The Seasoned‐Equity Issues of UK Firms: Market Reaction and Issuance Method Choice

Abstract:   This study examines the seasoned equity issues of companies traded on the London Stock Exchange. Recent regulatory changes have allowed UK firms more discretion in choice of issue approach, and this has led many firms to issue through placing in preference to a rights issue. Having first documented the trend towards increasing use of placings, we go on to identify an interesting subset of placings that are less likely to be anticipated by the market, and find a significant positive market reaction to such placings, which contrasts with the significant negative reaction we find for issues by rights. We also examine the choice of seasoned equity issuance method, focusing on the choice between placings versus rights issues. We develop a model to explain the choice of equity issue method that achieves a high level of predictive accuracy.     

The effect of self-selection bias on the testing of a stock price reaction to management's earnings forecasts

This study examines the inferential bias due to the failure to control for self-selection when studying the market's reaction to management earnings forecasts. The analysis is conducted by controlling for self-selection and comparing the results to those obtained when self-selection is not controlled. This comparison suggests that the overall inference of a market reaction to the management forecast issuance does not change. However, the statistical significance declines when self-selection is considered. Since the issuance of a management forecast is an obvious self-selection, the results of this study suggest that self-selection should be considered and evaluated in quasi-experimental studies in accounting and finance.     

中期财务报告自愿审计的动机和市场反应分析——基于中国上市公司的经验数据

作为外部治理机制的审计是公司信息披露质量的重要保证,目前法规对上市公司中期财务报告的审计并无强制性法规要求,许多上市公司选择中期财务报表自愿审计,其行为是一种主动传递信息的过程。本文通过对我国上市公司2007至2010年证券市场自愿中报审计的经验数据分析,对公司自愿中报审计的动机和市场反应进行了实证研究。研究发现:公司中期财务报表自愿审计与公司的成长性和公司规模显著相关,且公司的财务状况和股权性质对公司的自愿审计有一定影响;同时,市场对上市公司中期财务报告自愿审计行为有一定的正面反应,但这种反应效力不足,且持续力较低。     

Asset Prices as Indicators of Euro Area Monetary Policy: An Empirical Assessment of Their Role in a Taylor Rule

This paper estimates forward-looking and forecast-based Taylor rules for France, Germany, Italy, and the euro area. Performing extensive tests for over-identifying restrictions and instrument relevance, we find that asset prices can be highly relevant as instruments in policy rules. While asset prices improve Taylor rule estimates, different assets prove most relevant across countries and this result could be seen as complicating the tasks of the European Central Bank. Encompassing tests show that forecast-based outperform forward-looking Taylor rules. A policy implication is that central banks ought to release their own forecasts and the basis upon which they are generated.

Effective ways to grow urban bus markets – a synthesis of evidence

This paper provides a synthesis of the evidence on the patronage growth performance of bus improvement measures in urban settings. The evidence includes a summary of experience in Europe, North America and Australasia focusing on service improvement measures including network structure and service levels, bus priority measures, vehicles and stop infrastructure, fares and ticketing systems, passenger information and marketing, personal safety and security and synergy effects of measures. The source is the research literature and documented experienced from a series of studies undertaken by the authors over the last decade. It includes the results of an international bus expert ‘Delphi’ survey concerning bus improvement measures focussed on patronage growth. The paper synthesises the evidence to identify measures which are most likely to grow patronage including consideration of cost-effectiveness of measures.     

Modelling multiperiod patterns in stock-market reactions to events,with an application to serial acquisitions

In event studies, the now standard window of a few days may miss relevant price movements if the market’s reaction to the news announcement tends to be slow or if the initial reaction tends to be partially or wholly undone afterwards. We propose a parsimonious hybrid of splines and Almon lags to detect and classify various patterns of post-event reactions spread over many periods. The scheme can interact with one or more event characteristics (like deal size), and the resulting non-linear model can be estimated via maximum likelihood (ML).In our application, we study the returns pattern that follows takeover announcements by two leading serial acquirers, AB Inbev SA and Heineken. Our method confirms the presence of a drop-and-recovery pattern as reported in Doan and Sercu (2021), but the amplitude of the pattern shows no link with deal size. This last finding is not in line with the view that the pattern reflects a rise in uncertainty that is slowly resolved (Malatesta and Thomson, 1985).     

