have been higher than interest rates but have also varied a good deal more. However, the average excess return has been larger than what could be expected based on classical equilibrium theory: the equity risk premium (ERP) puzzle. This paper has two objectives. First, the paper presents a comprehensive overview of the vast literature developed aimed at adjusting theory and testing the robustness of the puzzle. Here we will show that the failure of theory to link asset prices to economics is mostly quantitative by nature and not qualitative (anymore). Second, beyond providing a survey of theory, we aim for a relevant practical angle as well. Our main contribution is that we spend time on why returns have been higher than investors reasonably could have expected. We present evidence that forecasts of equity returns can be enhanced by valuation models: low valuation levels (low price‐to‐earnings ratios) portend high subsequent returns. While conventional wisdom (several years ago) was to use historical returns to forecast future returns, a growing consensus now recognizes that the predictive power of valuation ratios is preferred. Finally we provide some practical implications based on this predictability. While the ERP is essentially a long‐term issue, the likelihood of a lower risk premium increases risk for many and means that short‐term volatility might not be neglected.     

Wertsteigerung durch Sell-Offs: Eine Meta-Analyse

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on shareholder wealth effects of corporate sell-offs. Meta-analysis is used to aggregate the considerably heterogeneous findings of 64 event studies (1984–2010) on sell-off announcements. Fourteen hypotheses are tested (1) to examine effects on shareholder wealth of the announcement of sell-offs and (2) to identify factors that influence the wealth effects associated with the announcement of sell-offs. The overall results show that sell-off announcements have a positive impact on shareholder wealth. The shareholder wealth effects are higher, if the divested unit is large in terms of its relative size, if it is loss-making and domestic, if the sale proceeds are paid out to shareholders or bondholders, if the purchase price is disclosed and buyer equity is used for settling the purchase price. The results emphasize the importance for companies to constantly reassess their investment portfolio and execute sell-offs in a value enhancing way.     

The measurement of the economic performance of the US Nonfinancial Corporate Business Sector 1946–1990: an application of the shareholder value creation concept

This paper is based upon a juxtaposition of the cash flow-market value performance (alias SVC performance) and historic cost accounting (HC) performance of the US Nonfinancial Corporate Business sector 1946–90. It has two principal objectives: 1. To determine whether, judged on return and variability dimensions, the HC accounting model is an operationally acceptable surrogate for a multiperiod market-based accounting model. 2. To analyse the consequences of HC income-based distributions, i.e., corporate tax, interest and dividend payments based on conventionally-measured corporate income. Three principal conclusions are drawn: i. Notwithstanding their common cash flow component, HC performance indices are not reliable surrogates for SVC performance criteria. The former apparently do not accurately capture changes in corporate valuation and generally understate the variability of market-based returns. ii. The multiperiod HC income of a going concern characteristically overstates its coterminous multiperiod cash flows to a considerable degree. Contrary to common supposition, the former does not therefore constitute a ‘normalized’ or ‘smoothed’ version of a firm's ‘primitive’ cash flows in the sense that the cumulative (multiperiod) values of the two measures tend to converge. iii. As a consequence of ii, HC income and its near relation, taxable earnings, are dubious bases for measuring interest-paying, tax-paying and dividend-paying capacities. Corporate income-distribution decisions based on HC accruals-based profit measures frequently trigger external financing which may cause shareholder wealth losses and wealth transfers from shareholders to lenders. However, ‘fiscal drag’ appears to be the most serious consequence of HC accruals-based income distribution decisions.     

The role of the seller’s stock performance in the market reaction to divestiture announcements

Divestitures have the potential to create shareholder value. However, the extent of the market reaction should depend on the likelihood of finding more valuable uses for the divested assets or the ability on the part of the seller to eliminate negative synergies. We hypothesize that strong performers have less scope to achieve substantial improvements compared to poorly performing firms. Using the seller’s stock return in excess of the market return in the 1-year and 2-year periods preceding the divestiture announcement to expose the divesting firm’s inefficient use of its assets, we show that the market reaction to divestiture announcements is significantly higher for underperforming firms. The difference in abnormal returns can be as high as 4 %. In contrast, none of the accounting-based variables that have been used in previous studies are found to be significantly related to the announcement returns. These results suggest that the firm’s stock performance is a more useful indicator of the wealth effect associated with divestitures.     

Bootstrapping Financial Time Series

It is well known that time series of returns are characterized by volatility clustering and excess kurtosis. Therefore, when modelling the dynamic behavior of returns, inference and prediction methods, based on independent and/or Gaussian observations may be inadequate. As bootstrap methods are not, in general, based on any particular assumption on the distribution of the data, they are well suited for the analysis of returns. This paper reviews the application of bootstrap procedures for inference and prediction of financial time series. In relation to inference, bootstrap techniques have been applied to obtain the sample distribution of statistics for testing, for example, autoregressive dynamics in the conditional mean and variance, unit roots in the mean, fractional integration in volatility and the predictive ability of technical trading rules. On the other hand, bootstrap procedures have been used to estimate the distribution of returns which is of interest, for example, for Value at Risk (VaR) models or for prediction purposes. Although the application of bootstrap techniques to the empirical analysis of financial time series is very broad, there are few analytical results on the statistical properties of these techniques when applied to heteroscedastic time series. Furthermore, there are quite a few papers where the bootstrap procedures used are not adequate.     

Volatility estimation for stock index options: A GARCH approach

The objective of this paper is to compare the mispricing of option valuation models when alternate techniques are applied to the volatility estimation. Akgiray (1989) shows that out-of-sample forecasts of return variances of stock indices based on a GARCH model are superior predictors of the actual ex-post variances in comparison to forecasts generated using standard rolling regression methods. A second objective of this study is to examine if Akgiray's results carry over to option valuation. Although we find that the implied volatility technique results in the least mispricing, within the class of forecasts using only historic returns data, the use of GARCH models will also significantly reduce model mispricing.     

上市公司股权结构与现金股利的关系研究——基于股权分置改革前后的对比

文中拟解决的关键问题是分析中国上市公司在股权分置改革前后治理结构的变化及其与股利政策关系的变迁,考察股权分置改革的实施是否显著地削弱了大股东进行资金掏空的“隧道机制”,流通股比例的上升是否抑制了大股东的分红动机,前几大股东合谋进行利益输送的行为是否受到了制约,上市公司的股利分配行为是否更加合理。根据本研究课题的立意所在,文中采用了描述性统计与计量分析相结合的研究方法。经过实证的检验后发现,股权分置改革使得上市公司的分红派现行为更为理性,上述预期均得到一一印证。