The survivorship bias, share price effect, and small firm effect in Canadian markets

After controlling for survivorship bias, we examine the relation between average returns, firm size, and price levels for Canadian stocks during the 1975-1994 period. Our findings indicate that there is a significant inverse share price level effect in Canadian markets. When we compare the results of the overall sample with the groups of surviving firms and delisted stocks, the latter group shows strong performance for large-size, high-priced stocks. Evidence that supports an independent size effect is less clear for Canadian stocks. A small size effect exists only among the higher share price denominations, which suggests a confounded size-price effect. Although the delisted group returns are statistically different from those of the survivor and the overall groups, which implies some evidence of survivorship bias, the difference between the survivor group and the overall group is weak at best.     

Antecedents and consequences of corporate governance reform: the case of Germany

The paper examines the antecedents and consequences of the voluntary adoption of corporate governance reform in firms embedded in a relationship‐based governance system with less protection of minority shareholders. In such locations, ownership structure should be a key determinant of governance reform. Firms with dispersed ownership are likely to face agency problems but may lack sufficient ownership power in the hand of external owners for adoption to occur. Extensive ownership by external parties facilitates adoption but decreases the need and motivation to adopt governance reform. We examined the adoption of stock‐based incentive plans and transparent accounting regulations (e.g., greater disclosure to shareholders) among large German firms (DAX 100) during the late 1990s. We found an inverse ‘U’‐shaped relationship between ownership concentration and governance reform. In addition, we found that firms adopting governance reform were more likely to engage in corporate divestitures and achieve higher levels of market performance than firms not adopting governance reform. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Characteristics of Earnings-Leading Versus Price-Leading Firms

This study attempts to identify firm characteristics that explain the disparity between the information content of accounting earnings and stock prices. Granger's causality concept was employed to classify sample firms into four groups: price-leading firms, feedback-system firms, earnings-leading firms, and no-causation firms. The feedback-system firms were either combined with the no-causation firms or eliminated entirely to form three sample groups. The entire sample firms then were divided into two classes. The first is for estimation, and the second is for prediction. Results indicate that firm size, capital structure, R-square of regressing prices at time t against earnings at time t – 1, R-square of regressing earnings at time t against prices at time t – 1, and percentage of shares held by institutions are the significant explaining variables. The application of the coefficient estimates to the hold-out sample indicates that 76.2% of the firms can be correctly classified into the corresponding groups. These results were consistent with those from canonical discrimination and other multivariate statistical methods.     

Evidence on the Timing and Determinants of Overfunded Pension Plan Termination

This paper examines the factors associated with the timing of overfunded pension plan termination.     

企业智力资本计量问题研究

企业智力资本计量是目前国内外理论界和实业界正在探索的一个热点领域。迄今已初步形成了一些计量模式和方法，但这些模式和方法存在许多缺陷。因而很有必要在此基础上，进一步探索更为科学的计量模式和方法。从企业价值创造机理来看，可以采用“动态四分法”对智力资本进行科学地分类，然后进行计量与估价，进而得出一种由识别、诊断和结果构成的三步式的企业智力资本计量的框架结构。     

零售企业规模无边界的理论与实证分析--以沃尔玛为例

企业规模理论在企业战略联盟及企业网络化环境下受到质疑，学术界提出了企业无边界理论．零售企业尤其是沃尔玛的快速扩张又提出了另一种无边界理论。这是两种不同性质的无边界理论。就单个企业的边界来说．生产企业和流通企业存在本质的区别．生产企业的资产专用性和技术跳跃所带来的沉没成本制约了生产企业的规模扩张．而流通企业的资产通用性和技术稳定性使流通企业避免了威廉姆森的企业“复制和有选择性控制的不可能性”命题的局限。本文通过沃尔玛的规模扩张的案例．建立影响企业规模因素的模型并进行实证分析．提出了零售企业规模无边界的命题。     

企业规模、规模经济与产业集群

企业规模问题一直存在着截然相反的观点和主张,造成冲突的原因在于“企业规模”是一个各取所需的含混的概念。具有经济学意义的企业规模应该从两个相互正交的维度上———企业的横向规模和纵向规模———来度量。规模经济来自于横向规模的扩张,而纵向规模的扩张可能会带来规模不经济。产业集群是观察企业横向、纵向规模一个好的样本。区分企业规模的不同性质,将会使与规模经济相关的理论研究出现明晰的路径。     

Corporate Governance and Expected Stock Returns: Evidence from Germany

Recent empirical work shows evidence for higher valuation of firms in countries with a better legal environment. We investigate whether differences in the quality of firm‐level corporate governance also help to explain firm performance in a cross‐section of companies within a single jurisdiction. Constructing a broad corporate governance rating (CGR) for German public firms, we document a positive relationship between governance practices and firm valuation. There is also evidence that expected stock returns are negatively correlated with firm‐level corporate governance, if dividend yields are used as proxies for the cost of capital. An investment strategy that bought high‐CGR firms and shorted low‐CGR firms earned abnormal returns of around 12% on an annual basis during the sample period.     

Zombie Board: Board Tenure and Firm Performance

We show that board tenure exhibits an inverted U‐shaped relation with firm value and accounting performance. The quality of corporate decisions, such as M&A, financial reporting quality, and CEO compensation, also has a quadratic relation with board tenure. Our results are consistent with the interpretation that directors’ on‐the‐job learning improves firm value up to a threshold, at which point entrenchment dominates and firm performance suffers. To address endogeneity concerns, we use a sample of firms in which an outside director suffered a sudden death, and find that sudden deaths that move board tenure away from (toward) the empirically observed optimum level in the cross‐section are associated with negative (positive) announcement returns. The quality of corporate decisions also follows an inverted U‐shaped pattern in a sample of firms affected by the death of a director.     

Audit Firm Tenure and Audit Quality in a Constrained Market

We examine the relation between audit quality and audit firm tenure in the Iranian audit market, which is constrained by government policies that create intense competition for clients among many small audit firms. We develop arguments that these circumstances create cost pressures that entrench low audit quality and render auditors' plans more predictable to managers wishing to misstate their accounts. Using publicly available data for the audits of listed companies in Iran prior to mandatory audit firm rotation and the incidence of misstated financial reports identified by the Iranian Association of Certified Public Accountants Inspection Office, we find that the likelihood of a misstatement is lowest in the first two years of audit firm tenure. We also find that the likelihood of misstatement is not associated with the year preceding a mandatory audit firm rotation, suggesting outgoing auditor effort is not sensitive to the prospect of subsequent revelations of deficiencies. Although our results from a pre-mandatory rotation period show that frequent rotations appear to improve the financial reporting quality in our sample, we are wary of interpreting these results as support for the mandatory audit firm rotation policy in Iran. Rather, we suggest this is a peculiar consequence of deficiencies in audit quality inherent in the Iranian market.