Sustainability of the fiscal imbalance and public debt under fiscal policy asymmetries in Sri Lanka

This paper investigates the sustainability of Sri Lanka’s fiscal imbalance and public debt. To test for sustainability of the fiscal imbalance, the study applies a symmetric ARDL (autoregressive distributive lag) technique to estimate a government intertemporal budget constraint. And to test for sustainability of public debt, it applies an asymmetric ARDL technique to estimate a fiscal reaction function, which allows for differential responses in the primary budget balance depending on whether shocks to regressors are positive or negative. Annual data for the period 1961–2018 are used in the estimations. The results indicate that Sri Lanka’s fiscal management is inconsistent with strong form sustainability, which requires that expenditures not grow faster than revenues. However, estimation of the fiscal reaction function finds robust evidence for fiscal policy asymmetries. Evidence emerges that Sri Lanka’s fiscal policy stance is procyclical with strong stabilization tendencies in economic expansions that are not sustained in contractions. Against upsurges in the debt-to-GDP ratio, authorities are found to pursue fiscal consolidation, thus suggesting weak form sustainability.     

A synthesis of homelessness in South Africa: A rapid critical appraisal

Homelessness in South Africa requires collaborative research. Social, political, cultural and economic factors that cause homelessness must be considered to develop a common definition and understanding of homelessness. South Africa’s social complexity and diversity make it challenging to construct available results into one conceptual framework, and this in turn complicates national policy implementation and role allocation. By means of a rapid critical appraisal of literature on homelessness in South Africa, researchers provide evidence to direct and structure contextual research pertaining to homelessness. Four themes transpire: conceptualisation; demography; roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders; and strategic policy and research issues. Researchers caution that the findings are not generalisable, because of the rapid nature of the appraisal and possible selection bias of the literature. Measures of validity were used to ensure that the study accomplished its purpose through the key results and to ensure that the results are a true reflection of available evidence.     

Market Reactions to Corporate Governance Ranking Announcements: Evidence from Taiwan

This study examines whether market participants react to the announcements of corporate governance ranking exercises. As a regulatory innovation, the Financial Supervisory Commission in Taiwan initiated and administered two ranking exercises, one in 2015 and the other in 2016, on all publicly listed companies. Adopting anchoring-and-adjustment theory, the study predicts that market participants will react strongly to the second announcement if the ranking obtained in the second exercise turns out to be better than the ranking in the first round. Employing an event study methodology, the study shows that market participants react positively and significantly to firms ranked in the top 50% in the second corporate governance exercise. Their reactions to the announcement are even stronger among those that did not list in the top 20% in the first exercise, but made it into the top 50% in the second one. Overall, our analyses support that anchoring-and-adjustment theory effectively explains market participants’ behaviour. Since the monitoring of the board of directors and investors may not effectively mitigate the potential moral hazard committed by family owners/executives, our empirical evidence demonstrates that a ranking exercise probably can be employed to supplement routine corporate governance disclosures made in annual reports, in order to strengthen the check-and-balance mechanism and reduce the risk of principal–principal conflicts. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of the research findings and propose directions for future studies.     

The determinants of austerity in the European Union 2010–16

This paper aims at decteting what drove the adoption of austerity policies over the period 2010–16 in a panel of 28 European countries. Austerity is identified by year increases in the ratio between the structural primary balance and potential GDP. By means of principal component factor analysis we select the aggregate factors that might affect austerity, namely (i) fiscal consolidation (correction of high deficits and debts), (ii) market discipline (high sovereign spreads, low ratings), (iii) rule-based fiscal discipline (compliance with the Eurozone rules), and macroeconomic stabilisation (consideration for the cyclical position of the economy). Then we estimate a dynamic panel model with the system-GMM method. Results show that the most important contributions to austerity are provided by the market discipline and fiscal consolidation factors together with Excessive Deficit Procedures, with no significant role played by concomitant macroeconomic conditions. Overall, governments complied with orthodox fiscal principles and rules.