Relative Peer Quality and Firm Performance
Bill Francis, Iftekhar Hasan, Sureshbabu Mani, Pengfei Ye
Journal of Financial Economics,
No. 1,
2016
Abstract
We examine the performance impact of the relative quality of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s compensation peers (peers to determine a CEO's overall compensation) and bonus peers (peers to determine a CEO's relative-performance-based bonus). We use the fraction of peers with greater managerial ability scores (Demerjian, Lev, and McVay, 2012) than the reporting firm to measure this CEO's relative peer quality (RPQ). We find that firms with higher RPQ earn higher stock returns and experience higher profitability growth than firms with lower RPQ. Learning among peers and the increased incentive to work harder induced by the peer-based tournament contribute to RPQ's performance effect.
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The Forward-looking Disclosures of Corporate Managers: Theory and Evidence
Reint E. Gropp, Rasa Karapandza, Julian Opferkuch
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 25,
2016
Abstract
We consider an infinitely repeated game in which a privately informed, long-lived manager raises funds from short-lived investors in order to finance a project. The manager can signal project quality to investors by making a (possibly costly) forward-looking disclosure about her project’s potential for success. We find that if the manager’s disclosures are costly, she will never release forward-looking statements that do not convey information to external investors. Furthermore, managers of firms that are transparent and face significant disclosure-related costs will refrain from forward-looking disclosures. In contrast, managers of opaque and profitable firms will follow a policy of accurate disclosures. To test our findings empirically, we devise an index that captures the quantity of forward-looking disclosures in public firms’ 10-K reports, and relate it to multiple firm characteristics. For opaque firms, our index is positively correlated with a firm’s profitability and financing needs. For transparent firms, there is only a weak relation between our index and firm fundamentals. Furthermore, the overall level of forward-looking disclosures declined significantly between 2001 and 2009, possibly as a result of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
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03.05.2016 • 20/2016
Are Lacking Structural Reforms in the Financial Sector the Underlying Reason for the German Criticism of the ECB?
The major reason for the intense criticism of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) low-interest-rate policy may be the lack of structural reforms in the German banking system. The resulting persistent fragmentation increases the banking sector’s vulnerability to the low-interest-rate environment. Hence, parts of the banking sector, due to their strong ties to politicians, appear to have successfully influenced public opinion against the ECB.
Reint E. Gropp
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16.03.2016 • 10/2016
German Economy Stays Stable Despite Shaky Environment
The German economy had a good start into the year 2016, in spite of heightened risks for the world economy and political turmoil in Europe. Employment and incomes are expanding, as is internal de-mand, additionally supported by government spending related to the high number of newly arrived refugees. However, sliding sentiment indicates a temporary slow down of the economy during this spring. We assume that the present political tensions inside the European Union can be mitigated in the coming months and that confidence will rise again. All in all, gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to rise by 1.5% in 2016.
Oliver Holtemöller
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Consequences of China’s Opening to Foreign Banks
Ran Li, Xiang Li, Wen Lei, Yiping Huang
L. Song, R. Garnaut, C. Fang, L. Johnston (eds.), China's Domestic Transformation in a Global Context. Acton: ANU Press,
forthcoming
Abstract
China’s government has recently implemented additional reforms to relax the regulatory environment for foreign banks. Specifically, State Council Order No. 657, signed by Premier Li Keqiang, announced a decision to revise the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Foreign-Funded Banks, effective from 1 January 2015. Implications of the revised regulations include removal of the requirement that a minimum of RMB100 million operating capital be transferred unconditionally from the overseas parent bank to the newly opened Chinese branch. In addition, in terms of the conditions attached to the right to carry out RMB-denominated activity, foreign banks are now eligible to apply to undertake local currency business after operating in China for one year—down from the previous three years. The requirement for two consecutive years of profit will be scrapped as well.
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Is There Monopsonistic Discrimination against Immigrants?
Boris Hirsch, Elke J. Jahn
ILR Review,
No. 3,
2015
Abstract
The authors investigate immigrants’ and natives’ labor supply to the firm within an estimation approach based on a dynamic monopsony framework. Applying duration models that account for unobserved worker heterogeneity to a large administrative employer–employee data set for Germany, they find that immigrants supply labor less elastically to firms than do natives. Under monopsonistic wage setting, the estimated elasticity differential predicts a 7.7 log points wage penalty for immigrants thereby accounting for the entire unexplained native–immigrant wage differential of 5.8 to 8.2 log points. When further distinguishing immigrant groups differing in their time spent in the German labor market, their immigration cohort, and their age at entry, the authors find that the observed unexplained wage differential is larger for those groups that show a larger elasticity differential relative to natives. These findings not only suggest that search frictions are a likely cause of employers’ more pronounced monopsony power over their immigrant workers but also imply that employers profit from discriminating against immigrants.
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Corporate Venture Capital, Value Creation, and Innovation
Thomas J. Chemmanur, Elena Loutskina, Xuan Tian
Review of Financial Studies,
No. 8,
2014
Abstract
We analyze how corporate venture capital (CVC) differs from independent venture capital (IVC) in nurturing innovation in entrepreneurial firms. We find that CVC-backed firms are more innovative, as measured by their patenting outcome, although they are younger, riskier, and less profitable than IVC-backed firms. Our baseline results continue to hold in a propensity score matching analysis of IPO firms and a difference-in-differences analysis of the universe of VC-backed entrepreneurial firms. We present evidence consistent with two possible underlying mechanisms: CVC's greater industry knowledge due to the technological fit between their parent firms and entrepreneurial firms and CVC's greater tolerance for failure.
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Firm Leadership and the Gender Pay Gap: Do Active Owners Discriminate more than Hired Managers?
Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller
Journal for Labour Market Research,
No. 1,
2014
Abstract
Using a large linked employer–employee data set for Germany, we investigate differences in the unexplained gender pay gap between owner-run and manager-run firms. We hypothesise that owner-managers and hired managers differ in their discretion to engage in profit-reducing taste discrimination against women, which would translate into different pay gaps depending on leadership regime. We find that unexplained gaps are significantly higher in owner-run firms, both statistically and economically. Yet, scrutinising these results by restricting our analysis to firms that only differ in leadership regime, this substantial difference disappears. Therefore, our findings do not support that active owners are more discriminatory per se.
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