Business Commons^™

Between Kinship And Commerce: Fiduciaries And The Institutional Logics Of Family Firms, Elisabeth Brooke Harrington, Vanessa Strike

Brooke Harrington

Additional Evidence On The Impact Of The International Financial Reporting Standards On Earnings Quality: Evidence From Latin America, Mauricio A. Melgarejo

Mauricio Melgarejo

Fundamental Drivers Of Dependence In Reit Returns, Jamie Alcock, Eva Steiner

Eva Steiner

We analyse the empirical relationships between firm fundamentals and the dependence structure between individual REIT and stock market returns. In contrast to previous studies, we distinguish between the average systematic risk of REITs and their asymmetric risk in the sense of a disproportionate likelihood of joint negative return clusters between REITs and the stock market. We find that REITs with low systematic risk are typically small, with low short-term momentum, low turnover, high growth opportunities and strong long-term momentum. Holding systematic risk constant, the main driving forces of asymmetric risk are leverage and, to some extent, short-term momentum. Specifically, we …

Post-Jgtrra Dividend Planning, Danny A. Pannese, Paul N. Iannone

Danny Pannese

The JGTRRA reduced the tax rate on dividends for individuals and lowered the accumulated earnings and personal holding company taxes for corporations until 2008. This article reviews some of the planning techniques corporations and shareholders can use to take advantage of the temporarily lower rates. One of the key provisions of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA), if not the prime emphasis of the legislation, is Section 302's reduction in the individual tax rate on corporate dividends received to 15% (5% for individuals in the 15% and 10% brackets). In an emerging trend, the lower …

Interpreting Financial Results, Bridget Lyons, Rupendra Paliwal, Danny A. Pannese

Danny Pannese

The article discusses three accounting changes issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FSAB). The Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 158 "Employers' Accounting for Defined Benefit Pension and Other Retirement Plans" and the SFAS No. 160 "Noncontrolling Interests in Consolidated Financial Statements" are mentioned. Financial Interpretation 48 "Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, an Interpretation of FSAB Statement No. 109" is mentioned. The takeaway? Financial analysts, investors, and creditors need to carefully interpret ratios and measures, including debt to equity, liabilities to equity, and return on equity. Financial ratios used in loan covenants should be clearly designed and …

The Tension Between Monetary Policy And Financial Stability: Evidence From Agency Mortgage Reits, W. Scott Frame, Eva Steiner

Eva Steiner

The prolonged use of unconventional monetary policies since the financial crisis has resulted in concerns about the potential for such policy accommodation to undermine financial stability. Recent research identifying a “risk-taking channel” of monetary policy suggests that rapidly growing shadow banking organizations are of particular concern. In this paper, we study Agency mortgage REITs (Agency MREITs), which are specialized, tax-exempt financial institutions, whose rapid growth raised systemic risk concerns by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. After controlling for key variables that drive the Agency MREIT business (level, slope, and expected volatility of the term structure as well as the mortgage …

Reit Capital Structure: The Value Of Getting It Right, Eva Steiner

Eva Steiner

An analysis of the capital structure of commercial real estate investment trusts finds that the strongest REITs overall tend to employ lower leverage and longer debt maturity, maintain larger proportions of fixed-rate debt, rely less on secured debt, have a greater line of credit capacity but use it less, and hold smaller cash reserves. The REITs’ strength is measured by Tobin’s q, which expresses the ratio of the market value of assets relative to their book value. The study examines yearly data for the years 1993 through 2013 for 137 REITs based in the United States and the years 2001 …

Capital Expenditures, Asset Dispositions, And The Real Estate Cycle, Brent W. Ambrose, Eva Steiner

Eva Steiner

Recent empirical research provides evidence on the asset disposition choices of individual and institutional real estate investors that is consistent with the `disposition effect'. We propose a value-add investment strategy as an alternative rational explanation for the observed patterns in disposition choices. The main value-add mechanism in real estate investment is capital expenditures. However, capital expenditure investment is a real option whose exercise depends on its moneyness, which is a function of the economic environment. Therefore, we study the links between economic conditions, building-level capital expenditures, and subsequent transactions throughout the real estate cycle. We present empirical evidence consistent with …

Capital Structure Deviation And Speed Of Adjustment, Tarun Mukherjee, Wei Wang

Wei Wang

As a firm deviates from its target leverage, marginal bankruptcy costs change at a faster speed than marginal tax shield. This renders the speed of adjustment (SOA) of capital structure an increasing function of the starting deviation from the target. Adopting a bootstrapping-based estimation, we confirm the existence of such heterogeneity in SOA that is statistically significant and economically nontrivial. Typically, if Firm A is one standard deviation (about 17%) and Firm B is two standard deviations away from their leverage targets, then B’s SOA is 41% greater than that of A, and the half life of B’s leverage deviation …

Changing Paradigm In Accounting And Finance, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Financial Reporting: Standards, Norms And Institutions, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Neururer Cv Tn 2017-10-03.Pdf, Thaddeus A. Neururer

Thaddeus Neururer

No abstract provided.

