Corporate Finance Commons^™

Three Essays On Corporate Finance And Applied Econometrics, Pan Jiang

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation comprises three essays that investigate topics in corporate finance and applied Econometrics.

The first essay examines how digital credit, a Fintech technology, improves micro-business owners' performance by comparing an economically important but often financially disadvantaged group, migrants, with their comparable natives. Using the data on micro-business owners registered with the largest Fintech firm in China, we find that with the access to microloans, migrants achieve greater business revenues compared to their native counterparts. The differential impact of Fintech on migrants versus natives is more pronounced in the businesses with more financial constraints, in more economically developed areas, for …

Three Essays On Information Asymmetry Across Heterogenous Agents, Shenru Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis models and explores agents’ decisions in reaction to events that serves to increse the heterogeneity among agents. The analysis is conducted on three aspects of financial economics. In chapter 2, we empirically examine how trading by peers on a new platform influences others’ adoption decision. We model the adoption process and find the relationship to be U-shaped, with first movers greatly discouraging their peers from adoption, while late movers slightly discouraging or encouraging their peers.

In chapter 3, we investigate how managerial incentives influence corporate social responsibility (CSR). We examine the staggered adoption of corporate opportunity waiver laws …

A Strategic Audit Of A24, Jackson Bartak

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

A24 is an independent film production and distribution company founded in 2012. The company performs both duties for independent films as well as television programs, and a small portion of company revenue comes from merchandise it sells in an online kiosk. As of 2021, A24 had around 300 employees while maintaining a large catalog of movies and shows. Using a focus strategy, the company targets a more cultured audience for its unique (and sometimes outright bizarre) subject matter. To achieve this, A24 attempts to cast top B-list personnel both in acting and technical roles in order to corner its market. …

Postmaterialism And Corporate Tax Avoidance, Yujia Cui, Jiwei Wang, Kangtao Ye

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper explores how postmaterialism culture influences corporate tax avoidance behavior. Using a proprietary dataset of China tax audits, we find that firms owned by investors from countries with higher postmaterialism values are less likely to engage in tax avoidance behavior in China. In addition, we find some evidence that the negative association between postmaterialism and tax avoidance is more pronounced when tax enforcement is stronger, indicating that national culture and formal institutions act as complements. To check the external validity of our main results, we further use a cross-country sample from 21 countries over 22 years. The evidence from …

Financial Capacity And The Demand For Audit Quality, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo, Pingui Rao, Heng Yue

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior research documents that financial capacity could be positively or negatively associated with the demand for audit quality. We re-examine this relation using changes in local real estate prices as exogenous shocks to corporate financial capacity. Using auditor size, auditor industry specialisation, and auditor fees as measures of audit quality, we find robust evidence that an increase (decrease) in financial capacity significantly reduces (increases) the demand for audit quality, and that this relation is more pronounced when firms are more financially constrained, when external monitoring by institutional investors and financial analysts is weaker, and when there is more negative news …

Audit Adjustments Matter: What They Reveal About Companies' Financial Reporting, Themin Suwardy, Chu Yeong Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates the characteristics, nature and extent of proposed audit adjustments to the financial statements of listed companies in Singapore. Data was gathered from the 2018 to 2020 financial statements of 412 companies, along with views of close to 280 audit committee chairs and heads of finance (or similar designations) on the effectiveness of their companies’ finance function.

Securing The Overnight Rates: A Study Of Alternative Reference Rates In Illiquid Overnight Tri-Party Repo Markets, Michael Murphy

CMC Senior Theses

Since 2011, the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) has been on the way out for practitioners and researchers alike due to its manipulation in key bank quotes during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). This paper intends to examine key rates being introduced as LIBOR substitutes, such as SOFR, BSBY, and Ameribor. Specific to its concern, the paper will back test these rates during times of illiquidity in both their respective markets and the broader financial markets to determine which rates will be able to sustain an abnormal drop in transaction volumes. Furthermore, this paper will try to determine whether a …

Evaluating The Impact Of Streaming Service Subscriber Acquisition Strategies In India On Firm Value: An Event Study Analysis, Ajitha Anand

CMC Senior Theses

For streaming service providers who are reaching a plateau in subscriber growth in the western market, India presents a rich opportunity for subscriber acquisition. However, the three major streaming service providers, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+Hotstar, have faced challenges growing and sustaining a strong subscriber base in India. This thesis offers three contributions. First, I explain and categorize the approaches of these providers from 2016 to 2022. Second, using event study methodology and the Fama-French Five factor model, I estimate the effect of India-related SVOD press releases on firm returns. Third, I estimate the impact that each firm’s announcements …

