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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Staatliche Nachfrage als Treiber privater Forschungs- und Entwicklungsaktivitäten
Viktor Slavtchev, Simon Wiederhold
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 3,
2016
Abstract
Der Staat fragt Produkte und Dienstleistungen mit ganz unterschiedlichem technologischen Niveau nach – von Büroklammern bis zu Forschungssatelliten. Dieser Beitrag zeigt zunächst in einem theoretischen Modell, dass der Staat durch die technologische Intensität seiner Nachfrage den Markt für technologieintensive Produkte und Dienstleistungen erweitern kann. Denn eine stärkere staatliche Nachfrage nach innovativen Produkten und Dienstleistungen erlaubt es privaten Unternehmen, die überwiegend fixen Kosten für Forschung und Entwicklung auf größere Absatzmengen umzulegen, lässt die privaten Erträge aus Forschung und Entwicklung ansteigen und generiert somit zusätzliche Anreize, in die Entwicklung neuer Technologien zu investieren. Anhand von Daten aus den USA wird auch empirisch belegt, dass eine – budgetneutrale – Erhöhung der technologischen Intensität der staatlichen Nachfrage die privaten FuE-Ausgaben erhöht. Damit rückt die staatliche Nachfrage erneut in die Diskussion über mögliche Instrumente einer effektiven Wirtschafts- und Innovationspolitik.
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09.06.2016 • 22/2016
The German Economy Benefits from Strong Domestic Demand
In 2016, the moderate upswing of the German economy continues. Incomes grow due to the steady expansion in employment, and the fall in energy prices has propped up the purchasing power of private households. As a consequence, private consumption expands healthily; investment in housing is additionally stimulated by very low interest rates. Exports, however, expand only moderately, as the world economy is rather weak. All in all, the IWH forecasts the German GDP to expand by 1.8% in this year and by 1.6% in 2017.
Oliver Holtemöller
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Does the Technological Content of Government Demand Matter for Private R&D? Evidence from US States
Viktor Slavtchev, Simon Wiederhold
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics,
No. 2,
2016
Abstract
Governments purchase everything from airplanes to zucchini. This paper investigates the role of the technological content of government procurement in innovation. In a theoretical model, we first show that a shift in the composition of public purchases toward high-tech products translates into higher economy-wide returns to innovation, leading to an increase in the aggregate level of private R&D. Using unique data on federal procurement in US states and performing panel fixed-effects estimations, we find support for the model's prediction of a positive R&D effect of the technological content of government procurement. Instrumental-variable estimations suggest a causal interpretation of our findings.
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27.01.2016 • 4/2016
IWH-Bauumfrage zum Jahresauftakt 2016: Wohnungsbau im Jahr 2016 der entscheidende Impulsgeber
Das Baugewerbe in Ostdeutschland dürfte das Jahr 2015 nach einem witterungsbedingt guten Start, einer Abschwächung im Sommerhalbjahr und einer zuletzt wieder einsetzenden Kräftigung insgesamt mit einem Minus abgeschlossen haben. Die vor Jahresfrist geäußerten Erwartungen der Unternehmen sind damit zu einem Großteil nicht in Erfüllung gegangen. Die Ertragslage der Bauunternehmen hat sich gegenüber dem Vorjahresstand leicht verschlechtert. Während sie im Hoch- und Ausbaubereich aber immer noch als gut bezeichnet werden kann, stellt sie sich im Tiefbau eher ungünstig dar.
Brigitte Loose
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Spinoffs in Germany: Characteristics, Survival, and the Role of their Parents
Daniel Fackler, A. Schmucker, Claus Schnabel
Small Business Economics,
No. 1,
2016
Abstract
Using a 50 % sample of all private sector establishments in Germany, we report that spinoffs are larger, initially employ more skilled and more experienced workers, and pay higher wages than other startups. We investigate whether spinoffs are more likely to survive than other startups, and whether spinoff survival depends on the quality and size of their parent companies, as suggested in some of the theoretical and empirical literature. Our estimated survival models confirm that spinoffs are generally less likely to exit than other startups. We also distinguish between pulled spinoffs, where the parent company continues after they are founded, and pushed spinoffs, where the parent company stops operations. Our results indicate that in western and eastern Germany and in all sectors investigated, pulled spinoffs have a higher probability of survival than pushed spinoffs. Concerning the parent connection, we find that intra-industry spinoffs and spinoffs emerging from better-performing or smaller parent companies are generally less likely to exit.
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The Effect of Personal Bankruptcy Exemptions on Investment in Home Equity
S. Corradin, Reint E. Gropp, H. Huizinga, Luc Laeven
Journal of Financial Intermediation,
January
2016
Abstract
Homestead exemptions to personal bankruptcy allow households to retain their home equity up to a limit determined at the state level. Households that may experience bankruptcy thus have an incentive to bias their portfolios towards home equity. Using US household data for the period 1996 to 2006, we find that household demand for real estate is relatively high if the marginal investment in home equity is covered by the exemption. The home equity bias is more pronounced for younger and less healthy households that face more financial uncertainty and therefore have a higher ex ante probability of bankruptcy. These results suggest that homestead exemptions have an important bearing on the portfolio allocation of US households and the extent to which they insure against bad shocks.
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How Effective is Macroprudential Policy during Financial Downturns? Evidence from Caps on Banks' Leverage
Manuel Buchholz
Working Papers of Eesti Pank,
No. 7,
2015
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of a macroprudential policy instrument, caps on banks' leverage, on domestic credit to the private sector since the Global Financial Crisis. Applying a difference-in-differences approach to a panel of 69 advanced and emerging economies over 2002–2014, we show that real credit grew after the crisis at considerably higher rates in countries which had implemented the leverage cap prior to the crisis. This stabilising effect is more pronounced for countries in which banks had a higher pre-crisis capital ratio, which suggests that after the crisis, banks were able to draw on buffers built up prior to the crisis due to the regulation. The results are robust to different choices of subsamples as well as to competing explanations such as standard adjustment to the pre-crisis credit boom.
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