上市公司违规行为的市场反应研究

文章以2008～2010年发生违规行为的A股上市公司和其配对公司为研究样本,首先对两组样本在处罚公告日前后的收益率进行差异性检验,其次运用多元线性回归分析等方法,进一步分析了处罚公告日前后哪些因素影响以及如何影响违规公司股票的市场反应。总样本研究结果表明,违规公司股票在公告日前后有明显的负向反应。分组样本研究结果表明,违规公司所在行业、处罚机构、处罚原因、处罚措施会对市场反应产生影响。针对不同处罚效果,文章给监管机构提出了可能的应对措施,并给投资者提出了投资建议。     

Do Opinions on Financial Misstatement Firms Affect Analysts’ Reputation with Investors? Evidence from Reputational Spillovers

We examine whether opinions on firms subsequently revealed to have misstated earnings affect analysts’ reputation with investors. We find that positive opinions by bullish analysts hurt their reputation, leading investors to react less to their research on non‐misstatement firms after the misstatement revelation (i.e., negative spillovers). We also find that bearish analysts issuing more negative opinions gain reputation and experience positive spillovers. Finally, for analysts who dropped coverage of the misstatement firm before the misstatement revelation, we find no spillovers, which suggests that analysts experience limited reputational gains when they did not issue a public negative opinion.     

Horizontal price agreements in Australian antitrust: Combatting anti-competitive corporate conspiracies of complicity and connivance

When the Trade Practices Act came into operation in 1974, Australian executives, for whom price-fixing had previously been commonplace, faced the prospect of having to abandon their usual methods of doing business. However, with no criminal penalties and a maximum monetary penalty of 250,000 (changed to250,000 (changed to 10m only in 1993), and with little social antagonism towards cartels, there were no significant incentives for firms to act independently. Yet while relatively few major price-fixing cases have been instituted, and no defendant has paid a major monetary penalty, there nevertheless has been a change in business attitudes towards price-fixing. It is not easy to provide a systematic characterization of either the products, firms, markets or justifications which have featured in these cases. To avoid being found guilty in the absence of smoking gun evidence, the courts have established that firms need only show that their behavior was consistent with ordinary commercial conduct.We are grateful to Rod Williams for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Whistleblowers and Outcomes of Financial Misrepresentation Enforcement Actions

Whistleblowers are ostensibly a valuable resource to regulators investigating securities violations, but whether there is a link between whistleblower involvement and the outcomes of enforcement actions is unclear. Using a data set of employee whistleblowing allegations obtained from the U.S. government and the universe of enforcement actions for financial misrepresentation, we find that whistleblower involvement is associated with higher monetary penalties for targeted firms and employees and with longer prison sentences for culpable executives. We also find that regulators more quickly begin enforcement proceedings when whistleblowers are involved. Our findings suggest that whistleblowers are a valuable source of information for regulators who investigate and prosecute financial misrepresentation.     

ALCOHOL TAXES VS. PREVENTATIVE MEASURES: A THEORETICAL NOTE

The paper assumes that damages in the form of deaths and traumatic injuries caused by alcohol‐related road accidents constitute a significant part of the negative externalities associated with alcohol consumption. It then compares the conventional Pigouvian solution with the impact that a sufficiently high penalty on drunken driving and better law enforcement may have. It is hypothesised that these measures may cause heavy drinkers either to cut back on their consumption of alcohol on occasions when they have to drive a vehicle or to maintain their consumption levels but refrain from driving. The welfare losses are much lower for each of these scenarios and are also carried specifically by those responsible for the negative externality. An attempt is also made to consider how individuals may respond to higher penalties and/or a more effective law enforcement system.     

Wage Indexation, Employment and Inflation

Price versus productivity-indexing is considered in a model of monetary policy with incomplete information and wage bargaining. In a perfectly price-indexed economy, the inflationary bias due to lack of credibility is eliminated. However, productivity-indexing is more appropriate to dampen macroeconomic fluctuations that are caused by real disturbances. We show that productivity-indexing alone guarantees both price and employment stability, provided the government's reputation is good enough and the union's bargaining power is not too strong. This reduces the degree of price indexation as the union becomes weaker and the government's reputation improves. Productivity-indexing is desirable with volatile productivity processes and weak unions.
JEL classification : E 24; E 52     

Strategic Subsidiary Disclosure

Although subsidiary disclosures in firms’ filings with the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC; Exhibit 21) represent the most granular required public disclosure of a firm's geographic footprint, little is understood about the quality of the disclosure, and anecdotal evidence suggests firms may not fully comply with the disclosure requirements. We use data provided by multinational firms to the Internal Revenue Service regarding their foreign subsidiary locations to explore the accuracy of public subsidiary disclosures on Exhibit 21 of Form 10-K per SEC rules. The overall incidence of nondisclosure is low, suggesting that most firms comply with Exhibit 21 disclosure rules, and that for most applications, Exhibit 21 disclosures provide a reasonable proxy for locations of significant subsidiaries. Nevertheless, there is some evidence of nondisclosure, particularly when subsidiaries are in tax havens, when the firm is more highly scrutinized in the media, or when the firm has other characteristics consistent with low-quality disclosures such as SEC comment letters.     

Boosting Foreign Investment: The Role of Certification of Corporate Governance

This paper studies the economic consequences of certification of corporate governance practices. For identification, we exploit a recent cross-country initiative by a coalition of key institutions in Southeast Asia; the periodic publication of a “Top List” of companies in the region selected based on an independent assessment of corporate governance practices. Our results suggest that being included in the list induces an increase in foreign investment and changes in corporate governance practices. The announcement of the Top List elicits a positive stock market response among constituents and is followed by higher accounting performance. Overall, the evidence suggests that the certification of governance practices is a meaningful tool to boost foreign investment.