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Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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Full-Text Articles in Finance and Financial Management

The Persistence Of Long-Run Abnormal Returns: Evidence From Stock Repurchases And Offerings, Fangjian Fu, Sheng Huang, Hu Lin Oct 2012

The Persistence Of Long-Run Abnormal Returns: Evidence From Stock Repurchases And Offerings, Fangjian Fu, Sheng Huang, Hu Lin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior studies have documented that stock returns are abnormally high during the years following share repurchases and abnormally low following seasoned equity offerings, relative to various benchmarks of expected returns. While we confirm this evidence in the event data as of 2002, we do not find robust long-run abnormal returns following either stock repurchases or issuances after 2002. Institutional ownership of event stocks has increased substantially in the recent decade, which helps to explain the disappearance of the abnormal performance following corporate stock transactions. The evidence seems consistent with the improved stock market efficiency in recent years, accompanied by reduced …


The Positive Externalities Of Social Capital: Benefitting From Senior Brokers, Charles Galunic, Gokhan Ertug, Martin Gargiulo Oct 2012

The Positive Externalities Of Social Capital: Benefitting From Senior Brokers, Charles Galunic, Gokhan Ertug, Martin Gargiulo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The importance of an actor’s network to his/her private benefits is well explored. Less well understood are the positive externalities of social capital, that is whether an actor’s social capital “spills-over” and improves the outcomes of those to whom s/he is connected, creating broader, not just private, benefits. This paper examines how investment bankers add value to one another in the course of everyday work. Our concern is with a banker’s second-order social capital. The main question is whether being connected to a broker matters to the ability of the focal actor to add value to those around him/her. We …


Understanding The Quantitative Finance Industry In Asia, Chyng Wen Tee, Christopher Hian Ann Ting Oct 2012

Understanding The Quantitative Finance Industry In Asia, Chyng Wen Tee, Christopher Hian Ann Ting

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.


Portfolio Value-At-Risk Optimization For Asymmetrically Distributed Asset Returns, Joel Weiqiang Goh, Kian Guan Lim, Melvyn Sim, Weina Zhang Sep 2012

Portfolio Value-At-Risk Optimization For Asymmetrically Distributed Asset Returns, Joel Weiqiang Goh, Kian Guan Lim, Melvyn Sim, Weina Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose a new approach to portfolio optimization by separating asset return distributions into positive and negative half-spaces. The approach minimizes a newly-defined Partitioned Value-at-Risk (PVaR) risk measure by using half-space statistical information. Using simulated data, the PVaR approach always generates better risk-return tradeoffs in the optimal portfolios when compared to traditional Markowitz mean-variance approach. When using real financial data, our approach also outperforms the Markowitz approach in the risk-return tradeoff. Given that the PVaR measure is also a robust risk measure, our new approach can be very useful for optimal portfolio allocations when asset return distributions are asymmetrical.


Executive Compensation And Horizon Incentives: An Empirical Investigation Of Corporate Cash Payout, Sheng Huang Aug 2012

Executive Compensation And Horizon Incentives: An Empirical Investigation Of Corporate Cash Payout, Sheng Huang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The recent financial crisis has renewed the interest in executives’ compensation-related horizon incentives. This paper examines how the short-termism in CEO compensation affects corporate cash payout through share repurchases using a new measure of compensation horizon incentive. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that firms buy back shares after poor stock performance, we find that CEOs with short compensation horizons are more likely to buy back shares after good performance. To bolster already high stock price, they have incentives to repurchase to boost up reported EPS towards analysts’ expectations, and to cater to investors with short investment horizons. This short-termism …


Aiming For Average: The Effect Of Peer Standing On The Dynamic Process Of Corporate Social Responsibility, Kuan Yong David Ding, Christo Ferreira, Wongchoti Udomsak Aug 2012

Aiming For Average: The Effect Of Peer Standing On The Dynamic Process Of Corporate Social Responsibility, Kuan Yong David Ding, Christo Ferreira, Wongchoti Udomsak

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We evidence a non-linear relationship between firm value and corporate social responsibility, adding to the mixed evidence on this relationship. We show that corporate social responsibility exhibits a dynamic process, which is largely dependent on a firm’s industry, relative standing amongst peers and the distinction between responsible and irresponsible behavior. Surprisingly, we find that responsible behavior could sometimes destroy firm value, while irresponsible behavior could sometimes increase firm value. Endogeneity is mitigated through a novel process that allows us to keep constant the endogeneity inherent in this field, examining corporate social responsibility’s effect on firm value separately.


