International Equity Index and Currency Futures: Commodity Currencies or Emerging Versus Developed Markets?

Equity index futures in both emerging and developing markets that are net commodity exporters are strongly linked to their respective currency futures markets. Unconditional correlations among equity and currency futures are the highest for these net basic materials producers in both emerging and developed markets. Granger causality tests also indicate that stock market returns are more strongly related to currency futures returns for commodity-exporting countries. Additionally, conditional correlations among currency and equity futures returns are the strongest for commodity-producing countries in both emerging and developed economies. Volatility spillover analysis provides consistent results. The overall results indicate that the status of a country as a net importer or exporter of raw materials is more important to the relationship between equity and currency futures than whether it is an emerging or developed economy.     

The Disclosure Practices of Islamic Equity Funds

We investigate the disclosure practices of screening and compliance information of Islamic equity funds around the world. Disclosures on Sharia advisors and screening information are quite high, but they are lower for compliance information such as Sharia advisory report (SAR) and holdings data. The results show that younger funds with better Sharia advisory board (SAB) governance which are domiciled in countries belonging to an Islamic international standard-setter body have the highest disclosure levels. However, funds domiciled in countries with a central SAB and following common law disclose less Sharia-related information. These findings are important for the effectiveness of disclosure framework.     

Financial development,corporate governance and cost of equity capital

Existing research suggests that external governance is more relevant than internal governance in affecting a firm’s value. We contribute to the literature by explicitly examining the interactive role played by country-level financial development and legal institutions in influencing the impact of firm-level governance on the cost of equity capital. Using a comprehensive sample of 7380 firm years drawn from 22 developed countries, we show that firm-level corporate governance attributes affect the cost of equity capital primarily in the Common Law countries with high levels of financial development. Our study is the first to highlight the complementary effects of legal origin, financial development and firm-level governance attributes in influencing the cost of equity capital.     

后股权分置时代上市公司治理问题浅析

股权分置改革被称为中国证券市场的第二次制度革命,它通过流通股股东与非流通股东之间的对价制度设计使得非流通股东获取了流通权,从而形成了两者共同的利益目标,改变了上市公司利益冲突的现实状况,是上市公司有效治理的重要前提。     

基于会计等式的顾客资产构成及其含义

通过对顾客资产的表现形式、实质内容、本质特征、会计计量对象和会计属性等方面的研究分析,结合会计等式(资产=负债 所有者权益),研究了顾客资产的会计学构成,并从会计学角度定义了顾客资产.     

会计盈余质量与权益资本成本关系的实证分析

决策有用是衡量盈余质量的一个主要标准,从投资者的角度,以2001年—2003年间具有10期连续存续期间的上市公司为样本,通过研究计价观下企业会计盈余的7个不同质量：应计质量、持续性、可预测性、平滑度、价值相关性、及时性、稳健性,对权益资本成本的影响来为上述问题提供证据。研究结果表明,除盈余的持续性与预测符号不一致以外,其他各质量与权益资本成本之间均呈负相关关系,但持续性、价值相关性与稳健性的影响不显著;在对权益资本成本的影响程度方面,盈余的质量影响程度最大,其次是平滑度、及时性和可预测性;以会计为基础的质量对资本市场的影响整体大于以市场为基础的质量。     

Discussion of ‘Accounting Premium’ for IAS/IFRS and U.S. GAAP Vis-à-vis German GAAP”

Ernstberger and Vogler [Ernstberger, J. & Vogler, O. (2008-this issue). Analyzing the German Accounting Triad with an Enhanced Multifactor Model—‘Accounting Premium’ for IAS/IFRS and U.S. GAAP Vis-à-vis German GAAP. International Journal of Accounting.] employ the concurrent use of three distinct accounting-standard regimes (German GAAP; U.S. GAAP; and IAS/IFRS GAAP) in Germany as a foundation for evaluating the relation between accounting standard regime and equity-return attributes. They find that firms using U.S. or IAS/IFRS GAAP have higher betas but yield lower returns (cost of capital) relative to firms employing German GAAP. They also find that portfolios designed to isolate the return impacts of U.S. and IAS/IFRS GAAP relative to German GAAP are priced in a risk-factor-like fashion. In this discussion I suggest that a good bit of this empirical evidence is problematic. I also discuss the implausibility of information quality being priced in a Fama and French [Fama, E.F. & French, K.R. (1992). The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns. The Journal of Finance 47 (2): 427–465.] factor-like fashion. Finally, I introduce the importance of conditioning analyses of the relation between firm-level information quality and equity-market return (cost of capital) on the degree to which the shareholder base of a firm holds diversified portfolios.     

Effect of personal taxes on managers’ decisions to sell their stock

We examine the effect of personal taxes on CEOs’ decisions to sell their equity, controlling for diversification, managerial overconfidence, and other determinants. While CEOs frequently sell large amounts of their unrestricted firm equity, the tax burden associated with the sale significantly deters them from selling equity even after controlling for other determinants like diversification. We also find that both taxable institutional investors and CEOs respond to taxes in their selling of equity, although CEOs appear to be less tax-sensitive. Our findings underscore the importance of taxes in corporate and managerial decisions and they have implications for executive compensation policies.     

Executive Compensation in UK Property Companies

We study the drivers of executive compensation in the listed UK property sector. The UK provides an excellent opportunity to analyze executive compensation due to high transparency in the different components of executive compensation. We show that company size is the most important variable in explaining the level of executive compensation. We find that absolute and relative share performance significantly explains long-term compensation, that management style has a distinct influence on the level of executive compensation, and that using alternative monitoring mechanisms (institutional shareholders, debtholders, and outside directors) leads to higher levels of long-term incentives. We find only weak evidence of pay-performance sensitivity for both cash and long-term compensation. Executive shareholdings provide a much stronger link between pay and performance than does executive compensation.

The impact of surprise offer-share adjustments on offer-day returns: evidence from seasoned equity offers

Using a sample of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), we examine the eleventh-hour information carried by the final offer-share adjustment. We argue that if market participants interpret the final offer-share adjustment as a new information signal regarding the demand for the stocks issued, a greater final offer-share adjustment will affect the offer-day return positively (demand information hypothesis). Alternatively, if investors interpret the final offer-share adjustment as increasing the supply of stocks issued and/or as diluting the value of existing shares, a greater final offer-share adjustment will affect the offer-day returns negatively (price-pressure and dilution hypothesis). We provide empirical evidence that the offer-day returns are positively related to the final offer-share adjustment after controlling for confounding factors, supporting the demand information hypothesis. Our results also remain intact even after controlling for the endogeneity. Overall, our findings suggest that the final offer-share adjustment is another important determinant of offer-day returns, in addition to the final offer-price adjustment that Altinkiliç and Hansen [J Financ Econ 69(2):285–323 (2003)] report.