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Full-Text Articles in Business

Socially Responsible Firms, Allen Ferrell, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog Dec 2016

Socially Responsible Firms, Allen Ferrell, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the corporate finance tradition, starting with Berle and Means (1932), corporations should generally be run to maximize shareholder value. The agency view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) considers CSR an agency problem and a waste of corporate resources. Given our identification strategy by means of an instrumental variable approach, we find that well-governed firms that suffer less from agency concerns (less cash abundance, positive pay-for-performance, small control wedge, strong minority protection) engage more in CSR. We also find that a positive relation exists between CSR and value and that CSR attenuates the negative relation between managerial entrenchment and value.


Valuation Uncertainty, Market Sentiment And The Informativeness Of Institutional Trades, Lisa Yang, Jeremy Goh, Chiraphol N. Chiyachantana Nov 2016

Valuation Uncertainty, Market Sentiment And The Informativeness Of Institutional Trades, Lisa Yang, Jeremy Goh, Chiraphol N. Chiyachantana

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior studies indicate that institutional investors are informed, in the sense that their trades predict price changes. In this study we show that return predictive ability of institutions arises (after controlling for size, book-to-market, and momentum) mainly from institutional sales of hard-to-value stocks during periods of positive market sentiment. These results support the notion that these stocks tend to be overvalued during periods of bullish market sentiment, and institutions contribute to market efficiency by identifying and trading on these overpriced stocks.


Decimalization, Ipo Aftermath, And Liquidity, Charlie Charoenwong, David K. Ding, Tiong Yang Thong Nov 2016

Decimalization, Ipo Aftermath, And Liquidity, Charlie Charoenwong, David K. Ding, Tiong Yang Thong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the effect of decimalization on the aftermarket trading of NYSE-listed IPOs. We find that the relation between bid–ask spread and underpricing becomes negative post-decimalization, suggesting that benefits from the increased price competition accrue more to hot IPOs. The quoted depth is generally smaller post-decimalization due to a higher probability of front running, which aggravates the cost of adverse selection and limit order submission. We show that underwriters continue to provide price support but are only willing to cover the initial short position, if profitable to do so. Decimal pricing does not affect the flipping strategy of institutions for …


Sociability, Golf Courses, And The Performance Of Institutional Investors, Chi Shen Wei, Lei Zhang Oct 2016

Sociability, Golf Courses, And The Performance Of Institutional Investors, Chi Shen Wei, Lei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We hypothesize that prestigious golf courses attract golfers and visitors from across the country, providing greater opportunities for nearby investors to build social connections. Our evidence suggests that institutional investors located near prestigious golf courses earn significantly better benchmark- and risk-adjusted returns. This reflects the benefits of sociability as our findings are stronger for golf courses with reciprocal guest policies that allow wider participation and increase when major golf championships rotate to the state. Their portfolios reveal hallmarks of active trading – higher concentration, greater selectivity, more frequent turnover – and include more distant stocks. To establish a causal link, …


Does It Pay To Be Different? Relative Csr And Its Impact On Firm Value, David K. Ding, Christo Ferreira, Udomsak Wongchoti Oct 2016

Does It Pay To Be Different? Relative Csr And Its Impact On Firm Value, David K. Ding, Christo Ferreira, Udomsak Wongchoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Conventional aggregation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) raw scores and its interpreted impact on firm value have provided mixed evidence in the literature. We show that the value impact of CSR activities relies heavily on the industry-specific relative position of the firm. Only firms that distinguish themselves over their peers are associated with increased firm value. This finding is robust and holds for both responsible and irresponsible behaviors. Information concerns and portfolio construction can allude to a possible CSR clientele, suggesting the existence of an optimal CSR level. Our peer-effect results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity along the lines of …


Political Turnovers, Ownership, And Corporate Investment In China, Jerry X. Cao, Julio Brandon, Tiecheng Leng, Sili Zhou Oct 2016

Political Turnovers, Ownership, And Corporate Investment In China, Jerry X. Cao, Julio Brandon, Tiecheng Leng, Sili Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the impact of political influence and ownership on corporate investment by exploiting the unique way provincial leaders are promoted in China. The tournament-style promotion system creates incentives for new governors to exert influence over investment in the early years of their term. We find a divergence in investment rates between state owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms following political turnover. SOEs increase investment by 6.0% following the turnover while investment rates for private firms decline, suggesting that the political influence exerted over SOEs may crowd out private investment.


