Lame-Duck CEOs
Marc Gabarro, Sebastian Gryglewicz, Shuo Xia
SSRN Working Papers,
2018
Abstract
We examine the relationship between protracted CEO successions and stock returns. In protracted successions, an incumbent CEO announces his or her resignation without a known successor, so the incumbent CEO becomes a “lame duck.” We find that 31% of CEO successions from 2005 to 2014 in the S&P 1500 are protracted, during which the incumbent CEO is a lame duck for an average period of about 6 months. During the reign of lame duck CEOs, firms generate an annual four-factor alpha of 11% and exhibit significant positive earnings surprises. Investors’ under-reaction to no news on new CEO information and underestimation of the positive effects of the tournament among the CEO candidates drive our results.
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Information Feedback in Temporal Networks as a Predictor of Market Crashes
Stjepan Begušić, Zvonko Kostanjčar, Dejan Kovač, Boris Podobnik, H. Eugene Stanley
Complexity,
September
2018
Abstract
In complex systems, statistical dependencies between individual components are often considered one of the key mechanisms which drive the system dynamics observed on a macroscopic level. In this paper, we study cross-sectional time-lagged dependencies in financial markets, quantified by nonparametric measures from information theory, and estimate directed temporal dependency networks in financial markets. We examine the emergence of strongly connected feedback components in the estimated networks, and hypothesize that the existence of information feedback in financial networks induces strong spatiotemporal spillover effects and thus indicates systemic risk. We obtain empirical results by applying our methodology on stock market and real estate data, and demonstrate that the estimated networks exhibit strongly connected components around periods of high volatility in the markets. To further study this phenomenon, we construct a systemic risk indicator based on the proposed approach, and show that it can be used to predict future market distress. Results from both the stock market and real estate data suggest that our approach can be useful in obtaining early-warning signals for crashes in financial markets.
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Kommentar: 30 Jahre DAX
Reint E. Gropp
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 3,
2018
Abstract
Gerade ist der Deutsche Aktienindex DAX 30 Jahre alt geworden, und es gibt viel zu feiern. Preisbereinigt hätte ein Investment von 1 000 Euro, angelegt am DAX-Eröffnungstag 1. Juli 1988, heute einen Wert von über 6 000 Euro, hätte sich also versechsfacht!
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Market Power and Risk: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Market
Carola Müller, Felix Noth
Economics Letters,
2018
Abstract
We use mortgage loan application data of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to shed light on the role of banks’ market power on their presumably insufficient risk screening activities in the U.S. mortgage market in the pre-crisis era. We find that banks with higher market power protect their charter value. The effect is stronger for banks that have more information about local markets.
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The Political Economy of Financial Systems: Evidence from Suffrage Reforms in the Last Two Centuries
Hans Degryse, Thomas Lambert, Armin Schwienbacher
Economic Journal,
No. 611,
2018
Abstract
Voting rights were initially limited to wealthy elites providing political support for stock markets. The franchise expansion induces the median voter to provide political support for banking development, as this new electorate has lower financial holdings and benefits less from the riskiness and financial returns from stock markets. Our panel data evidence covering the years 1830–1999 shows that tighter restrictions on the voting franchise induce greater stock market development, whereas a broader voting franchise is more conducive to the banking sector, consistent with Perotti and von Thadden (2006). The results are robust to controlling for other institutional arrangements and endogeneity.
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What Type of Finance Matters for Growth? Bayesian Model Averaging Evidence
Iftekhar Hasan, Roman Horvath, Jan Mares
World Bank Economic Review,
No. 2,
2018
Abstract
We examine the effect of finance on long-term economic growth using Bayesian model averaging to address model uncertainty in cross-country growth regressions. The literature largely focuses on financial indicators that assess the financial depth of banks and stock markets. We examine these indicators jointly with newly developed indicators that assess the stability and efficiency of financial markets. Once we subject the finance-growth regressions to model uncertainty, our results suggest that commonly used indicators of financial development are not robustly related to long-term growth. However, the findings from our global sample indicate that one newly developed indicator—the efficiency of financial intermediaries—is robustly related to long-term growth.
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Did the Swiss Exchange Rate Shock Shock the Market?
Manuel Buchholz, Gregor von Schweinitz, Lena Tonzer
Abstract
The Swiss National Bank abolished the exchange rate floor versus the Euro in January 2015. Based on a synthetic matching framework, we analyse the impact of this unexpected (and therefore exogenous) shock on the stock market. The results reveal a significant level shift (decline) in asset prices in Switzerland following the discontinuation of the minimum exchange rate. While adjustments in stock market returns were most pronounced directly after the news announcement, the variance was elevated for some weeks, indicating signs of increased uncertainty and potentially negative consequences for the real economy.
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Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Financial Performance: The Mediating Role of Productivity
Iftekhar Hasan, Nada Kobeissi, Liuling Liu, Haizhi Wang
Journal of Business Ethics,
No. 3,
2018
Abstract
This study treats firm productivity as an accumulation of productive intangibles and posits that stakeholder engagement associated with better corporate social performance helps develop such intangibles. We hypothesize that because shareholders factor improved productive efficiency into stock price, productivity mediates the relationship between corporate social and financial performance. Furthermore, we argue that key stakeholders’ social considerations are more valuable for firms with higher levels of discretionary cash and income stream uncertainty. Therefore, we hypothesize that those two contingencies moderate the mediated process of corporate social performance with financial performance. Our analysis, based on a comprehensive longitudinal dataset of the U.S. manufacturing firms from 1992 to 2009, lends strong support for these hypotheses. In short, this paper uncovers a productivity-based, context-dependent mechanism underlying the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance.
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