Working capital (mis)management – impact of executive age

Several recent studies have used the upper echelons theory to explain the impact of personal traits of top executives on various corporate policies. In this, first of its kind, study we find that older executives invest more in working capital; take longer to convert inventories to cash; and pay their suppliers sooner. These findings are consistent with the argument that risk aversion increases with executive age. Our findings indicate that executive age has significant bearing on working capital management policies. This study also initiates new avenues in research relating behavioral aspect of executives with short‐term financial management.     

Australian evidence on analysts' cash flow forecasts: issuance,accuracy and usefulness

This study examines the factors affecting the issuance, accuracy and usefulness of analysts' cash flow forecasts (CFFs) in Australia. Given the economic importance of the mining industry in Australia, we find that analysts are likely to provide CFFs for mining firms with poor financial health and high default risk. In contrast, analysts' provision of CFFs increases with the degree of financial health for non‐mining firms. The determinants of the issuance and accuracy of analysts' CFFs also differ in pre‐ and post‐IFRS adoption periods. Our results add new evidence on the effect of IFRS adoption on analysts' cash flow forecasting behaviours.     

非寿险公司偿付能力额度和现金管理的研究

本文运用2001年～2006年20家保险公司的面板数据,比较分析了基于保险监管与基于比率法得到的最低偿付能力额度的差别,认为目前我国保险公司最低偿付能力额度制定过低,并且发现我国基于净赔款支出的方法在偿付能力额度制定中不能发挥作用;实证研究了保险公司现金持有量的影响因素,认为中资保险公司现金持有量主要受资产负债率、投资收益率、非投资资产率和流动资产率四个因素的影响,而外(合)资保险公司的现金持有量则主要受赔付率和非投资资产率的影响,差异较大。     

Liquidity implications of reverse logistics for retailers: A Markov chain approach

The reverse logistics process can generate periodic negative cash flows that are difficult to predict and account for, but are important when managing retailer liquidity. Uncertainties surrounding reverse logistics create the possibility that the retailer may be strained in meeting short-run financial obligations or opportunities. The current research offers a Markov chain approach to modeling the expectations, risks, and potential shocks associated with cash flows stemming from retail reverse logistics activities. Managerial recommendations for avoiding liquidity problems stemming from reverse logistics activities are provided.     

Is late really better than never? The farmer welfare effects of pineapple adoption in Ghana

Export agriculture offers potentially high returns to smallholder farmers in developing countries, but also carries substantial market risk. In this article we examine the intertemporal welfare impact of the timing of a farmer's entry into the export pineapple market in southern Ghana. We examine whether farmers who never cultivated pineapple are better or worse off than farmers who decided to adopt pineapple earlier or later relative to their peers and experienced a significant adverse market shock several years prior to our endline survey. We use a two‐stage least squares model to estimate the causal effect of duration of pineapple farming on farmer welfare. Consistent with economic theory, we find that earlier adoption of the new crop brings greater welfare gains than does later uptake. But we find that the gains to later uptake of pineapple—just before the market shock—are small in magnitude, just 0.1 standard deviations of a comprehensive asset index, indicating that the gains to adoption may be precarious and depend on the context, in particular on the severity of prospective market shocks.     

信贷配给、流动性冲击和民营企业现金持有

融资约束的存在要求企业持有必要的现金以预防可能的流动性冲击。不同于以往研究,本文从融资数量的硬约束——信贷配给视角将企业现金持有水平及其经济后果的考察纳入到一个统一的理论框架,并运用实证的方法研究流动性冲击下我国民营上市公司的现金持有行为。研究表明：民营上市公司持有高额现金的原因出于在信贷配给约束下的预防性动机;在遭受流动性冲击时,增持现金对民营上市公司具有正向的价值效应,且信贷配给水平越高的企业这种正向效应越显著。     

Explaining Foreign Holdings of Asia's Debt Securities: The Feldstein–Horioka Paradox Revisited*

In this paper, we find that home bias is still present in all economies and regions, especially in the case of short‐term debt securities, but that there are substantial variations among economies and regions in the strength of home bias, with the eurozone economies, the USA and developing Asia showing relatively weak home bias and advanced Asia, especially Japan, showing relatively strong home bias. We then examine trends over time in foreign holdings of debt securities and find that capital has been flowing from the USA and the eurozone economies to both advanced Asia (especially Japan) and developing Asia, and that foreign holdings of debt securities have been increasing in advanced as well as developing Asia but for different reasons. The main reason in the case of advanced Asia (especially Japan) appears to be higher risk‐adjusted returns, whereas the main reason in the case of developing Asia appears to be the growth of debt securities markets combined with relatively weak home bias and (in the case of short‐term securities) lower exchange rate volatility. Finally, we find that since the global financial crisis, foreign holdings of debt securities have declined (i.e. that home bias has strengthened) in all economies and regions except developing Asia, where they have increased (except for a temporary decline in 2008) but where their share is still much lower than the optimal share warranted by the capital asset pricing market model.     

What Enhances Insider Trading Profitability?

This study analyses the factors triggering insider trading profitability. Since there is not much evidence on this topic in the continental-European context, we focus on the Spanish stock market. Our findings show that the main relevant factors (the timing ability of the insider, the transparency of the transaction and the level of free cash flow of the firm) are related to insiders’ opportunities behaviour, motivated by the lack of either managerial control within the firm or enforcement of insider trading regulation. The level of ownership concentration, the spread and the interaction between the size and the transparency of the transaction are other relevant factors, some of them tested for the first time in the insider trading literature.      

Unusual operating cash flows and stock returns

The current financial reporting of cash flows from operations does not present individual sources of these cash flows, making it difficult for investors to assess a firm’s future performance. I hand-collect individual cash flows from unusual operations and examine their characteristics for predicting future cash flows. The results show that the unusual individual cash flow items contain a significant incremental predictive ability for future cash flows. Additional return tests show that stock prices fail to fully reflect their predictive value, suggesting that the current reporting practice may mislead investor perceptions of a firm’s cash generating ability and investors could benefit from a more explicit presentation of cash flows from operations.     

Equity Ownership and Firm Value: Evidence from Targeted Stock Repurchases

In contrast to the negative average abnormal return associated with the announcement of a control‐related targeted repurchase (greenmail transaction), we find that the announcement of a noncontrol‐related targeted repurchase is associated with a positive and significant average abnormal return. Cross‐sectional analysis indicates that the change in firm value at the announcement of a noncontrol‐related targeted repurchase is negatively related to the resulting changes in both insider ownership and outside blockholdings. We also find significant differences in announcement‐period stock price effects depending on the identity of the selling shareholder.