The relationship between governance structure and risk management approaches in Japanese venture capital firms

This paper attempts to understand what drives Japanese venture capital (JVC) fund managers to select either active managerial monitoring or portfolio diversification to manage their firms' investment risks [J. Bus. Venturing 4 (1989) 231]. Unlike U.S. venture capitalists that use active managerial monitoring to gain private information in order to maximize returns [J. Finance 50 (1995) 301], JVCs have traditionally used portfolio diversification to attenuate investment risks [Hamada, Y., 2001. Nihon no Bencha Kyapitaru no Genkyo (Current State of Japanese Venture Capital), Nihon Bencha Gakkai VC Seminar, May 7]. We found that performance pay is positively related to active monitoring and that management ownership is positively related to active monitoring and negatively related to portfolio diversification. The managerial implication of our study is that venture capitalists should be as concerned about the structure of their incentive systems for their fund managers as they are for their investee-firm entrepreneurs. Agency theory says that contingent compensation is a self-governing mechanism for individual effort that is difficult to measure and verify. When properly applied, equity ownership and performance-based pay can have powerful influencing effects on the strategic choices of managers.     

Elicitation using multiple price list formats

We examine the properties of a popular method for eliciting choices and values from experimental subjects, the multiple price list format. The main advantage of this format is that it is relatively transparent to subjects and provides simple incentives for truthful revelation. The main disadvantages are that it only elicits interval responses, and could be susceptible to framing effects. We consider extensions to address and evaluate these concerns. We conclude that although there are framing effects, they can be controlled for with a design that allows for them. We also find that the elicitation of risk attitudes is sensitive to procedures, subject pools, and the format of the multiple price list table, but that the qualitative findings that participants are generally risk averse is robust. The elicitation of discount rates appear less sensitive to details of the experimental design. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification C9, D81, D91 An erratum to this article is available at .     

电子商务的风险管理与审计研究

电子商务尽管现在处于低潮期，但是作为重要的变革力量，它仍然是2l世纪的一个必然趋势。另外，电子商务发展受阻的一个重要原因就是电子商务的安全问题，这一问题影响了消费的决策，也极大地改变了企业的整个风险结构。本从外部审计与内部审计两个角度分析了审计可以在应对电子商务风险中发挥的重要作用。从外部审计来看，数据完整性与机密性是网站审计与认证的重要方面，从内部审计来看，审计应该在包括了电子商务风险的全面风险管理框架内发挥重要的作用。     

The negative trade-off between risk and incentives: Evidence from the american whaling industry

This paper analyzes the trade-off between risk and incentives in the share contracts of the American whaling industry. Using a newly collected panel of 5378 individuals who sailed on more than 1000 whaling voyages from 1855–68, the response of sailors’ compensation to an increase in risk is estimated. The risks used to identify this response resulted from the commerce-raiding naval vessels of the Confederacy during the Civil War. As the Confederate cruisers sailed primarily in the Atlantic, and therefore posed far less of a threat to whaling voyages to other oceans, a quasi-experimental approach focusing on the differences between Atlantic voyages compared to others is implemented. The results are consistent with a negative trade-off between risk and incentives in the industry’s contracts. Moreover, evidence is found of selection among less risk-averse sailors and merchants into riskier voyages during the war.     

Decomposition of Fraud‐Risk Assessments and Auditors' Sensitivity to Fraud Cues*

Practitioners and regulators are concerned that when auditors perceive management's attitude or character as indicative of low fraud risk, they are not sufficiently sensitive to high levels of incentive or opportunity risks in their overall fraud‐risk assessments. In this study, we examine whether a fraud‐triangle decomposition of fraud‐risk assessments (that is, separately assessing attitude, opportunity, and incentive risks prior to assessing overall fraud risk) increases auditors' sensitivity to opportunity and incentive cues when perceptions of management's attitude suggest low fraud risk. In an experiment with 52 practicing audit managers, we find that auditors who decompose fraud‐risk assessments are more sensitive to opportunity and incentive cues when making their overall assessments than auditors who simply make an overall fraud‐risk assessment. However, this increased sensitivity to opportunity and incentive cues appears to happen only when those cues suggest low fraud risk. When opportunity and incentive cues suggest high fraud risk, auditors are equally sensitive to those cues whether they use a decomposition or a holistic approach. We discuss and examine potential explanations for this finding.     

Game-theoretic properties of Final-Offer Arbitration

Final-Offer Arbitration (FOA) is a dispute settlement procedure in which an arbitrator chooses one side's final position as the resolution. Game-theoretic models of FOA in two-sided interest disputes are reviewed, especially models of the disputants' final offer choices under uncertainty about the arbitrator's preferences. The extent to which the Brams-Merrill Theorem (1986) reveals optimal strategic behavior under FOA, and the implications for efficiency and equity, are assessed. Analysis of a model not satisfying the hypotheses of the Theorem suggests that, for some arbitrators, FOA can have an undesirable tendency. Another game model is used to address the question of how disputants' differential risk-aversion is reflected in their strategic behavior, and in the fairness of FOA outcomes. This calculation clarifies some apparently contradictory empirical evidence about FOA.     

A framework for the analysis of firm risk communication

In this paper, we propose a framework for the analysis of risk communication and an index to measure the quality of risk disclosure. Mainstream literature on voluntary disclosure has emphasized that quantity can be used as a sound proxy for quality. We contend that, in the analysis of the disclosure of risks made by public companies, attention has to be paid not only to how much is disclosed but also to what is disclosed and how.We apply the framework to a sample of nonfinancial companies listed in the ordinary market on the Italian Stock Exchange. To verify that the framework and synthetic index are not influenced by the two factors recognized in the literature as the most powerful drivers of disclosure behavior for listed companies, we use an OLS model. The regression shows that the index of disclosure quantity is not influenced either by size or industry. Thus, the synthetic measure can be used to rank the quality of the disclosure of risks.     

From T-Bills to Stocks: Seasonal Anomalies Revisited

This paper employed eleven data series which consist of stocks, bonds, bills, equity premiums, term premiums, and various default premiums to investigate whether January seasonality reported in existing literature is robust across different states of the economy as this has important trading implications. For the periods 1926–1990, small stocks, small stock premiums, low grade bonds, and default premiums (spread between high grade, low grade and government bonds) reveal January seasonality and that the seasonality is robust across different states of the economy except for low grade bond returns and default premiums. January seasonality for low grade bond returns and low grade bond default premiums are primarily driven by results found during periods of economic expansion. Overall, January seasonality is more evident during the economic expansion periods although the magnitude of default premiums is larger during periods of economic contraction. Furthermore, prior findings of strong summer equity returns are primarily driven by the results found during the periods of economic contraction. It is also found that equity returns are generally higher during periods of economic expansion.