The Consequences Of Reit Index Membership For Return Patterns, Andrey Pavlov, Eva Steiner, Susan Wachter

Eva Steiner

We study the impact of S&P index membership on REIT stock returns. Given the hybrid nature of REITs, their returns may become more like those of other indexed stocks and less like those of their underlying properties. The existing literature does not offer clear predictions on these potential outcomes. Taking advantage of the inclusion of REITs in major S&P indexes starting in 2001, we find that shared index membership significantly increases the correlation between REIT returns after controlling for the stock characteristics that determine index membership. We also document that index membership enhances the link between REIT stock returns and …

Leverage, Volatile Future Earnings Growth And Expected Stock Returns, Jamie Alcock, Eva Steiner, Kelvin Jui Keng Tan

Eva Steiner

We provide theory and evidence to complement Choi's [RFS, 2013] important new insights on the returns to equity in `value' firms. We show that higher future earnings growth ameliorates the value-reducing effect of leverage and, because the market for earnings is incomplete, reduces the earnings-risk sensitivity of the default option. Ceteris paribus, a levered firm with low (high) earnings growth is more sensitive to the first (second) of these effects thus generating higher (lower) expected returns. We demonstrate this by modeling equity as an Asian-style call option on net earnings and find significant empirical support for our hypotheses.

Reit Capital Structure Choices: Preparation Matters, Andrey Pavlov, Eva Steiner, Susan Wachter

Eva Steiner

Sun, Titman, and Twite (2015) find that capital structure risks, namely high leverage and a high share of short-term debt, reduced the cumulative total return of US REITs in the 2007-2009 financial crisis. We find that mitigating capital structure risks ahead of the crisis by reducing leverage and extending debt maturity in 2006, was associated with a significantly higher cumulative total return 2007-2009, after controlling for the levels of those variables at the start of the financial crisis. We further identify two systematic cross-sectional differences between those REITs that reduced capital structure risks prior to the financial crisis and those …

Customer Concentration And Cost Structure, Hsihui Chang, Curtis M. Hall, Michael Paz

Michael Paz

This study examines the effects of customer concentration levels on firm cost structure decisions. Analyzing cost data from a sample of manufacturing firms from 1976 through 2013, we find a negative relationship between customer concentration and cost elasticity whereby firms exhibit lower proportions of variable-to-fixed costs in the presence of higher levels of customer concentration. Additionally, we find that greater customer bargaining power, proxied by supplier industry competition and product market fluidity, leads to lower cost elasticity as customer concentration becomes greater. These results are robust to alternate specifications as well as controlling for endogeneity using a two-stage model. Our …

The Integrity Of Financial Analysts: Evidence From Asymmetric Responses To Earnings Surprises, Rui Lu, Wenxuan Hou, Henry Oppenheimer, Ting Zhang

Ting Zhang

This paper investigates the integrity of financial analysts by examining their recommendation responses to large quarterly earnings surprises. Although there is no significant difference in recommendation changes between affiliated and unaffiliated analysts in response to positive earnings surprises, affiliated analysts are more reluctant than unaffiliated analysts to downgrade stock recommendations in response to negative earnings surprises. The evidence implies that conflicts of interest undermine the integrity of financial analysts. We further examine the effects of reputation concern and the Global Research Analyst Settlement as informal and formal mechanisms, on restoring analysts’ integrity. The results show that the positive bias in …

An Analysis Of Risk-Taking Behavior For Public Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Nancy Mohan, Ting Zhang

Ting Zhang

This paper presents the first comprehensive study on the determinants of public pension fund investment risk and reports several new important findings. Unlike private pension plans, public funds undertake more risk if they are underfunded and have lower investment returns in the previous years, consistent with the risk transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, pension funds in states facing fiscal constraints allocate more assets to equity and have higher betas. There also appears to be a herding effect in that CalPERS equity allocation or beta is mimicked by other pension funds. Finally, our results suggest that government accounting standards strongly affect pension fund …

An Analysis Of Risk-Taking Behavior For Public Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Nancy Mohan, Ting Zhang

Nancy Mohan

This paper presents the first comprehensive study on the determinants of public pension fund investment risk and reports several new important findings. Unlike private pension plans, public funds undertake more risk if they are underfunded and have lower investment returns in the previous years, consistent with the risk transfer hypothesis. Furthermore, pension funds in states facing fiscal constraints allocate more assets to equity and have higher betas. There also appears to be a herding effect in that CalPERS equity allocation or beta is mimicked by other pension funds. Finally, our results suggest that government accounting standards strongly affect pension fund …