Mutual Fund Industry Selection And Persistence, Jeffrey A. Busse, Qing Tong Jul 2012

Mutual Fund Industry Selection And Persistence, Jeffrey A. Busse, Qing Tong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We analyze mutual fund industry selectivity — the performance of a fund’s industry allocation relative to the market. We find that industry selection accounts for a full third of fund performance based on two-digit SIC codes, with the remaining attributable to the performance of individual stocks relative to their own industries. We find that industry-selection skill drives persistence in relative performance, particularly over longer investment horizons. Unlike individual-stock-selection ability, industry selectivity is not eroded by increasing fund assets. Our results suggest that accounting for a manager’s ability to pick outperforming industries provides information beyond standard performance measures that can enhance …


Executive Compensation And Horizon Incentives: An Empirical Investigation Of Corporate Cash Payout, Sheng Huang Jul 2012

Executive Compensation And Horizon Incentives: An Empirical Investigation Of Corporate Cash Payout, Sheng Huang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The recent financial crisis has renewed the interest in executives’ compensation-related horizon incentives. This paper examines how the short-termism in CEO compensation affects corporate cash payout through share repurchases using a new measure of compensation horizon incentive. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that firms buy back shares after poor stock performance, we find that CEOs with short compensation horizons are more likely to buy back shares after good performance. To bolster already high stock price, they have incentives to repurchase to boost up reported EPS towards analysts’ expectations, and to cater to investors with short investment horizons. This short-termism …


Streaks In Earnings Surprises And The Cross-Section Of Stock Returns, Roger Loh, Mitch Warachka Jul 2012

Streaks In Earnings Surprises And The Cross-Section Of Stock Returns, Roger Loh, Mitch Warachka

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The gambler's fallacy (Rabin, 2002) predicts that trends bias investor expectations. Consistent with this prediction, we find that investors underreact to streaks of consecutive earnings surprises with the same sign. When the most recent earnings surprise extends a streak, post-earnings announcement drift is strong and significant. In contrast, the drift is negligible following thetermination of a streak. Indeed, streaks explain about half of the post-earnings announcement drift in our sample. Our results are robust to more general definitions of trends than streaks and a battery of control variables including the magnitude ofearnings surprises and their autocorrelation. Overall, post-earnings announcement drift …


The Intra-Industry Effects Of Chapter 11 Filings: Evidence From Analysts’ Earnings Forecast Revisions, Gary L. Caton, Jeffrey Donaldson, Jeremy Goh Jun 2012

The Intra-Industry Effects Of Chapter 11 Filings: Evidence From Analysts’ Earnings Forecast Revisions, Gary L. Caton, Jeffrey Donaldson, Jeremy Goh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Shareholders suffer huge losses when firms they own file Chapter 11. Interestingly, even shareholders of rival companies experience statistically significant losses. We examine how the bad news associated with a bankruptcy filing is transferred to the filing firm’s rivals. Using revisions in analysts’ earnings forecasts as a proxy for changes in expected future cash flows, we find that after a bankruptcy filing the market revises downward its cash flow expectations for rivals. Regression analysis confirms a positive relation between changes in expected cash flow and stock market reactions. These findings are consistent with our hypothesis that bad news associated with …


Aspirations, Innovation, And Corporate Venture Capital: A Behavioral Perspective, Vibha Gaba, Shantanu Bhattacharya Jun 2012

Aspirations, Innovation, And Corporate Venture Capital: A Behavioral Perspective, Vibha Gaba, Shantanu Bhattacharya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study takes an organizational decision-making perspective to examine when firms are likely to utilize CVC units as a mechanism for externalizing R&D. We draw insights from the behavioral theory of the firm to argue that managerial aspirations for innovation-related goals are an important driver of CVC initiatives within firms. We test our argument by examining both the adoption and termination of CVC units for a sample of information technology firms from 1992 to 2003. Results show that a firm is more likely to adopt and less likely to terminate a CVC unit when its innovation performance is closest to …


Global Financial Risks, Cvar And Contagion Management, Kian Guan Lim Apr 2012

Global Financial Risks, Cvar And Contagion Management, Kian Guan Lim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers was the 9/11 on Wall Street, and many articles had been written on the changes in the global risk landscape that followed. However, there is scarcity of rigorous studies using empirical data and advanced econometric methods to verify such a change and the nature of such a change. In this paper, we provide rigorous analyses of statistically significant changes in global financial risks and sharp increases in conditional Value-at-Risk after September 2008. We perform statistical analyses using conditional distributions on the tail losses of equity portfolios constructed from the stock indexes of six …


