Corporate Finance Commons^™

Essays On Corporate Sustainability, Aditya Malateesh Kashikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation provides an extensive literature review of topics in Corporate Sustainability. It further examines two key topics: ESG Pay and ESG Investing. For ESG Pay, I examine Bloomberg’s ESG linked pay measure using the largest panel (to date). I confirm several important results from the nascent literature on ESG Pay. Firstly, I find that Country and Industry play a major role in determining ESG Pay adoption. Secondly, among firm characteristics, Big and Value firms tend to have a greater probability of adopting ESG Pay. Thirdly, higher ESG scores increase the chance of ESG Pay adoption in the subsequent year. …

Essays On Corporate Debt Features, Capital Structure, And Cash Policies, Xiaoyu Zhu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1: This chapter examines variations in corporate debt features with respect to changes in macroeconomic and microeconomic conditions. The features seen in corporate debt issues have evolved substantially over the past four decades in response to changes in the corporate financing landscape. In particular, this chapter studies the evolution of active debt provisions such as fixed-price calls, make-whole calls, and callable conversion features in corporate bond contracts. By integrating corporate bond data from the Mergent Fixed Income Securities Database (FISD) and Securities Data Company (SDC), This chapter reveals new temporal and cross-sectional patterns in active debt provisions.

Chapter 2: …

Gdp Growth Incentives And Earnings Management: Evidence From China, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Ying Hao, Qiang Liu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using data from China, we examine whether and how the incentive to boost GDP growth at the government level affects earnings management at the firm level. We find that firms in provinces with GDP growth lower than the national level or the average of the adjacent provinces are more likely to engage in earnings management than firms in other provinces. Specifically, they are more likely to inflate revenues, overproduce, and delay asset impairment losses. The aggregate earnings management induced by GDP growth incentives accounts for about 0.5% of GDP. The results are stronger for local state-owned enterprises, in provinces with …

The Innovation Effect Of Dual-Class Shares: New Evidence From Us Firms, Xiaping Cao, Tiecheng Leng, Jeremy C. Goh, Paul Malatesta

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The proliferation of dual-class structures in the US stock market presents a controversial trend since such shares are traditionally deemed to damage governance quality. We study the relationship between 362 firms with dual-class shares and their innovativeness using patent citations from Google Patents over the 1976 through 2006 period. We find dual-class shares have significant innovation effect in high-tech sectors, hard-to-innovate industries, firms with higher external takeover threat and firms heavily dependent on external equity financing. We also document a positive causality relationship between dual-class structures and the quality of innovation. The channel for this causal relationship is the protection …

Paths And Modes Of Port Enterprises’ Global Operation, Zhenyi Sun

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Mass Shootings And The Performance Of Tourism Stocks, Marshall Deem

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This study investigates the effects of mass shooting events on the performance of the tourism industry within the United States. The results of the study show that outside of the market-wide returns, the performance of tourism stocks is negatively impacted after a large-scale mass shooting event. Furthermore, when separating extreme outliers in the data such as the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay shooting, the results of the study find that tourism stocks surrounding other large-scale mass shootings are significantly negative. Overall, the results of the study demonstrate a negative response in the tourism industry to large-scale mass shootings.

Executive Compensation Incentives Impact On The Tone And Readability Of Financial Reports, Xiaoyan Mi

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Financial disclosures do not only influence the future reaction of customers, they also imply the financial strategies of the managers of corporations. Through analysis, we find a strong causal relationship between tone and readability of financial disclosures and incentive methods of managers. Controlling executives’ pay-performance sensitivity (delta) and other variables, executives with higher sensitivity of executives’ wealth to stock volatility (vega) (Coles, Daniel, Naveen, 2004) tend to announce reports with more negative tone and low readability.

Discretionary Dissemination On Twitter, Richard M. Crowley, Wenli Huang, Hai Lu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an unsupervised machine learning approach to analyze 12.8 million tweets posted by S&P 1500 firms from 2012 to 2016, we find that firms tweet more financial information around significantly negative or positive earnings announcements or accounting filings. Specifically, we observe a symmetric U-shaped relation between the number of financial tweets and the materiality of accounting information events. This relation is consistent with the theoretical prediction in Hummel et al. (2018) which assumes that managers are sensitive to their firm’s fundamental value. We document that this relation also holds for hyperlink usage in tweets about financial information around important events, …