Beating Market Expectations, Analysts’ Forecasts Dispersion And The Pricing Of Credit Default Swaps, Mauricio A. Melgarejo

Mauricio Melgarejo

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of beating analysts’ forecasts and the impact of analysts’ forecast dispersion on the pricing of firms’ credit default swaps (CDSs). CDS premium is the compensation required by investors for bearing firms’ credit default risk. Sell-side analysts collect market, industry and firm information and provide important information in the form of stock recommendations, stock price targets and accounting number forecasts. For that reason, the information contained in their forecasts may provide additional information to investors to price CDSs. My results show that firms that beat analysts’ earnings and revenue forecasts, and …

The Stock Market’S Reaction To Accounting Information: The Case Of The Latin American Integrated Market Abstract, Mauricio A. Melgarejo, Eduardo Montiel, Luis Sanz

Mauricio Melgarejo

The purpose of this paper is to explore the stock market’s reaction to quarterly financial statements. We focus our study in two countries that are participating in the Latin American Integrated Market (MILA): Peru and Chile. We find that the cumulative abnormal returns and the absolute value of the cumulative abnormal trading are explained principally by the quarterly earnings surprises around the financial statements release date. We find that these effects are more pronounced in small firms, confirming that due to the lower level of pre disclosure information accounting numbers are the main source of information. Key words: Accounting Information, …

Taca, Pedro Raventos, Mauricio A. Melgarejo

Mauricio Melgarejo

The airline industry is energy intensive, has high fixed costs and its demand is very sensitive to the economic cycle. After the industry worldwide undergoes deregulation, starting with the United States in 1978, two distinct business models develop. Traditional carriers operate hub and spoke networks, offer onboard service and engage in price discrimination, whereas low cost carriers operate point to point, charge for all services and have simple tariffs. TACA begins operations in Central America in 1931 and, by 1943, has a footprint that extends from the United States to Argentina. In 1998–2001 TACA faces increased competition and a significant …

Nevada Continues To Lead Delaware And All Other States And Jurisdictions In 2014 Securities And Exchange Commission Trading Suspensions, Anthony J. Cataldo Ii, Xi (Cici) Cheng, Paul Christ, Thomas Miller

Paul Christ

No abstract provided.

Nevada Continues To Lead Delaware And All Other States And Jurisdictions In 2014 Securities And Exchange Commission Trading Suspensions, Anthony J. Cataldo Ii, Xi (Cici) Cheng, Paul Christ, Thomas Miller

Thomas Miller

No abstract provided.

Speculation And Price Indeterminacy In Financial Markets, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Simple Agents Intelligent Markets, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Imports, Unionizationandracial Age Discrimination In The Us, Jacqueline Agesa, Richard U. Agesa

Jacqueline Agesa

Past studies of the relationship between competition and racial wages find that domestic competition reduces racial wage discrimination of nonunion workers. This article examines the effects of foreign competition on racial wages of union and nonunion workers utilizing an empirical model which allows for cluster-adjusted SEs by industry. Such a procedure allows independence of observations across industries but not within industries, thereby not overstating the significance of industry invariant controls. In this analysis, clustered SEs prevent the overstatement of the significance of imports as a means to reduce earnings discrimination. We find evidence of a wage premium for nonunion white …

Imports, Unionizationandracial Age Discrimination In The Us, Jacqueline Agesa, Richard U. Agesa

Richard Agesa

Past studies of the relationship between competition and racial wages find that domestic competition reduces racial wage discrimination of nonunion workers. This article examines the effects of foreign competition on racial wages of union and nonunion workers utilizing an empirical model which allows for cluster-adjusted SEs by industry. Such a procedure allows independence of observations across industries but not within industries, thereby not overstating the significance of industry invariant controls. In this analysis, clustered SEs prevent the overstatement of the significance of imports as a means to reduce earnings discrimination. We find evidence of a wage premium for nonunion white …

Simple Agents, Intelligent Markets, Shyam Sunder

Shyam Sunder

No abstract provided.

Individuals Approaching Retirement Have Options (Literally) To Secure A Comfortable Retirement, Bryan Foltice

Bryan Foltice

This article examines the critical final five-year period leading up to retirement and analyzes whether traditional asset-allocation strategies effectively and consistently assist individuals in reaching their retirement income goals as they approach retirement. These traditional strategies are evaluated against alternative, option-based investment strategies that assure a certain amount of retirement income, after adjusting for inflation, while maximizing stock participation with the remaining funds in the portfolio through the use of options. In this simulation, we find higher overall expected yields in the traditional investment strategies over the evaluated five-year period. However, after applying a constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) coefficient, …