A Theory Of Strategic Mergers, Gennaro Bernile, Evgeny Lyandres, Alexei Zhdanov Mar 2012

A Theory Of Strategic Mergers, Gennaro Bernile, Evgeny Lyandres, Alexei Zhdanov

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine firms’ strategic incentives to engage in horizontal mergers. In a real options framework, we show that strategic considerations may explain abnormally high takeover activity during periods of positive and negative demand shocks. Importantly, this pattern emerges solely as a result of firms’ strategic interaction in output markets. We show that the U-shaped relation between the state of demand and the propensity of firms to merge, documented in past studies, is driven by horizontal mergers in industries that are: (1) relatively more concentrated, (2) characterized by relatively strong competitive interaction among firms, and (3) characterized by relatively low merger-related …


Rational Financial Management: Evidence From Seasoned Equity Offerings, Michael Barclay, Fangjian Fu, Clifford Smith Mar 2012

Rational Financial Management: Evidence From Seasoned Equity Offerings, Michael Barclay, Fangjian Fu, Clifford Smith

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Current theories of capital structure have difficulty explaining the aspects of financing behavior we document. In contrast to the tradeoff theory, seasoned equity offers frequently move firms away from their target leverage ratios. At odds with the pecking-order theory, SEO firms typically are financially healthy companies with low leverage, unused debt capacity and substantial cash balances. Inconsistent with the market-timing theory, SEOs appear to be driven by capital requirements associated with large investment projects rather than by market-timing considerations. Moreover, firms issue debt following SEOs, not only to finance investment, but to increase leverage toward its target level. Each of …


Spin-Offs And Operating Performance, Gary L. Caton, Jeremy C. Goh, Frank Kerins Mar 2012

Spin-Offs And Operating Performance, Gary L. Caton, Jeremy C. Goh, Frank Kerins

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the relation between changes in industry-adjusted operating performance associated with corporate spin-offs and the market’s assessment of the spin-off as either a value increasing or value decreasing activity. I find that the average change in industry-adjusted operating performance associated with my sample of spin-offs is not significantly different from zero. However, I also present evidence suggesting that this average result is misleading because some spin-offs appear to be value increasing while others are value decreasing. I establish that a positive and significant relation exists between parent company revaluation and a) the change in industry-adjusted operating performance of …


An Improved Test For Statistical Arbitrage, Robert Jarrow, Melvyn Teo, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitch Warachka Feb 2012

An Improved Test For Statistical Arbitrage, Robert Jarrow, Melvyn Teo, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitch Warachka

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We improve upon the power of the statistical arbitrage test in Hogan, Jarrow, Teo, and Warachka (2004). Our methodology also allows for the evaluation of return anomalies under weaker assumptions. We then compare strategies based on their convergence rates to arbitrage and identify strategies whose probability of a loss declines to zero most rapidly. These strategies are preferred by investors with finite horizons or limited capital. After controlling for market frictions and examining convergence rates to arbitrage, we find that momentum and value strategies offer the most desirable trading opportunities.


The Impact Of The Anti-Predatory Lending Laws On Mortgage Volume, Hyun Soo Choi Jan 2012

The Impact Of The Anti-Predatory Lending Laws On Mortgage Volume, Hyun Soo Choi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, I test the hypothesis that anti-predatory lending laws inhibited the volume of mortgage lending during the housing-bubble period. I use cross-state variation in the strictness of these laws and their application only to mortgage refinancing as opposed to home purchases to develop a difference-in-difference estimate of the impact of these laws on mortgage volume. Consistent with my hypothesis, I find that states with stricter laws had lower mortgage refinancing volume but exhibited no difference in home purchase mortgage volume. I also test whether by restricting mortgage refinancing, these laws impacted household expenditures and find that the laws …


What Are Analysts Really Good At?, Ohad Kadan, Leonardo Madureira, Rong Wang, Tzachi. Zach Jan 2012

What Are Analysts Really Good At?, Ohad Kadan, Leonardo Madureira, Rong Wang, Tzachi. Zach

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Sell-side analysts employ different benchmarks when defining their stock recommendations. Forexample, a ‘buy’ for some brokers means the stock is expected to outperform its peers in the same sector(“industry benchmarkers”), while for other brokers it means the stock is expected to outperform themarket (“market benchmarkers”), or just some absolute return (“total benchmarkers”). We use thesebenchmarks to analyze the role of stock picking, industry picking and market timing in contributing to theperformance of stock recommendations. We are able to do so given that different benchmarks suggest theuse of different sets of abilities. Analysis of the relation between analysts’ recommendations and theirlong-term …


