Corporate Finance Commons^™

Essays In Corporate Finance, Yiwei Yu

Dissertations and Theses Collection

Innovation is vital to companies’ competitive advantages and is an important driver of economic growth. However, innovation is costly, since the innovation process is long, idiosyncratic, and uncertain, often involving a very high failure probability and great positive externalities .We thus launch the investigation from the following three aspects to explore how to create a better environment for producing innovation: Financing of innovation; dual-class share structure of innovation; and regulation and policy (e.g. SOX Act.)'s impact on innovation.

First of all, we study the effect of firms’ real estate collateral on innovation. In the presence of financing frictions, firms can …

Corporate Governance And Executive Compensation For Corporate Social Responsibility, Zhichuan Li

Business Publications

We link the corporate governance literature in financial economics to the agency cost perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to derive theoretical predictions about the relationship between corporate governance and the existence of executive compensation incentives for CSR. We test our predictions using novel executive compensation contract data, and find that firms with more shareholder-friendly corporate governance are more likely to provide compensation to executives linked to firm social performance outcomes. Also, providing executives with direct incentives for CSR is an effective tool to increase firm social performance. The findings provide evidence identifying corporate governance as a determinant of managerial …

The Influence Of Ethical Leadership On Managerial Performance: Mediating Effects Of Mindfulness And Corporate Social Responsibility, John J. Williams, Alfred E. Seaman

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In a continuing world of corporate misdeeds and unscrupulous decision making, much of the management and academic literatures points to the incomplete knowledge of the consequences of ethics leadership. One of the bastions of ethics gatekeeping in the firm is the CFO but remarkably scant information can be found on their perceptions concerning ethics leadership. This study addresses this void by examining mindfulness and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives as new mediating linkages in comprehending the influence of ethics leadership on managerial performance. Findings reveal that ethical leadership is positively associated with CSR initiatives which, in turn, operate to enhance …

The Role Of The Media In Promoting Real Sector Finance., Gbenga Adefaye

Bullion

This paper would focus on the Role of the Media as a social institution, why it should promote real sector financing and how it can promote real sector financing. This is premised on the belief that previous papers have dwelt sufficiently on the issue of technicalities of real sector and aspects of financing.

Macroeconomic Stability And The Role Of Financial Institutions In Promoting Financial Inclusion In Nigeria, Mbutor O. Mbutor, Ibrahim A. Uba

Bullion

This article discusses the role of financial institutions in promoting financial inclusion in Nigeria as well as its macroeconomic stability. Positive growth of the economy is prerequisite for financial inclusion but the stability of the economy is sine qua non for economic growth. Therefore, the discussion of financial inclusion is best served when enclosed in the framework of the extent to which the economy is stable. The article further highlights financial inclusion and its related concepts and the role of financial institutions in promoting financial inclusion.

Cross-Country Differences In The Effect Of Political Connections On Stock Price Informativeness, Yuanto Kusnadi, Bin Srinidhi

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using a sample of firms from 28 countries, we investigate the cross-country differences in the effect of political connections on the information environment. We find that politically connected firms in the emerging markets exhibit lower stock price informativeness than similar unconnected firms but we do not find this result in the developed markets. This finding is robust to controlling for earnings quality, analyst coverage, share-turnover, and insider ownership. Examination of specific differences between countries reveals that the weakening of the information environment for connected firms is prevalent in countries that have high levels of corruption, no electoral democracy, and low …

The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act On Clients’ Audit Opinion Shopping Behavior, Jong-Hag Choi, Heesun Chung, Catherine Heyjung Sonu, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates whether the tendency for audit clients to engage in opinion shopping becomes weaker after the enforcement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). While Lennox (2000) provides evidence that U.K. firms successfully engage in opinion shopping, there is limited evidence on the mitigating effect of SOX on opinion shopping. Using observations collected from the period before and after the enforcement of SOX (year 2001, 2004 and 2005), we find that, for our sample period, firms are likely to switch (retain) their incumbent auditors when the likelihood of receiving a going concern opinion is lower (higher) from a successor auditor, …