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

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of firms from 28 countries, we document that there exists a negative relationship between political connections and the informativeness of stock price, as measured by idiosyncratic volatility (IV). This finding is robust to alternative regression specifications, sub-samples analyses, and concerns related to endogeneity. A more detailed analysis shows that out of the different types of possible connections, the connectedness of the owners is the primary driver of this result. Further, the negative association is only significant for firms in countries characterized by low institutional quality (corrupted countries, countries with low access to external equity markets, and …

Differences In The Reliability Of Fair Value Hierarchy Measurements: A Cross-Country Study, Chu Yeong Lim, Gary Pan, Kevin Ow Yong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior research suggests there are significant differences in how investors perceive the reliability of fair values. An unaddressed question in this stream of research is whether cross-country differences in institutional factors can mediate differences in reliability for the fair value hierarchy measurements. We contribute to the research on fair value accounting by examining the impact of institutional factors toward the perceived reliability of fair value measurements in an international context. Based on an international sample of banks across twenty different countries, we find that the probability of crash risk is lower among countries with better financial development infrastructure, greater level …

The Impact Of Competition From Venture Capitalists On Corporate Venturing Investment, Marco Bade

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

This study proposes a model on corporate venturing (CV) investment and examines the impact of venture capital (VC) activity in the economy on CV firms’ investment. The presence of VCs creates competition for entrepreneurs. This reduces CV firms’ expected venturing returns, and thus gives rise to a financial disincentive to CV investment. The empirical prediction of this result is that competition for talent should decrease CV investment. This prediction contradicts previous statements in the theoretical literature on CV.

Pricing Climate Change Risk In Corporate Bonds, Elsa Allman

Publications and Research

This paper examines whether corporate bondholders price climate change risk. I find that firms exposed to higher sea level rise (SLR) across U.S. branch locations pay a premium when issuing bonds. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in a firm’s SLR exposure is associated with a 2% increase of average yield spreads equivalent to 4 basis points. This effect is more pronounced for firms in industries vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, which are less spatially diversified, and issuing bonds with maturities ranging from 5 to 10 years. In addition, I find no evidence that credit rating agencies account for SLR …

A Case For Higher Corporate Tax Rates, Edward G. Fox, Zachary D. Liscow

Law & Economics Working Papers

In this report, Fox and Liscow argue that, while conventional wisdom holds that we should lower taxes on corporations because of international competition, two recent changes militate in favor of higher corporate taxes, which would close the deficit, fund social programs, and reduce inequality. First, changes in tax law have increasingly targeted the corporate tax at economic “rents,” the supersized returns that businesses receive when they enjoy advantages like market power. Because taxing rents is progressive and does little to harm economic activity, a higher rate is justified. Second, shifts in the American economy have allowed companies to earn more …

House Banks In Out-Of-Court Reorganization: Evidence From Austria, Stefan Mayr, Christine Duller, Kerstin Stumbauer

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

The main purpose of this article is to study the role of house banks in out-of-court reorganization. Banks are traditionally one of the most important financial resources for firms. Especially in financially difficult times like those we now face due to the coronavirus, it can make a difference whether a bank supports its clients and accompanies firms through a crisis or not. With the help of relationship lending theory, we review the existing literature on this topic. Next, based on empirical findings from Austrian banks, we derive implications for corporate practice. The empirical study covers a sample of 658 firm …

Using Text Analytics To Apprehend Urban Sustainability Development, Picheng Lee, Gary Kleinman, Chu Hua Kuei

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This research aims to specify critical urban sustainability issues by mining unstructured text data derived from the C40 city datasets of the Carbon Disclosure Project. The current study identifies underlying topical issues exhibited by text corpora, enables creation of smarter data visualizations, and forms useful profiles. Four underlying topical areas are examined: economic opportunities, climate risks, incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions reduction activities. For each area, we built text data visualization profiles. Developing these text data visualization profiles enables greater attention to be paid to the list of topical issues shown in the profiles. Given the number …

Being Watched In An Investment Game Setting: Behavioral Changes When Making Risky Decisions, Z. Tingting Jia, Matthew J. Mcmahon

Economics & Finance Faculty Publications

We design a laboratory experiment to test for behavioral differences due to observation within a novel arena: investment games. We find that fund managers are more risk-averse when investors can observe their investment allocations. This effect is more pronounced when investors, in addition to observing the allocations, can also observe the investment outcomes. Interestingly, allowing investors to observe how their investment is allocated does not impact how much they invest. Last, when the outcome of the risky investment is public knowledge, disclosing managers’ allocations leads them to return more tokens to investors and to expropriate fewer tokens for themselves at …

Project Foresight: A Ten-Year Retrospective, Paul J. Speaker, Max M. Houck

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Project FORESIGHT is a business-guided self-evaluation of forensic science laboratories across the globe. The participating laboratories represent metro, regional, state, and national agencies. Economics, accounting, finance, and forensic faculty provide assistance, guidance, and analysis. Laboratories participating in Project FORESIGHT have developed standardized definitions for metrics to evaluate work processes, linking financial information to work tasks, and functions. Laboratory managers can then assess resource allocations, efficiencies, and value of services—the mission of Project FORESIGHT is to measure, preserve what works, and change what does not.