Balance Sheet Strength: A Retrospective Analysis Of Corporate Liquidity And Solvency And Firm Stock Returns, Andrew Wraith

CMC Senior Theses

The onset COVID-19 Pandemic caused rippling effects throughout the global economy. Social distancing and stay at home orders shifted consumer demand, as the firmwide impact of these same policies led to supply chain shortages. The COVID-19 Pandemic induced a recession in 2020 that was unique from all others in US history. Throughout the beginning months of the Pandemic, firms rushed to raise debt, equity, and lines of credit, as public financing markets experienced increased volatility. How did the markets adapt to this sudden change? I examine the effect on stock returns of firmwide Balance Sheet strength as it changed throughout …

Media Merger Madness: An Event Study Analyzing Acquiror Returns In Media & Entertainment, Samuel Johnson

CMC Senior Theses

Utilizing an event study methodology, this paper studies the effect that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announcements have on media acquirors’ stock returns. This study also examines the effect that various characteristics of the target and acquiror have on acquirors’ returns. These characteristics include: location of the acquired company, year of the acquisition, industry of the acquired company, price of the acquired company, size of the acquiror, and serial acquiror status of the acquiror. My findings are consistent with previous literature that find that, in a short-term event window surrounding the announcement of a merger or acquisition, acquirors experience returns that …

The Threat Of Activist Intervention: A Determinant Of 8-K Disclosure For Industrial Companies, Audrey Guilloteau

CMC Senior Theses

In the face of an activist threat, management may be inclined to provide additional disclosure to discourage potential intervention. This paper constructs an empirical model to measure the threat of activism and voluntary disclosure using a data set of 92 industrials focused activist events from 2008 to 2019. Propensity score matching is used to identify close peer firms that experience a threat of activism at the time a campaign is announced. Results from a difference in differences analysis indicate that firms targeted by hedge fund activists provide additional disclosure in the two-year period following the campaign announcement, as seen through …

The Supplier Shield: Covid-19 Effects On Suppliers Of Highly Affected Industries, Maisy Mills

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the effect Covid-19 has on hard-hit industries and their suppliers. By looking at the widening of credit spreads on corporate bonds, a shield can be observed through the disproportionate way Covid affects hard-hit companies compared to their suppliers. The dataset looks specifically at three highly affected industries which are accommodation, air transportation, and full-service restaurants. This paper runs a linear regression that looks at the effect that being one of the main 3 frontline industries has on credit spreads of corporate bonds versus that from being a supplier of these industries. The regression highlights the effects that …

An Analysis Of Impacts Of Covid-19 On Salary Cap Allocation And Performance In The National Football League, Abai Houser

CMC Senior Theses

Professional sports are one of the most successful industries in the world. The live spectacle and in-person nature make sporting events a unique and individual experience. COVID-19 shifted how athletic events were operated, financed, and viewed, thereby changing leagues as well. The National Football League was one of the last sports to start its season during 2019 and 2020, setting the stage as the only league to not isolate its players in a safe operating space. This paper studies the effects of COVID-19 on the salary cap management of teams after the pandemic. The findings suggest that financial metrics analyzed …

Do Networks Govern Contracts?, Matthew C. Jennejohn

Faculty Scholarship

An influential literature in private law argues that the legal system interferes with modern markets’ “private ordering.” Private ordering refers to parties relying upon informal institutions, like social norms and reputational sanctions, to enforce legal obligations. This informal governance is made possible by thick networks of social or commercial relationships, which circulate information about parties’ behavior. Social networks, not the state, govern commerce.

This Article argues that the private ordering literature has overlooked a paradox at the heart of its theory. The same networks that circulate reputational information also provide conduits for valuable technical information to leak from one company …

Contractual Evolution, Matthew C. Jennejohn, Eric Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Conventional wisdom portrays contracts as static distillations of parties’ shared intent at some discrete point in time. In reality, however, contract terms evolve in response to their environments, including new laws, legal interpretations, and economic shocks. While several legal scholars have offered stylized accounts of this evolutionary process, we still lack a coherent, general theory that broadly captures the dynamics of real-world contracting practice. This paper advances such a theory, in which the evolution of contract terms is a byproduct of several key features, including efficiency concerns, information, and sequential learning by attorneys who negotiate several deals over time. Each …

Delaware's Frontier, Matthew C. Jennejohn, D. Gordon Smith

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, prepared for a symposium honoring Chief Justice Leo Strine, explores how institutional capacity limits the Delaware courts’ role in the U.S. economy. A decision theoretic approach is employed to delineate the boundaries of that role, with particular attention paid to recent arguments that Delaware's Caremark doctrine should be extended to ESG concerns. The essay views muscular expansion of Caremark to encompass stakeholder interests as misguided without significant investments in institutional capacity.