Did The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Impede Corporate Innovation? An Analysis Of The Unintended Consequences Of Regulation, Cao, Jerry X., Aurobindo Ghosh, Choo Yong, Jeremy Goh, Feichin Ted Tschang (Or F. Ted Tschang) Oct 2016

Did The Sarbanes-Oxley Act Impede Corporate Innovation? An Analysis Of The Unintended Consequences Of Regulation, Cao, Jerry X., Aurobindo Ghosh, Choo Yong, Jeremy Goh, Feichin Ted Tschang (Or F. Ted Tschang)

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate whether innovation by publicly listed U.S. companies deteriorated significantly after the adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Using data on patent filings as proxies for firms‟ innovative activities, we find firms‟ innovation as measured by patents and innovation efficiency dampened significantly after the enactment of the Act. The degree of impact is related to firm-specific characteristics such as the firm‟s value (Tobin‟s Q) and its measure of corporate governance (G-Index), as well as the firm‟s operating conditions (i.e., the firm being in an high-tech industry, and being delisted or not). We find evidence that the SOX‟s impact …


Can Information Be Locked Up? Informed Trading Ahead Of Macro-News Announcements, Gennaro Bernile, Jianfeng Hu, Yuehua Tang Sep 2016

Can Information Be Locked Up? Informed Trading Ahead Of Macro-News Announcements, Gennaro Bernile, Jianfeng Hu, Yuehua Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Government agencies routinely allow pre-release access to information to accredited news agencies under embargo agreements. Using high-frequency data, we find evidence consistent with informed trading during embargoes of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) scheduled announcements. The E-mini Standard & Poor’s 500 futures’ abnormal order imbalances are in the direction of subsequent policy surprises and contain information that predicts the market reaction to the policy announcements. The estimated informed trades’ profits are arguably large. Notably, we find no evidence of informed trading prior to the start of FOMC news embargoes or during lockups ahead of nonfarm payroll, US Producer Price Index, …


Governance And Post-Repurchase Performance, Gary Caton, Jeremy Goh, Yen Teik Lee, Scott Linn Aug 2016

Governance And Post-Repurchase Performance, Gary Caton, Jeremy Goh, Yen Teik Lee, Scott Linn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Payout policies based on share repurchase programs provide greater flexibility than do those based on cash dividends. We develop and test an empirical model in which strongly governed companies outperform weakly governed companies after announcing share repurchase programs. Our findings include positive associations between strong governance and both post-announcement adjusted operating performance and abnormal stock returns. The results are robust to sample selection bias, different sample criteria, governance measurement, and various control variables. In addition, governance strength is associated with larger post-announcement changes in CEO incentive compensation and merger and acquisition activity, both of which we argue are consistent with …


Socially Responsible Firms, Allen Ferrell, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog Aug 2016

Socially Responsible Firms, Allen Ferrell, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the corporate finance tradition starting with Berle & Means (1923), corporations should generally be run so as to maximize shareholder value. The agency view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) considers CSR as an agency problem and a waste of corporate resources. Given our identification strategy by means of an IV approach, we find that well-governed firms who suffer less from agency concerns (less cash abundance, positive pay-for-performance, small control wedge, strong minority protection) engage more in CSR. We also find a positive relation between CSR and value and that CSR attenuates the negative relation between managerial entrenchment and value.


Have We Solved The Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle?, Kewei Hou, Roger Loh Jul 2016

Have We Solved The Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle?, Kewei Hou, Roger Loh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose a simple methodology to evaluate a large number of potential explanations for the negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent stock returns (the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle). We find that surprisingly many existing explanations explain less than 10% of the puzzle. On the other hand, explanations based on investors’ lottery preferences, short-term return reversal, and earnings shocks show greater promise in explaining the puzzle. Together they account for 60-80% of the negative idiosyncratic volatility-return relation. Our methodology can be applied to evaluate competing explanations for a broad range of topics in asset pricing and corporate finance.