Frog In The Pan: Continuous Information And Momentum, Zhi Da, G. Gurun, Mitchell Craig Warachka Jan 2012

Frog In The Pan: Continuous Information And Momentum, Zhi Da, G. Gurun, Mitchell Craig Warachka

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop and test a frog-in-the-pan hypothesis that predicts investors are less attentive to information arriving continuously in small amounts than to information with the same cumulative stock price implications arriving in large amounts at discrete timepoints. Intuitively, we hypothesize that a series of gradual frequent changes attracts less attention than infrequent dramatic changes. Consistent with our frog-in-the-pan hypothesis, we find strong evidence that continuous information induces stronger and more persistent return continuation. Over a six-month holding period, momentum decreases monotonically from 8.86% for stocks with continuous information during their formation period to 2.91% for stocks with discrete information. Higher …


An Institutional Perspective And The Role Of The State For Chinese Ofdi, Bing Ren, Hao Liang, Ying Zheng Jan 2012

An Institutional Perspective And The Role Of The State For Chinese Ofdi, Bing Ren, Hao Liang, Ying Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Napoleon called China a ‘sleeping dragon’, but recent economic developments as China enters the twenty-first century show that the dragon is awakening. China has maintained strong economic growth since 1979 and sustained a GDP increase of more than 9 percent over the years. The total volume of economic output increased from 2.8 percent in 1970 to 7.23 percent in 2008, ranking China as the third largest economy in the world (United Nation Statistics Division Statistical Databases). China launched its ‘Go Global’ policy in 1999 to encourage highperforming Chinese firms to invest abroad and upgrade their global competence. Since then, outward …


Size And Return: A New Perspective, Fangjian Fu, Wei Yang Jan 2012

Size And Return: A New Perspective, Fangjian Fu, Wei Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We document robust empirical evidence that, after controlling for idiosyncratic volatility, large stocks earn significantly higher returns than small stocks. Our empirical results indicate that idiosyncratic volatility is positively related to return, but negatively related to size. Hence, failure to control for idiosyncratic volatility generates a downward omitted variable bias and leads to the widely documented negative relation between size and return. We explain the two contrasting size-return relations, with and without the control for idiosyncratic volatility, in a parsimonious equilibrium model that incorporates three empirical regularities: some individual investors are under-diversified; small stocks have higher idiosyncratic volatilities than large …


Stochastic Capacity Investment And Flexible Vs. Dedicated Technology Choice In Imperfect Capital Markets, Onur Boyabatli, L. Bertil Toktay Dec 2011

Stochastic Capacity Investment And Flexible Vs. Dedicated Technology Choice In Imperfect Capital Markets, Onur Boyabatli, L. Bertil Toktay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper analyzes the impact of endogenous credit terms under capital market imperfections in a capacity investment setting. We model a monopolist firm that decides on its technology choice (flexible versus dedicated) and capacity level under demand uncertainty. Differing from the majority of the stochastic capacity investment literature, we assume that the firm is budget constrained and can relax its budget constraint by borrowing from a creditor. The creditor offers technology-specific loan contracts to the firm, after which the firm makes its technology choice and subsequent decisions. Capital market imperfections impose financing frictions on the firm. Our analysis contributes to …


Longevity Risk Management In Singapore's National Pension System, Joelle H. Y. Fong, Olivia S. Mitchell, Benedict S. K. Koh Dec 2011

Longevity Risk Management In Singapore's National Pension System, Joelle H. Y. Fong, Olivia S. Mitchell, Benedict S. K. Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although annuities are a theoretically appealing way to manage longevity risk, in the real world relatively few consumers purchase them at retirement. To counteract the possibility of retirees outliving their assets, Singapore’s Central Provident Fund, a national defined contribution pension scheme, has recently mandated annuitization of workers’ retirement assets. More significantly, the government has entered the insurance market as a public sector provider for such annuities. This article evaluates the money’s worth of life annuities and discusses the impact of the government mandate and its role as an annuity provider on the insurance market.