Macro Disagreement And The Cross-Section Of Stock Returns, Frank Weikai Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the effects of macro-level disagreement on the cross-section of stock returns. Using forecast dispersion measure from Survey of Professional Forecasters database, I find that when forecast dispersion on macroeconomic factor is high, stocks that have high loadings on that factor earn lower future returns relative to stocks with low loadings and vice versa. This negative relationship between risk premium of macro-factors and macro-level disagreement is robust and exists for a large set of macroeconomic risk factors. These findings are consistent with the model of Hong and Sraer (2015), where high beta stocks are more prone to speculative …

Endogeneity In Ceo Power: A Survey And Experiment, Zhichuan Li

Business Publications

The endogeneity problem has always been one, if not the only, obstacle to understanding the true relationship between different aspects of empirical corporate finance. Variables are typically endogenous, instruments are scarce, and causality relations are complicated. As the first attempt to summarize different econometric methods that are commonly used to address endogeneity concerns in the context of corporate governance, we explore the relation between CEO power and firm performance, as an experiment, to illustrate how these methods can be used to mitigate the endogeneity problem and by how much. After carefully dealing with the endogeneity issues, we find strong evidence …

Essays In Empirical Corporate Finance, Francisco Marcet

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

This dissertation presents three essays in empirical corporate finance. In the first two essays, I examine the effect of analyst coverage network on US firms' corporate decisions and stock return comovement in emerging markets. The third essay discusses the importance of performance pay and CEO functional background in explaining firm performance in the short- and long-run. In the first chapter, which is a joint work with Armando Gomes, Radha Gopalan and Mark Leary, we show that sell-side analysts play an important role in propagating corporate financial policy choices, such as leverage and equity issuance decisions across firms. Using exogenous characteristics …

Robustness Of Firm-Specific And Macroeconomic Determinants Of Exploration Investments Implications From Egyptian Oil & Gas Industry, Mohamed Rashwan, Tarek Eldomiaty, Mohamed Bahaa El Din

Business Administration

Purpose – The uncertainty that surrounds oil and gas exploration environments call for an examination at different angles. In terms of robustness, the purpose of this paper is to focus on three performance measurements: the amount of exploration investments, the growth rate of exploration investments, and the value at risk (VaR) of exploration investments.

Design/methodology/approach – The study utilizes the properties of discriminant analysis for deriving Z-score models that can be used for monitoring firms’ performance. A cointegration analysis is utilized as well in order to examine the level of cointegration between predictors of each performance measure. The sample includes …

Shareholder Advocacy In Corporate Elections: Case Studies In Proxy Voting Websites For Retail Investors, Robin Miller

Sustainability and Social Justice

One of the key rights shareholders retain is the right to vote on issues affecting the companies in which they invest. This voting right is seen as one of the primary means of exercising diligent corporate governance (Cole 2003, Fairfax 2009). Only 28 percent of individual investors vote in corporate elections compared with 91 percent of institutional investors. Informed voting decisions at corporate elections can be very information intensive, and theories of rational apathy and the free rider problem may explain a lack of participation from individual investors.

Many shareholders cannot attend annual corporate meetings, so they …

On The Behavior Of Entrepreneurial Factor Supply To The Firm, Nicos Zafiris

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

This paper draws on an existing, but little used, approach to the choices governing the supply of ‘entrepreneurial’, in the sense of ‘residually remunerated’, resources to an enterprise, especially post start up. It focuses in particular on the hybrid ‘own factor demand/supply curve’ to the firm of Bronfenbrenner (1960), but attempts to treat such supply in conjunction with ‘contractual’ employment of resources, thus making use of gearing and portfolio concepts. To achieve this, it is found necessary for the hybrid schedule to be reinterpreted and recast as the locus of the relevant utility maximising choices. A model is presented which …

