The Determinants of Debt Maturity Structure: Evidence from France,Germany and the UK

We examine the determinants of the debt maturity structure of French, German and British firms. These countries represent different financial and legal traditions that may have implications on corporate debt maturity structure. Our model incorporates the factors representing three major theories (tax considerations, liquidity and signalling, and contracting costs) of debt maturity. It also controls for capital market conditions. The results confirm the applicability of most theories of debt maturity structure for the UK firms. However, the evidence from France and Germany are mixed. Overall the findings suggest that the debt maturity structure of a firm is determined by firm‐specific factors and the country's financial systems and institutional traditions in which it operates.     

Calculating the equity cost of capital using the APT: the impact of the ERM

One of the expected benefits of membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) was a reduction in risk which should lead to a lower cost of capital and foster investment and growth. Using the APT, we investigate the behavior of the equity market risk premium for the London Stock Exchange prior to and during sterling's membership of the ERM. We find that prior to and during the first year of membership the equity market risk premium fell quite dramatically. However, when conflict between domestic and ERM policy requirements arose at the turn of 1991, the equity risk premium increased and continued to do so until sterling's exit, partially wiping out the benefits of membership of the ERM.     

Bank switching of US small businesses: new methods and evidence

Despite being informationally opaque, small firms often switch from their primary financial institution to transactional lenders, with the relationship banking theory invoking the holdup problem as a culprit explanation. Using US evidence and an estimation strategy that overcomes traditional shortcomings in small business research, our study captures the determinants and, for the first time, the ex post effects of the switching decision. We find that switching is less likely when the primary financial institution is a nearby bank associated with quality services and connected to the firm via other business or social relationships. Small firms become more loyal as they grow in size and pursue nonmortgage credit. Outside the primary relationship, both loan approval and borrowing cost are adversely impacted, however loan maturities are longer. Moreover, the likelihood of pledging collateral remains unaffected, provided that the type of collateral is least sensitive to the borrower’s information environment. Jointly, our findings describe a trade-off inconsistent with the holdup problem, and an opportunity for banks to enhance customer loyalty by improving aspects of the relationship unrelated to the terms of credit.

     

Divergence of Opinion and Post-Acquisition Performance

Abstract:  We examine the relation between divergence of opinion about the value of the acquiring firm in the pre-acquisition announcement period and post-acquisition stock returns. We find that acquirers subject to high opinion dispersion earn lower future returns than acquirers subject to low dispersion. It appears that, on average, only acquirers in the high divergence of opinion subset experience significant negative post-event abnormal returns. In the spirit of Miller (1977) , such evidence implies that high pre-event investor disagreement leads to systematic overpricing of acquirers that manifests itself through long-run underperformance of their stock. The documented misvaluation persists irrespective of the opinion divergence proxy and performance evaluation method used and after controlling for several common deal and acquirer characteristics.     

Contrarian Profits and the Overreaction Hypothesis: the Case of the Athens Stock Exchange

This paper investigates the existence of contrarian profits and their sources for the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). The empirical analysis decomposes contrarian profits to sources due to common factor reactions, overreaction to firm‐specific information, and profits not related to the previous two terms, as suggested by Jegadeesh and Titman (1995). Furthermore, in view of recent evidence that common stock returns are related to firm characteristics such as size and book‐to‐market equity, the paper decomposes contrarian profits to sources due to factors derived from the Fama and French (1993, 1996) three‐factor model. For the empirical testing, size‐sorted sub‐samples that are rebalanced annually are employed, and in addition, adjustments for thin and infrequent trading are made to the data. The results indicate that serial correlation is present in equity returns and that it leads to significant short‐run contrarian profits that persist even after we adjust for market frictions. Consistent with findings for the US market, contrarian profits decline as one moves from small stocks to large stocks, but only when market frictions are considered. Furthermore, the contribution to contrarian profits due to the overreaction to the firm‐specific component appears larger than the underreaction to the common factors.     

Short-term Contrarian Strategies in the London Stock Exchange: Are They Profitable? Which Factors Affect Them?

Abstract:  This paper provides evidence on short-term contrarian profits and their sources for the London Stock Exchange. Profits are decomposed to sources due to factors derived from the Fama and French (1996) three-factor model. For the empirical testing, size-sorted sub-samples are used, and adjustments for infrequent trading and bid-ask biases are also made. Results indicate that UK short-term contrarian strategies are profitable and more pronounced for extreme market capitalization stocks. These profits persist even when the sample is adjusted for market frictions, risk, seasonality, and irrespective of whether equally-weighted or value-weighted portfolios are employed. The most important factor that drives contrarian profits appears to be investor overreaction to firm-specific information.     

Modelling International Price Relationships and Interdependencies Between the Stock Index and Stock Index Futures Markets of Three EU Countries: A Multivariate Analysis

This paper addresses the important relationship between stock index and stock index futures markets in an international context. By simply examining the spot‐futures relationship within a single country as most of the extant literature does and thus ignoring possible market interdependencies between countries, the dynamics of price adjustments may be misspecified and thus findings misleading. The main contribution of the paper is to improve our understanding of the pricing relationship between spot and futures markets in the light of international market interdependencies. Using a multivariate VAR‐EGARCH methodology, the paper investigates stock index and stock index futures market interdependence, that is lead‐lag relationships and volatility interactions between the stock and futures markets of three main European countries, namely France, Germany and the UK. In addition, the paper explicitly accounts for potential asymmetries that may exist in the volatility transmission mechanism between these markets. The main conclusions of the paper imply that investors need to account for market interactions across countries to fully and correctly exploit the potential for hedging and diversification.     

Foreign versus Domestic Survival in a Changing Environment

This paper explores whether and how environmental dynamics can affect foreign and domestic survival. Utilizing a unique longitudinal data set with 420 manufacturing plants created in the protected developing Greek economy (1960–1980), we test these plants’ ability to survive in the new, integrated environment (1981–2001), when Greece became a member of the European Union (EU). After controlling for time and age effects, we find that environmental dynamics in terms of integration and economic development negatively influence the survival of all tariff-jumping and unskilled labor-intensive plants, regardless of their ownership. However, survival evolution of foreign-owned and domestic plants differs over time depending on the country’s degree of economic integration. Specifically, during the shallow integration period (1981–1990), foreign-controlled plants tend to retain a survival premium, which they appear to have acquired in the protectionism era. This means that foreign-owned plants benefited more from external environmental dynamics in terms of tariff protection compared to domestic ones. Nevertheless, in the deep integration period (1991–2001), the declining survival rates tend to converge, and the foreign survival premium completely disappears. Consequently, in the long run, environmental change similarly affects foreign and domestic survival.     

The Behaviour of Banking Stocks During the Financial Crisis and Recessions. Evidence from Changes‐in‐Changes Panel Data Estimations

This paper examines the impact of the financial crisis and economic recessions on bank shares compared to the overall stock market index for 18 OECD countries from 1993 to 2015. The empirical methodology utilizes the changes‐in‐changes approach. We compare and contrast the returns of the banking stock price index (treatment group) in each country with their general stock price index (control group), which experiences smaller changes. Our results suggest that bank returns on average perform significantly worse than that of the general stock price index during recessions. In addition, we also find significantly greater volatility in bank share returns.