A Multiechelon Inventory Problem With Secondary Market Sales, Alexandar Angelus Dec 2011

A Multiechelon Inventory Problem With Secondary Market Sales, Alexandar Angelus

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider a finite-horizon, multiechelon inventory system in which the surplus of stock can be sold (i.e., disposed) in the secondary markets at each stage in the system. What are called nested echelon order-up-to policies are shown to be optimal for jointly managing inventory replenishments and secondary market sales. Under a general restriction on model parameters, we establish that it is optimal not to both sell off excess stock and replenish inventory. Secondary market sales complicate the structure of the system, so that the classical Clark and Scarf echelon reformulation no longer allows for the decomposition of the objective function …


Charting Your Financial Goals, Benedict Koh Dec 2011

Charting Your Financial Goals, Benedict Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Every one of us has financial goals but not many of us know how to go about achieving them. We often lack investment knowledge or expertise to design an investment plan that optimises our savings. Consequently, we adopt the default approach of leaving all our savings in bank deposits. By doing so, we have already made an asset allocation decision, one that is very conservative. Over time, we soon realise that this conservative investment plan is simply not working as our savings are not compounding fast enough to keep up with inflation. We need to invest more wisely so that …


What Is Behind The Asset Growth And Investment Growth Anomalies?, Fangjian Fu Oct 2011

What Is Behind The Asset Growth And Investment Growth Anomalies?, Fangjian Fu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Existing studies show that firm asset and investment growth predict cross-sectional stock returns. Firms that shrink their assets or investments subsequently earn higher returns than firms that expand their assets or investments. I show that the superior returns of the low asset and investment growth portfolios are due to the omission of delisting returns in CRSP monthly stock return file and that the poor returns of the high asset and investment growth portfolios are largely driven by the subsample of firms that have issued large amounts of debt or equity in the previous year. Controlling for the effects of the …


Financial Capital And Startup Survival, Jeongsik Lee, Wei Zhang Aug 2011

Financial Capital And Startup Survival, Jeongsik Lee, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Are entrepreneurs liquidity-constrained? We attempt to answer this question by investigating the impact of financial capital on startup survival. The analysis of about 5,000 startups from the Kauffman Firm Survey data shows that, controlling for human capital, having some type of financial capital increases survival chances, supporting the existence of liquidity constraints. Interestingly, however, the effects are not uniform across types of capital: securing loans is associated with higher survival likelihood but receiving equity investments shortens startup longevity. Accounting for the endogeneity in financing using the Inverse Probability Treatment Weighted (IPTW) estimation reveals that the negative effect of equity capital …


Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah Officer Aug 2011

Acquisitions Driven By Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?, Fangjian Fu, Leming Lin, Micah Officer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Overvaluation may motivate a firm to use its stock to acquire a target whose stock is not as overpriced (Shleifer and Vishny (2003)). Though hypothetically desirable, these acquisitions in practice create little, if any, value for acquirer shareholders. Two factors often impede value creation: payment of a large premium to the target and lack of economic synergies in the acquisition. We find that overvaluationdriven stock acquirers suffer worse operating performance and lower long-run stock returns than control firms that are in the same industry, similarly overvalued at the same time, have similar size and Tobin’s q, but have not pursued …


Do Merger-Related Operating Synergies Exist?, Gennaro Bernile, Scott W. Bauguess Jul 2011

Do Merger-Related Operating Synergies Exist?, Gennaro Bernile, Scott W. Bauguess

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Executives frequently forecast large operating efficiency gains from mergers. Using these projections, we study the impact of operating synergies on merger performance. Investors' reaction to mergers varies directly with the availability of these forecasts and the gains they imply, and post-merger operating performance increases with the predictable component of forecasted synergies based on deal characteristics. The realized improvements, however, do not depend on the availability of forecasts or the surprise they convey, and post-merger stock returns reconcile discrepancies between investors' ex ante beliefs and mergers' ex post performance related to management forecasts. Overall, the evidence supports the neoclassical view that …


Asset Performance Evaluation With Mean-Variance Ratio, Zhidong Bai, Kok Fai Phoon, Keyan Wang, Wing-Keung Wong Jul 2011

Asset Performance Evaluation With Mean-Variance Ratio, Zhidong Bai, Kok Fai Phoon, Keyan Wang, Wing-Keung Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Bai, et al. (2011c) develop the mean-variance-ratio (MVR) statistic to test the performance among assets for small samples. They provide theoretical reasoning to use MVR and prove that our proposed statistic is uniformly most powerful unbiased. In this paper we illustrate the superiority of our proposed test over the Sharpe ratio (SR) test by applying both tests to analyze the performance of Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs). Our findings show that while the SR test concludes most of the CTA funds being analyzed as being indistinguishable in their performance, our proposed statistics show that some funds outperform the others. On the …