The Transactional Dynamics Of Market Fragility, Matthew C. Jennejohn

Faculty Scholarship

This Article takes a step toward more clearly diagnosing market fragility for the purpose of developing better policy choices that anticipate and address future crises. It does so by connecting two erstwhile and distinct literatures: the legal scholarship on relational contracting and the social science on the diffusion of shocks in economic networks. This Article attempts to connect the strategies parties pursue in designing their agreements—a familiar topic to contract scholars—to the diffusion patterns observed in disrupted markets—an increasingly important area of study in macroeconomics. By investigating that intersection, this Article introduces a new potential policy domain for remediating market …

Establishing A Management Performance Measurement System; Defining And Selecting Kpis, Dimitrios V. Siskos

Publications

Managers and constituents of industries are increasingly concerned about measuring and managing organizational performance. However, launching a new measurement system goes beyond defining new metrics or developing new displays of existing data. However, as Bourne and Neely (2003) point out, there is some evidence that many of these implementations are not successful. This paper initially examines the most difficult elements in establishing and launching a management performance measurement system. The next step after the establishing of a performance measurement system, is to specify the essential elements in defining and selecting KPIs. Unfortunately, different people have very clear and different definitions …

The Way Digitalization Is Impacting International Financial Markets: Stock Price Synchronicity, Chen Chen, M. Mahdi Moeini Gharagozloo, Layla Darougar, Lei Shi

Finance Faculty Publications

This paper investigates whether and how the development level of a country's digital economy affects stock price synchronicity. The results indicate that countries with high levels of digital economy development exhibit low stock price synchronicity. Additionally, by decomposing stock price synchronicity into systematic and firm‐specific stock return variations, we find that systematic (firm‐specific) variations of stock returns decrease (increase) with the level of a country's digitalization. These findings shed light on the future trend of stock price synchronicity in financial markets around the world and support the information‐based interpretation of stock price synchronicity.

Are Ceos To Blame For Corporate Failure? Evidence From Chapter 11 Filings, Rajib Chowdhury, John A. Doukas

Finance Faculty Publications

This study examines whether chief executive officers (CEOs) are to blame for corporate failures. Using alternative CEO managerial ability measures, we document that high-ability (low-ability) CEOs are less (more) likely to be associated with bankruptcy. We also find that reorganized firms run by high-ability incumbent CEOs experience improved financial performance after filing for Chapter 11. Firms that hire high-ability CEOs with bankruptcy experience also realize improved financial performance. Our evidence indicates that the likelihood of corporate bankruptcy is unrelated to the presence of high-ability managers and that bankruptcy does not adversely affect the post-bankruptcy careers of high-ability CEOs.

Turning The Covid-19 Pandemic Into An Opportunity For Digital Disruption In The E-Commerce Industry: A Case Study Of Digital Commerce Intelligence Pte Ltd, Yuanto Kusnadi, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Conditional Relationship Between Distress Risk And Stock Returns, Su Hee Yun, Jung Min Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: Previous research on the relationship between a firm’s distress risk and future stock returns produces inconsistent results. This study attempts to explain the conflicting results of earlier studies by showing that systematic distress risk leads to positive rewards, while unsystematic distress risk leads to low stock returns. In addition, this study intends to elucidate the factors of systematic distress risk and unsystematic distress risk, respectively. In this way, this study informs the rational investor what kind of distress risk they should take. Design/methodology/approach: This study considers two distress-predictor sets to show a possibility between distress risk and stock returns …

Enabling Esg Accountability: Focusing On The Corporate Enterprise, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental, social, and governance accountability for companies has become an important topic in popular and academic debate in modern society. The idea that corporations should have ESG goals has been embraced by major investment companies, employees, and many corporations themselves. Yet, less attention has been focused on how corporate enterprise law—which governs how corporations structure their relationships between parent corporations and their subsidiaries—creates or contributes to the ESG concerns that the public has with corporations in the first place. Modern enterprise law allows corporations, particularly those operating across national borders, to use their subsidiaries to avoid responsibility for their public …