The benchmark data for the 2018-2019 performance period includes laboratory submissions for a variety of fiscal …

Does Media Exposure Affect Financial Reporting Quality Through Auditors?, Steven F. Cahan, Chen Chen, Rencheng Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine whether the media has an indirect corporate governance effect on financial reporting quality (FRQ) that operates through auditors. This occurs because greater media coverage can magnify an auditor's business risk by exposing the auditor to more potential litigation and reputation damage if an audit failure occurs. We use a path analysis to examine the direct and indirect channels of media corporate governance. We find a positive association between media coverage and FRQ that is mediated by audit fees, and the results are stronger for firms with greater incentives to engage in earnings manipulation. In contrast, we find no …

Auditor Information Spillovers And Company Operating Performance: Evidence From Targeted Auditor Switches, Tyler Kleppe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I examine whether companies realize operational benefits from making “targeted auditor switches” (i.e., engaging a new auditor recently dismissed by a competitor company). While prior work provides evidence consistent with companies perceiving that auditor information spillovers are costly, there is sparse extant evidence as to whether auditors actually do transfer operational information across companies. I find that companies that switch to a competitor’s former auditor realize significant subsequent improvements in operating performance, and I provide evidence that the association between targeted auditor switches and improvements in operating performance varies predictably with several across- and within-market factors. In …

Is There A Relationship Between The Gender Of The Ceo And Short-Termism Or Long-Termism?, Kerry Calnan

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

Based on a panel of S&P 1500 firms from the period of 2008-2016, we evaluate whether firms managed by female CEOs exhibit the same short-termism or long-termism as firms managed by male CEOs. We evaluate in terms of market based, firm based and investment indicator. Our goal is to better understand if there is a relationship between the gender of the CEO and short-termism or long-termism.

Our results find firms with female CEOs have lower Tobin’s Q, lower ROA, however, they spend more on research and development than firms run by male CEOs.

Does The Recently Implemented Regulation On Country-By-Country Reporting Deter Tax Avoidance?, Nala Kurniawan, Anggari Dwi Saputra

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

To adhere with Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action 13, Indonesia enacted regulations concerning Transfer Pricing Documentation and Country-by-Country Reporting (CbCR) to address the issue of tax avoidance. Those regulations introduced the requirement of CbCR in Indonesia, where Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) operating in Indonesia are required to provide tax authorities with geographic breakdown of their profitability, tax payments, and activities wherever they operate. Using the newly implemented CbCR in Indonesia as a treatment for private disclosure requirement, this study examines the effect of CbCR on MNEs tax avoidance. Employing EUR 750 million consolidated revenue threshold for disclosure and utilizing …

The Effect Of Concentrated Ownership On Bank Profitability In Indonesia, Michelle Priscilla Amanda, Serafina Lam, Rinaningsih ., Yang Elvi Adelina

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

This paper examines the association between concentrated ownership and the profitability of banks in Indonesia during the period from 2012 to 2018 with a total sample of 93 banks or 651 observations. This study applies the Random Effect regression method, and reveals a non-significant association between concentrated ownership and bank profitability as measured by ROA and ROE. It indicates that a majority of shareholders tend to use their power to exploit minority shareholders, which can also strengthen the monitoring effect. However, the regression also indicates that there is a significant non-linear relationship between concentrated ownership and profitability when measured by …

Anti-Corruption Disclosure And Earnings Management: A Case In Indonesian Capital Market, Putri Dwi Aprilia Nur Khasanah, Indra Wijaya Kusuma

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

This study investigates the relationship between anti-corruption disclosure and earnings management. Firms that disclose anti-corruption are related to the lower earnings management. The sample consists of 207 firm-year observation from 2016-2018. The data are hand-collected for the anti-corruption disclosure and the rest of the firm’s data are obtained from the Osiris database. Our result indicate a significant negative relationship between anti-corruption disclosure and earnings management. The relationship is more pronounce for the profitable and smaller firms. The high level of anti-corruption disclosure reported by the company can reduce earnings management actions in the company and show awareness, ability, skill, actualization …

