Tax incentive and corporate financial performance: Evidence from income tax revenue sharing reform in China

How to stimulate corporate performance is a crucial issue of general concern in all countries. This paper examines how China’s Income Tax Revenue Sharing Reform in 2002 affects corporate financial performance. Unlike general tax policies that directly adjust the nominal tax rate or depreciation allowance, this reform indirectly affects the effective Enterprise Income Tax (EIT) rate by switching tax administration, thereby affecting corporate financial performance. We use a firm-level data-set from Annual Survey of Industrial Firms (ASIF), and test the impact by using a quasi-natural experimental design through regression discontinuity design (RDD). We find that after the reform, the effective EIT rate (ETR) of enterprises collected EIT by State Administration of Taxation (SAT) was 10% lower than that of enterprises collected EIT by the Local Administration of Taxation (LAT). If the ETR reduces by 1%, corporate financial performance, more specific, Return on Asset (ROA), increases by 1.7%. There are two available channels: increasing fixed asset investment (FAI), and alleviating external financial constraints. Additionally, the impact can be weakened for locally SOEs, large firms, firms with low SA index and those in less competitive industries.     

货币政策、利率联动效应与银行风险承担

守住不发生系统性金融风险底线，关键在于宏观货币政策与微观银行体系。在人民币国际化背景下，基于货币政策的银行风险承担渠道以及17家银行的非平衡动态面板数据，通过构建中介效应模型，实证检验了在岸离岸人民币利率联动在货币政策银行风险承担传导机制中的中介效应。研究发现，宽松的货币政策提高了银行风险承担水平；利率联动在宽松货币政策的银行风险承担渠道中发挥了完全中介效应，但在期限、渠道与微观特质三维度上呈现显著异质性。研究结论对于全面考察货币政策通过利率联动效应影响银行风险承担的核心逻辑、实时监测预警利率联动冲击下的银行风险承担水平、妥善解决“大而不能倒”风险等提供了有益的启示。     

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.     

Predictive analytics and centralization of authority

We examine the relation between plant-level predictive analytics use and centralization of authority for more than 25,000 manufacturing plants using proprietary US Census data. We focus on headquarters' authority over plants through delegation of decision-making and design of performance-based incentives. We find that increased predictive analytics use is associated with reduced delegation of decision-rights to local managers, increased centralization of control over data gathering and reduced plant managerial payrolls. In terms of incentives, predictive analytics use is associated with more accurate targets and tighter linkages between rewards to workers (performance-based bonuses, promotions and firings) and measured performance. Overall, our findings suggest that predictive analytics use is associated with increased centralization of authority in headquarters.     

Sectoral credit reallocation: An excessive bank risk-taking explanation

This paper develops a theoretical model to provide an alternative explanation for the credit to nontradable sector growing faster than credit to tradable sector, after a US expansionary monetary policy, based on an excessive risk-taking channel. This is, a reduced foreign interest rate decreases bank default probability, which in turn diminishes banks’ incentives to take excessive risk. This produces a reallocation of loan supply to nontradable sector since tradable loans are riskier. Using monthly sectoral credit data at the bank level for the Peruvian economy in the 2004–2019 period, we find evidence of the excessive bank risk-taking channel on sectoral credit reallocation.     

Tournament-based incentives and media sentiment

We find that promotion-based tournament incentives of executives are positively associated with firms’ media sentiment. This effect is more pronounced among firms with greater need for media favourability, captured by higher information opacity, lower analyst coverage, lower industry homogeneity, lower investment sentiment and lower managerial ability. Furthermore, we identify better financial performance and higher corporate branding as two channels through which tournament incentives can enhance a firm’s positive media sentiment. Our results are also robust to two quasi-natural experiments affecting promotion-based tournaments – (a) an exogenous CEO turnover due to health issues or sudden CEO death, and (b) the implementation of Say-on-Pay (SOP) law. Overall, our findings indicate that tournament-based incentives encourage a firm’s executives to showcase their skills to broader stakeholders, which consequently increases a firm’s media image.     

绿色信贷政策能够抑制企业的风险承担吗？

绿色信贷是桥接金融信用与环保的关键纽带和资源配置的重要抓手。基于2012年银监会颁布《绿色信贷指引》的外生冲击，使用双重差分(DID)探讨绿色信贷政策对企业风险承担的影响。首先，基准回归表明绿色信贷抑制了绿色信贷限制企业的风险承担水平，但政策影响的时滞性和企业的策略性应对使得政策颁布两年后抑制作用才不断增强。其次，融资约束和投资惩罚的中介机制表明，融资约束和投资支出在绿色信贷政策与企业风险承担之间存在遮掩效应，进一步抑制了企业风险承担水平。最后，信息效应和环境规制倒逼效应的调节机制表明绿色信贷政策影响存在非对称性。     

One size may not fit all: Financial fragmentation and European monetary policies

This article investigates the impact of European Central Bank policies on credits considering financial and banking fragmentation. Using European data from the past decade, we estimate SVAR models to analyze the regional impact of conventional and unconventional measures on price and volume indicators of fragmentation. The risk-taking channel is studied using GVAR models to document the national consequences of this fragmentation. We find that unconventional measures increase credit in peripheral countries. Monetary policies alleviate fragmentation, but mostly in terms of price dispersion rather than credit volume. Finally, unconventional measures imply a rebalancing of European bank assets in favor of foreign currency denominated-assets.     

Proxy contests and debt contracting behavior: The interplay of managerial,shareholder and creditor incentives

We evaluate how heterogeneity in the strategic interplay among shareholder, creditor and manager incentives influences debt contracting behavior around proxy contests. We find that, after proxy contests, new loan originations have significantly higher spreads and more stringent non-pricing contracting terms. The effect, however, occurs largely in contest firms where Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) are provided with risk-taking incentives. Further, creditors’ simultaneous equity holdings and credit default swaps (CDS) trading attenuate the impact of proxy contests on debt contracting costs. Finally, proxy contests that culminate in voting and dissident victory experience the largest increase in loan pricing. Overall, our results suggest an increase in the agency cost of debt occurs after proxy contests, particularly when managerial risk-taking incentives are high, and when creditors do not simultaneously hold target firms’ equity or CDS.