Spillover Effects In Mutual Fund Companies, Clemens Sialm, T. Mandy Tham

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Our paper investigates spillover effects across different business segments of publicly traded financial conglomerates. We find that the investment decisions of mutual fund shareholders do not depend only on the prior performance of the mutual funds; they also depend on the prior performance of the funds’ management companies. Flows into equity and bond mutual funds increase with the prior stock price performance of the funds’ management companies after controlling for fund performance and other fund characteristics. The sensitivity of flows to the management company’s performance is not justified by the subsequent performance of the affiliated funds. The results indicate that …

Hedging In Energy: The Case Of Linn Energy, Llc, Riley E. Nelson

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper is a case study of LINN Energy, LLC over the period of Q1 2013 to Q4 2015. Due to volatility in commodity prices, energy companies choose to hedge their future production using forwards, futures, swaps, and options strategies. I selected LINN Energy as the subject for this study due to the breadth of detailed historical hedging information available through the company’s website. LINN Energy disclosed much more than is required for independent oil and gas companies, making them the perfect case study for this thesis. LINN Energy, LLC is one of the few publicly traded LLC’s and is …

Event-Based Biotechnology Stock Price Movement: Valuing Success And Failure In Biotechnology Product Development, Faris Sumadi

Honors College Theses

Biotechnology investment, in the second quarter of 2015, hauled in a record $2.3 billion worth of venture capital. The 126 deals struck marked the biggest quarterly investment (up 32% from the prior quarter) since reporting started in 1995. With $3.8 billion invested in these pre-IPO ventures by mid-2015, the biotech industry soared past the $6 billion of venture capital cash invested in 2014. These numbers illustrate how early-stage research, with unproven science, has been revived after a decade of VCs shying away. Out of the $2.3 billion raised in Q2, $1.5 billion went to early-stage companies while $733 million went …

Do Investors Value The Required Stress Tests Of Financial Holding Companies?, Brendan A. Colligan

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores the value of disclosing stress test results to investors and market participants within the US financial system. Recently the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) expanded its required internal stress testing program, often referred to as the Dodd-Frank Act Stress Test (“DFAST”), to include bank holding companies (“BHCs”) with more than $10 billion in total assets. These BHCs were required to publicly disclose their results for the first time in June of 2015. Large BHCs are subject to another level of stress testing implemented by the Comprehensive Capital Analysis Review (“CCAR”). Large BHCs are defined as having more than $50 …

Financial Performance In Upstream, Downstream, And Integrated Oil Companies In Response To Oil Price Volatility, Jonathan P. Garcia

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper investigates the relation between crude oil price volatility and stock returns among oil companies using a three-part methodology, by using the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as oil price benchmark. I asses the various indicators that set signals for oil price volatility and the interpretation of each (PMI, S&P500, DJIA, and World Crude Oil Output). This research also focuses on the relation between different types of companies in the oil industry (integrated, upstream, and downstream) and how each type of company will be assessed in a particular way to predict abnormal returns, based on market data and statistical analyses …

Correlation Between Shareholder Concentration And Firm Performance With Regard To Midcap Companies, Wynn Lemmons

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research herein explores the correlation between performance and shareholder concentration. This paper compares the performance of a group of companies with a single shareholder stake of over 10% from the universe of the S&P 400 Midcap Index to the performance of the index itself over a period of eight years (January 1, 2009 to January 1, 2016). When run as a simulated portfolio, the group selected generated a slight amount of positive alpha, but the results were ultimately statistically insignificant.

The Effect Of Ceo Stock-Based Compensation On Pricing Of Future Earnings, Bobae Choi, Jae Bum Kim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper examines whether CEO stock-based compensation has an effect on the market’s ability to predict future earnings. When stock-based compensation motivates managers to share their private information with shareholders, it will expedite the pricing of future earnings in current stock prices. In contrast, when equity-compensated managers attempt to temporarily manipulate the stock price to maximize their own benefit rather than that of shareholders, the market may not fully anticipate future performance. We find that a CEO’s stock-based compensation strengthens the association between current returns and future earnings, indicating that more information about future earnings is reflected in current stock …