The Corporate Governance Gap, Kobi Kastiel, Yaron Nili

Faculty Scholarship

A reliable system of corporate governance is considered an important requirement for the long-term success of public companies and for the good of society at large. After decades of research and policy advocacy, there is a growing sense that corporations are finally nearing the promised land: boards of public corporations seem more diverse, large investors seem more engaged, and directors seem more accountable than ever. But is this perception accurate? While many large, high-profile companies tend to serve as role models of desirable governance practices, the picture of corporate governance—as this Article reveals—is considerably different in the far corners of …

Outsourcing Climate Change, Rui Dai, Rui Duan, Hao Liang, Lilian Ng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines whether and how firms combat climate change. Our study provides robust evidence that firms outsource part of their carbon emissions to foreign suppliers and shows how internal and external stakeholders significantly shape firms' environmental policies. Furthermore, firms tend to seek a foreign supplier and decrease their emission abatement efforts as pressure to reduce domestic emissions intensifies. These firms are also less incentivized to develop green technologies. Finally, we find that outsourcing emissions has real and economic consequences, with investors demanding a higher carbon premium for their exposures to carbon risks associated with increased outsourced emissions.

Impact Of Ceo Overconfidence On Corporate Financing Decision With Mediating Role Of Risk Perception, Amina Batool, Tahira Awan, Sumayya Chughtai

Business Review

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of managerial (Chief Executive Officer) overconfidence on corporate financing decision with the mediating role of risk perception. This study indicates that psychological factors and biases affect the decision making of human beings including top management. The research design of this research work is causal and primary data has been used to test the results of this study. Among all the companies listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange, researchers have selected top executives of 200 companies as a sample. E-Questionnaire has been used to collect the required data through LinkedIn and other …

Role Of Organizational Capital At Different Phases Of Business’S Life Cycle: A Study Of Psx Companies, Zahid Bashir, Ghulam Ali Bhatti, Sobia Arshad

Business Review

The goal of this study was to examine the association between Business Life Cycle phases and organizational capital using PSX index companies. Mainly, the study investigates the relationship of organizational capital phases during different phases of the life cycle and comparison with high and low organizational capital. To fulfill this objective data has been collected of 56 companies of PSX index companies with yearly observations ranging from 2011-2020. For estimation, a multinomial logistic model was used due to categories of the dependent variable. The results indicate that organizational capital is positively significant at the maturity phase but negatively significant at …

Internal Corporate Governance And Bank Risk Taking Behavior: Evidence From Developed And Emerging Economies, Ghulam Subhani, Shumaila Zeb

Business Review

The study aims to evaluate the impact of board structure and ownership structure on bank risk taking behavior in developed and emerging countries. To fulfill this objective, the study used annual data of 100 large commercial banks for the period 2006-2017 from twelve countries. Zscore is used as the main proxy of bank risk taking behavior. Internal corporate governance is measured by board size, board independence, CEO power, gender diversity, state ownership and foreign ownership. The study controls the issues of endogeneity by applying a two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) econometric approach. The main findings of the study indicate …

Is Mandatory Sustainability Report Still Beneficial?, Astrid Rudyanto

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

The latest regulations in Indonesia (SEOJK No 16/SEOJK.04/2021) have required public companies to make a sustainability report every year in order to increase sustainable in­vestment. Prior to this regulation, several public companies had made sustainability reports and received benefits of sustainability report. This makes issuers ask whether after being obligated, public companies still get the benefits that have been obtained from voluntary sustainability reports and under what conditions the mandatory sustainability reports are beneficial for public companies. This study answers the public companies' doubts by con­ducting a systematic literature review on research on mandatory and voluntary sustainability reports in Q1 …

The Effect Of Ceo Characteristics On Pre-Earnings Management Profitability, Adhitya Agri Putra

Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan Indonesia

This research aims to examine the effect of CEO characteristics on pre-earnings manage­ment profitability. CEO characteristics include gender, tenure, age, education level, founding-family status, and nationality. Pre-earnings management profitability is measured by return on assets minus discretionary accruals. Data analysis uses firm and year fixed-effect regression analysis. The result shows that female CEO, longer tenure CEO, CEO with higher education levels, and foreign CEO increase firms' profitability without engaging in earnings management. On the other hand, there is no effect of CEO age and founding-family status on pre-earnings management profitability. This research contributes to filling the gap of inconsistent previous …