Ceo Overconfidence, Esg Disclosure, And Firm Risk, Kurnia Indah Sumunar, Chaerul D. Djakman

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) has increasingly attracted the attention of firms and stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the mediating role of ESG disclosure has a negative effect on CEO overconfidence and firm risk, especially based on investors' perspectives. Many studies on ESG disclosure were conducted in Europe and America. Most ESG disclosures are measured using manual checklist based on annual reports or firm websites. By using panel dataset of 225 manufacturing firms in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand from 2012-2016 obtained from Thomson Reuters’ ESG score, the research shows that CEO overconfidence …

Internal Control Practices Of Mosques In Java, Indonesia, Nining Islamiyah, Siti Alawiah Siraj, Ahmad Zamri Osman

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

Internal controls are necessary tools to help organizations attain their organizational goals. Lack of these controls in any type of organizations could lead to fraudulent activities, which consequently may hamper the achievement of organizational goals. This study aims to investigate the internal control practices in two Indonesian mosques; Mosque A and Mosque B. The study employed the Committee of Sponsoring Organization (COSO 2013) framework of internal controls to frame the investigation of internal control practices in these two mosques. Data collection was undertaken through interviews and reviews of relevant documents. The findings revealed that the two selected mosques, Mosque A …

What Explains Students’ Intentions To Pursue Public Accountants As A Career?, Danar Sutopo Sidig, Andar Ramona Sinaga

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

Public accountants play crucial roles in creating trustworthy information for economic development. Ironically, many parts of the world, including Indonesia, experience a shortage of Public Accountants despite the abundant number of accounting students. This study, built on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, aims to examine factors that explain students’ intentions to pursue public accountants as a career. To answer the question, this study uses questionnaires distributed to 115 accounting students from across Indonesia participating in CPA Days 2019. Utilising Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique to analyse their responses, this study has shown that students’ intentions are significantly affected by their …

Short Sellers And Long‐Run Management Forecasts, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Ting Luo, Heng Yue

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine how short sellers affect long‐run management forecasts using a natural experiment (Regulation SHO) that relaxes short‐selling constraints on a group of randomly selected firms (referred to as pilot firms). We find that compared to other firms, the pilot firms issue more long‐run good news forecasts but do not change the frequency of long‐run bad news forecasts. The increase in good news forecasts is greater when the pilot firms have higher quality forecasts, greater uncertainty about firm value, or higher manager equity incentives. Overall, these results and the results of additional analyses indicate that the reduction in short‐selling constraints …

Cfos Play Crucial Role In Surviving Covid-19 Crisis, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In recent years, chief financial officers (CFOs) have been called upon to do many things. They have stepped beyond their traditional technical finance functions, embracing technology and innovations to partner chief executive officers (CEOs) and boards on strategic issues. But if asked at the end of 2019, probably no CFO would place "managing through a global pandemic and economic crisis at the same time" among their top five things to do in 2020. Like many others, CFOs are being asked to do even more in a very short timeframe.

Cross-Border Acquisitions And Employment Policies, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog, Cara Vansteenkiste

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using novel firm-level data on employment quality in an international sample of M&A deals, this paper investigates the cost-benefit trade-off faced by acquirers when providing generous employment policies. We find that shareholders react more positively to deal announcements by acquirers providing generous employee incentives when the deal is domestic, but negatively when the deal is cross-border. These effects are primarily driven by the provision of monetary incentives and are strongest for firms in skilled industries. We argue that generous employment policies increase synergy gains and reduce labor adjustment costs in a domestic takeover. In cross-border deals, however, costs associated with …

Are Corporate Spin-Offs Prone To Insider Trading?, Patrick Augustin, Menachem Brenner, Jianfeng Hu, Marti Subrahmanyam

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite abundant empirical evidence of informed trading ahead of major corporate events, no such evidence has been reported in the case of corporate spinoff (SP) announcements. This is surprising, as SP announcements are unexpected, and are also associated with a positive price jump in the parent company’s stock. Using a sample of 280 US announcement events from 1996 to 2013, we document significant pre-announcement informed trading activity in options for about 9 to 16% of events in our sample. In contrast, we find statistically insignificant evidence of informed trading in stocks, suggesting that informed traders employ leverage through options. In …