司法独立性与投资者保护法律实施-最高人民法院"1/15通知"的市场反应

本文利用2002年1月15日最高人民法院颁布《关于受理证券市场因虚假陈述引发的民事侵权纠纷案件有关问题的通知》(简称1/15通知)这一事件,以那些存在虚假陈述或有虚假陈述嫌疑的上市公司为样本,采用事件研究法,实证考察了司法独立性对投资者保护法律实施的影响。我们将样本公司分为司法相对独立和相对不独立的两组公司。我们发现,在1/15通知颁布日前后几个交易日内,样本公司的市场反应显著为负;并且,与司法相对独立组公司相比,司法相对不独立组公司的负向市场反应程度更弱。这说明,投资者倾向于认为,1/15通知及与其相关的民事诉讼法律能够得到一定程度的实施,但地方政府对当地法院的影响降低了这些投资者保护法律得到实施的可能性。     

提高信息披露质量真的能降低股权资本成本吗？

现有研究认为在我国提高信息披露质量有助于降低股权资本成本。但这些研究都是从横截面角度论证的，也没有论证这一结论的前提条件是否成立。本文则以2002--2004年度深圳上市公司为样本，从时间角度比较了上市公司信息披露考核评级变化前后的资本成本变化。结果发现，提高信息披露质量并没有降低股权资本成本。进一步的研究发现，这主要是由于我国投资者并没有把信息披露质量作为判断公司价值和交易股票的一个影响因素，由此导致提高信息披露质量无法增加流动性和降低风险。这表明提高信息披露质量降低资本成本的前提条件无法成立。     

Reciprocity in Corporate Tax Compliance—Evidence from Ozone Pollution

In a tax—public goods reciprocity framework between citizens and the state, managers view taxes as a payment to the government in exchange for public goods, and hence they adjust their willingness to pay taxes as public good quality changes. We show that corporate tax planning intensity increases with ground-level ozone pollution. Revisions in ozone pollution regulations cause counties that failed the revised and more stringent standards to reduce ozone pollution. Consequently, firms headquartered in these counties reduced corporate tax planning intensity relative to firms in other counties. The ozone-tax link varies in the predicted directions with public attention to pollution, potential welfare loss due to ozone, managers’ stakeholder orientation, taxpayers’ polluting status, political preferences, and civic norms. We also find consistent results for Superfund cleanups of hazardous waste sites. Our research sheds light on reciprocity as a potential mechanism influencing corporate tax compliance.     

Conglomerate Investment,Skewness, and the CEO Long‐Shot Bias

Do behavioral biases of executives matter for corporate investment decisions? Using segment‐level capital allocation in multisegment firms (“conglomerates”) as a laboratory, we show that capital expenditure is increasing in the expected skewness of segment returns. Conglomerates invest more in high‐skewness segments than matched stand‐alone firms, and trade at a discount, which indicates overinvestment that is detrimental to shareholder wealth. Using geographical variation in gambling norms, we find that the skewness‐investment relation is particularly pronounced when CEOs are likely to find long shots attractive. Our findings suggest that CEOs allocate capital with a long‐shot bias.     

Dividend Taxes and Implied Cost of Equity Capital

We estimate firm‐level implied cost of equity capital based on recent advances in accounting and finance research and examine the effect of dividend taxes on the cost of equity capital. We investigate whether dividend taxes affect firms' cost of capital by testing the relation between the implied cost of equity capital and a measure of the tax‐penalized portion of dividend yield, which we define as the product of dividend yield and the dividend tax penalty. The results generally support the dividend tax capitalization hypothesis. We find a positive relation between the implied cost of equity capital and the tax‐penalized portion of dividend yield that is decreasing in aggregate institutional ownership, our proxy for tax‐advantaged investors. The evidence in this study adds to the understanding of the effect of investor‐level taxes on equity value.     

Disagreements among Shareholders over a Firm's Disclosure Policy

This paper examines the issue of voluntary disclosure of information by firms with heterogeneous shareholders. It shows that in a rational expectations setting, better informed shareholders prefer less disclosure than less well-informed shareholders. This is due to differences in the adverse risk-sharing effect and the beneficial cost-saving effect of disclosure among shareholders with different risk tolerances and information acquisition cost functions. The presence of individual liquidity shocks is shown to reduce shareholder disagreements regarding a firm's disclosure policy.     

The Role of Public and Private Complaining in Satisfaction with Problem Resolution

The results of a two-phase panel study were used to investigate the relationships among satisfaction with complaint resolution, reports of public and private complaining, and hypothesized antecedents of complaint behavior. Path analysis of a theoretical model of complaint behavior suggested that the degree of public complaining was positively related to satisfaction with the eventual outcome of the problem while the extent of private complaining had a significant negative relationship. Analysis of the antecedents showed that only monetary cost associated with the problem was positively related to both public and private complaints, underscoring the difficulty of predicting complaining from personal characteristics.