Split Bond Ratings and Information Opacity Premiums

This paper examines the relationship between split bond ratings and bond yields at the notch level for newly issued corporate bonds. We find that split rated bonds average a 7-basis-point yield premium over nonsplit rated bonds of similar credit risk. The yield premium increases from 5 basis points for one-notch splits to 15 (20) basis points for two-notch (three-notch) splits. These findings indicate that investors demand higher yields for split rated bonds to compensate for the information opacity of such bonds. In addition, the yield premium for split rated bonds is higher during economic recessions, indicating investors are more risk averse during economic downturns. Consequently, split ratings impose higher borrowing costs for firms, especially during economic downturns.     

股价暴跌、投资者认知与信息透明度

本文基于Merton(1987)不完全信息市场下的认知风险假说,研究了我国股票市场个股股价暴跌与投资者认知风险的关系。我们发现投资者认知风险越大,股价暴跌的风险越大,股价暴跌造成的损失也越大。进一步我们研究了影响认知风险的因素,发现在控制住经营风险和异质信念后,信息披露不透明是影响投资者认知风险的重要因素。稳健性检验的结果表明我们的发现并不受所使用的数据频率的影响。     

信息披露、收益不透明度与权益资本成本

本文以1993年至2001年间我国证券市场进行股权再融资的上市公司为样本,深入考察我国证券市场上市公司信息披露质量与公司权益资本成本的关系。结果表明,在控制其他一些影响因素之后,上市公司信息披露质量与公司权益资本成本呈显著的负相关关系;对上市公司而言,提高信息披露的质量有助于降低公司的权益资本成本。同时,本文还发现,上市公司权益资本成本不仅受到前一年信息披露质量的影响,还受到前四年信息披露质量的影响。所以,上市公司管理者为了降低公司再融资的权益资本成本,应该持之以恒地致力于保持较高的信息披露质量。     

The Impact of Public Information on the Stock Market

We study the relation between the number of news announcements reported daily by Dow Jones & Company and aggregate measures of securities market activity including trading volume and market returns. We find that the number of Dow Jones announcements and market activity are directly related and that the results are robust to the addition of factors previously found to influence financial markets such as day-of-the-week dummy variables, news importance as proxied by large New York Times headlines and major macroeconomic announcements, and noninformation sources of market activity as measured by dividend capture and triple witching trading. However, the observed relation between news and market activity is not particularly strong and the patterns in news announcements do not explain the day-of-the-week seasonalities in market activity. Our analysis of the Dow Jones database confirms the difficulty of linking volume and volatility to observed measures of information.     

The Impact of Earnings Guidance Cessation on Information Asymmetry

This paper studies the impact of quarterly earnings guidance cessation on information asymmetry using a large sample of firms during the years 2002–11. After earnings guidance cessation, information asymmetry may increase because less information is provided to the market. Alternatively, information asymmetry may decrease if managers have less pressure to manage reported earnings to meet guidance numbers. Our study shows guidance cessation significantly reduces information asymmetry compared to matched non‐guiders and guidance maintainers. We also find that firms engage in less earnings management after guidance cessation, especially for firms that had provided guidance on a persistent basis.     

The Impact of SFAS No. 131 on Information and Monitoring

We investigate the effect of the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) new segment reporting standard on the information and monitoring environment. We compare hand‐collected, restated SFAS 131 segment data for the final SFAS 14 fiscal year with the historical SFAS 14 data. We find that SFAS 131 increased the number of reported segments and provided more disaggregated information. Analysts and the market had access to a portion of the new segment information before it was made public, but analyst and market expectations were still altered by the mandated release of the new data. By increasing information disaggregation, the new standard induced firms to reveal previously “hidden” information about their diversification strategies. The newly revealed information affected market valuations and lead to changes in firm behavior consistent with improved monitoring following adoption of SFAS 131.     

Information Opacity,Credit Risk,and the Design of Loan Contracts for Private Firms

This paper examines the structure and cost of a large sample of bank loans to private firms. Compared to public firms, private firms are more informationally opaque and riskier. The results suggest that the design of a loan to a private firm is significantly different from that to a public firm. Bank loans to private firms are more likely to be by a sole lender, collateralized, and have sweep covenants than loans to public firms. The cost of borrowing is higher for a private firm than for a public firm, even after holding constant firm and loan characteristics.     

The Impact of Hurricane Mitigation Features and Inspection Information on House Prices

This paper examines the effect of hurricane mitigation features and their verification on the transaction prices of single-family homes. Some of these features are obvious to buyers and sellers (visible) and others are not easily observed (hidden). Prior research on the relationship between mitigation features and house prices has implicitly assumed the features are known and that buyers and sellers are equally informed. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the potentially different effects of the visible and hidden features, and the verification of each by professional inspection, on prices in an environment of incomplete and asymmetric buyer-seller information. Generally, findings are consistent with expectations – that visible mitigation features are positively correlated with price increases; that the effects of the visible and hidden features on price differ significantly; and that inspection information significantly increases the implicit price of hidden features. Interestingly, the inspection is found to also increase the implicit price of the set of visible features, suggesting the implicit prices of characteristics that are, or should be, visible to buyers and sellers may be affected by verification or disclosure.     

The Impact of Search Costs and Asymmetric Information on Current Value Accounting

This paper examines the impact that search costs and asymmetric information would have on financial statements if either of the two main systems of current value accounting were introduced. The significance of search costs is that, although the models which determine the optimal amount of search are becoming more general, they are based on very restrictive assumptions and are of limited practical application. In relation to the second issue, where asset markets are dominated by asymmetric information, the ‘signal’ conveyed by the accounts would be misleading. It is argued that, whilst these two issues can more easily be resolved where the provision of financial information is unregulated, they are likely to be important considerations in the political process which results in an accounting standard.     