Leveraging Foreign Institutional Logic In The Adoption Of Stock Option Pay Among Japanese Firms, Xuesong Geng, Toru Yoshikawa, Asli M. Colpan Jul 2016

Leveraging Foreign Institutional Logic In The Adoption Of Stock Option Pay Among Japanese Firms, Xuesong Geng, Toru Yoshikawa, Asli M. Colpan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate why Japanese firms have adopted executive stock option pay, which was developed with shareholder-oriented institutional logic that was inconsistent with Japanese stakeholder-oriented institutional logic. We argue that Japanese managers have self-serving incentives to leverage stock ownership of foreign investors and their associated institutional logic to legitimize the adoption of stock option pay. Our empirical analyses with a large sample of Japanese firms between 1997 and 2007 show that when managers have elite education, high pay inequality with ordinary employees, and when firms experience poor sales growth, foreign ownership is more likely associated with the adoption of stock option …


Governance Matter: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Jerry X. Cao, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng Jul 2016

Governance Matter: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Jerry X. Cao, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Mutual fund investors have the arduous task of disentangling luck from ability of mutual fund managers’ performance. In this paper we investigate the role of mutual fund corporate governance (measured by Morningstar Stewardship grade) in mutual fund performance. We propose an objective data-driven corporate governance score based on principal components of Morningstar Stewardship Grades. Furthermore, we establish corporate governance scores have Granger Causality on long-term risk-adjusted returns. The findings suggest that corporate governance grades of mutual funds carry information content beyond the usual star rating measures for predicting long-term mutual fund performance and provide an effective tool for selecting funds.


Macro Disagreement And The Cross-Section Of Stock Returns, Frank Weikai Li Jun 2016

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 …


Spillover Effects In Mutual Fund Companies, Clemens Sialm, T. Mandy Tham May 2016

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 …


Social Capital, Informal Governance, And Post-Ipo Firm Performance: A Study Of Chinese Entrepreneurial Firms, Jerry X. Cao, Yuan Ding, Hua Zhang Apr 2016

Social Capital, Informal Governance, And Post-Ipo Firm Performance: A Study Of Chinese Entrepreneurial Firms, Jerry X. Cao, Yuan Ding, Hua Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Social capital can serve as informal governance in weak investor-protection regimes. Using hand-collected data on entrepreneurs' political connections and firm ownership, we construct several original measures of social capital and examine their effect on the performance of entrepreneurial firms in China after their initial public offerings. Political connections or a high percentage of external investors tend to enhance firm performance, but intragroup related-party transactions commonly lead to performance decline. These forms of social capital have a strong influence on the performance of Chinese firms, whereas formal governance variables such as board size or board independence have little effect. Although social …


Slack Resources And The Rent-Generating Potential Of Firm-Specific Knowledge, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Guoguang Wan, John Qi Dong Feb 2016

Slack Resources And The Rent-Generating Potential Of Firm-Specific Knowledge, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Guoguang Wan, John Qi Dong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how two types of slack resources relevant to knowledge employees—human resource slack and financial slack at the R&D functional level—influence the rent-generating potential of firm-specific knowledge resources. According to the resource- and knowledge-based views of the firm, firm-specific knowledge resources are critical for generating economic rents for a firm. However, without motivated knowledge employees investing in the corresponding specialized human capital in the process of absorbing and deploying firm-specific knowledge resources, the resource potential for rent generation would be greatly discounted. We argue that human resource slack among knowledge employees and financial slack available for R&D activities affect …


Option Return Predictability, Jie Cao, Han Bing, Qing Tong, Xintong Zhan Feb 2016

Option Return Predictability, Jie Cao, Han Bing, Qing Tong, Xintong Zhan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We show the cross-section of equity option returns can be predicted by a variety of underlying stock characteristics and firm fundamentals, including idiosyncratic volatility, past stock returns, profitability, cash holding, new share issuance, and dispersion of analyst forecasts. Such predictability is not mechanically inherited from the stock market because these variables do not significantly predict stock returns in our sample, and our results hold for delta-hedged calls and puts in the same directions. We document new option trading strategies that are profitable even after transaction costs. These profits are robust across different market conditions and subsamples. They cannot be explained …


Board Diversity, Firm Risk, And Corporate Policies, Gennaro Bernile, Vineet Bhagwat, Scott Yonker Feb 2016

Board Diversity, Firm Risk, And Corporate Policies, Gennaro Bernile, Vineet Bhagwat, Scott Yonker

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the effects of diversity in the board of directors on corporate policies and risk. Using a multi-dimensional measure, we find that greater board diversity leads to lower volatility and better performance. The lower risk levels are largely due to diverse boards adopting more persistent and less risky financial policies. However, consistent with diversity fostering more efficient (real) risk-taking, firms with greater board diversity also invest persistently more in R&D and have more efficient innovation processes. Instrumental variable tests that exploit exogenous variation in firm access to the supply of diverse nonlocal directors indicate that these relations are causal.