交易透明度对证券场外交易信息效率的影响

黑池交易系统(Dark Pools)是美国近年发展较快的非公开交易平台,其信息透明度较低,可提供匿名交易的服务,并由此实现信息的非公开传递。通过扩展后验信念收敛速率的模型来描述不同交易透明度下场外市场的信息显示速率,发现私人信息与公共信息共存有利于信息更快地显示,因而私人信息渠道与公共信息渠道共存有利于提升信息效率,由此解释了非公开交易平台的价值,也为我国场外市场的分层发展提供可行建议.     

The Impact of Information Diffusion on Comparisons among Various Trading Mechanisms

The information environment and investor order strategy are both important determinants when comparing the market performance of trading mechanisms. However, less is known about what happens when trading mechanisms are compared. In this paper, we link the information environment, trading mechanisms, investor order strategy and market performance to form a model of the securities market. The primary goal of this study is to examine the impact of various call markets in an agency market on liquidity, price volatility and market efficiency under various information regimes. The results indicate that an optimal transaction frequency appears at the trade-off of liquidity, volatility and market efficiency.     

交易纪律和私有信息对机构投资者超额报酬的影响

依据台湾股指期权成交档、委托档和持仓档等日内数据,参考Fishe and Smith (2012)方法识别出获得超额报酬的外资和本土机构投资者,对应的比例分别为50.6％和44.9％.考量获得超额报酬的来源,结果发现:外资和本土投资者确实拥有私有信息;交易纪律对机构投资者的绩效有显著的影响,外资和本土机构投资者中分别有78.3％和69.6％的超额报酬得益于交易纪律;交易纪律和投资者的信息优势存在交叉效应的影响.     

地理信息系统在商业银行中的应用

进入信息时代,不论从政府、企业还是个人的角度,信息对决策的基础作用都是至关重要的。但是,信息的获取途径复杂多变、获取成本千差万别,使得信息使用者周围往往充斥着大量非标准化信息。这就需要进一步重视信息管理,建立多种渠道完善信息的系统化、标准化建设。作为一种多维的管理信息处理系统,地理信息系统（CIS）是将部分非标准化信息转化为标准化信息的有效手段。     

The Impact of Asymmetric Information on Proxy Outcomes: An Empirical Test

If a manager-shareholder is better informed about the true value of a firm's shares than outside shareholders, then the management of an undervalued firm is hypothesized to use its incumbent advantage to win proxy contests to maintain control and to benefit from share revaluations induced by the positive signal value of the contest. Using insider trades as indicators of management's beliefs, this study finds an association between insider beliefs and proxy contest outcomes. In particular, when insider trades over a five-to-six month period preceding the proxy date are net purchases, the odds in favor of management winning are significantly higher.     

Financial Opacity and Firm Performance: The Readability of REIT Annual Reports

We examine the capital market pricing implications of firm disclosure opacity as measured by the linguistic readability of REIT annual reports. The SEC has expressed concern that firms selectively manage the transparency of disclosures in order to hide adverse information. After controlling for other non-experimental factors that influence the readability of REIT financial statements, we find (1) financial opacity is negatively related to reported firm performance, and (2) the residual opacity that remains after controlling for other determinants of annual report readability has incremental explanatory power for returns beyond the Fama and French (1992, 1993) risk factors. The opacity risk-return premium persists after controlling for a (heretofore undocumented) stark monotonic decrease in annual report readability following the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.     

金融发展与贸易成本对我国电子信息产业出口的影响

金融发展和贸易成本正逐渐成为影响一国出口的重要因素.目前我国电子信息产业生产规模巨大,随着经济全球化和改革开放的深化,已成为外贸出口的主力军.论文以我国的电子信息产业的出口为研究背景,金融发展和贸易成本为研究对象,通过测度我国电子信息产业主要出口贸易伙伴的贸易成本,发现贸易成本呈下降的趋势;分析金融发展的总体情况以及其对电子信息产业出口的促进;同时说明了金融发展除了能直接影响出口外,也可以通过减少贸易成本间接作用于出口增长.并且尝试从金融发展和贸易成本的角度针对研究过程中发现的电子信息企业融资难、产业结构不合理等问题提出对策与建议,以促进我国电子信息产业出口的持续增长.     

The Impact of Statutory Sanctions on the Level and Information Content of Voluntary Corporate Disclosure

This article examines the effect of statutory civil and criminal sanctions on voluntary corporate disclosures by firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Apart from direct investigation of the quantity of voluntary disclosure, we also investigate several possible consequences of altered corporate disclosure policies, namely properties of analysts' forecasts, the degree to which share prices anticipate the information content of periodic earnings reports, and the relationship between volatility and corporate disclosures. Results suggest that, post-sanctions, any increase in voluntary disclosure is confined to smaller firms and those which performed relatively poorly. Moreover, analysts' earnings forecasts did not become more accurate or less diverse following the introduction of statutory sanctions, and there was no statistically significant increase in the weight placed on each disclosure's ability to explain return volatility. There is some evidence that share prices have anticipated earlier the value relevant components of annual periodic accounting data, although this result is again confined to smaller firms. Although the tests used are not independent and have a limited time period post-sanctions, the results cast doubt on the extent to which the imposition of substantive civil or criminal sanctions affects corporate disclosure policy.