Knowledge that Transforms

ABSTRACT Non-arm’s-length transactions between a firm and its related parties, or related-party transactions (RPTs), are widely used in emerging economies. We examine the effect of creditor rights on the usage of financing RPTs using the enactment of India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) of 2016 as a shock to creditor rights. We show that stronger creditor rights make arm’s-length external financing more attractive relative to RPT financing. In particular, we find that firms that are ex ante more likely to be affected by IBC (i.e., those with low asset tangibility) reduce their dependence on financing-related RPTs, in particular, RPT loan inflows. This effect is strengthened for firms with greater financial constraints and higher growth opportunities. Our findings suggest that creditor rights influence financing choices and contribute to our understanding of how insolvency reforms affect financing and RPTs in emerging markets.

ABSTRACT In response to growing economic and environmental concerns, companies in a range of industries seek to repurpose products (assets) that retain functional capacity beyond their initial first life. This paper examines a generic valuation model for used capacity assets that can either be recycled immediately or repurposed for a second life application. We apply our model framework to lithium-ion batteries retired from electric vehicles, as these assets typically retain substantial energy storage capacity at the end of their first life. Our analysis focuses on two battery chemistries: lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) and nickel-cobalt-X (NCX) based. We project their future fair market values in the United States and China. Our findings indicate that repurposing LFP batteries will be economically viable in both countries for the coming decade. In contrast, for most NCX batteries immediate recycling will soon be preferable due to their more valuable raw material content and shorter usable lives.

ABSTRACT We study how disclosures affect banks’ leverage and risk. Banks screen borrowers and originate loans, partially financed using insured deposits. The possibility to sell loans before they mature incentivizes banks to lever up using uninsured short-term debt to dilute insured deposits. If markets are opaque, good loans trade at a discount, which limits banks’ use of short-term debt. If markets are transparent, prices compound information contained in disclosures, which leads banks to issue more short-term debt to further dilute insured deposits. We identify conditions under which the increase in leverage caused by disclosures reduces banks’ screening incentives. Our analysis has important implications for prudential regulation, including minimum regulatory capital requirements and leverage-based deposit insurance premiums. JEL Classifications: D80; G21; G14.

ABSTRACT We examine whether firms strategically increase cost rigidity to adopt an aggressive product market stance. Using large cuts in industry-level import tariff rates as a setting, we find that domestic firms respond to a looming competitive threat from foreign rivals by raising cost rigidity. This increase cannot plausibly be explained by investments to create physical excess capacity, suggesting firms enter cost commitments for labor and procurement instead. Additional tests corroborate the hypothesized preemptive intent. First, the increase in cost rigidity is concentrated in industries in which a firm’s aggressive market stance elicits a softening of competition. Second, it is only in these industries that firms with rigid cost structures experience market share gains around a large tariff cut. The latter effect is more pronounced the more reliably firms’ cost structures can be discerned from their financial statements. Overall, our study suggests that firms enter cost commitments as a preemptive strategy. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: L22; M21; M40; M41.

ABSTRACT This study examines the association between a shared common auditor among suppliers and customers and trade credit. Using hand-collected pairwise trade credit data, we find that a supplier extends more trade credit to a customer audited by a common auditor. This association is robust to alternative design specifications and various sample restrictions to alleviate selection bias. We then interview trade credit managers and executives as a prelude to archival analyses exploring multiple potential mechanisms to explain this association. The collective results are most consistent with the explanation that mutual third parties to a dyadic relationship can foster trust through social connections and increased salience of reputation effects rather than that a common auditor reduces information asymmetry about the rigor of the audit process. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M41; M42.

ABSTRACT We study how firms' inventory holdings are affected by natural disasters. Building on the premise that managers often make decisions in line with the availability heuristic, we investigate whether managers increase inventory holdings in response to heightened disaster risk perceptions and the need to hedge against inventory shortages. Through a battery of tests, we show that the occurrence of disasters in neighboring counties triggers inventory stockpiling, an effect that is unlikely to be driven by the real disaster disruptions. Our results also indicate that inventory stockpiling is likely inconsistent with a rational expectations equilibrium. Collectively, our results highlight another undesirable consequence of natural disasters and warn about supply chain implications due to increased climate ambiguity. Data Availability: All the data used in this study are publicly available. JEL Classifications: G31; G41; M21; M11; M41; Q54.

ABSTRACT In examining the loan contracting implications of SEC investigations, we document that banks charge higher loan spreads when borrowers are under investigation, with the rise in interest rates varying predictably with lender characteristics. Further, our evidence implies that the debt pricing impact of SEC investigations is amplified for borrowers suffering worse credit quality and information asymmetry as well as those relying more on bank loans. These findings suggest that banks perceive increased risk for borrowers under SEC scrutiny while also leveraging their knowledge of the investigations to extract rents. Supplemental analyses reveal tighter nonspread loan terms and a higher likelihood of amending existing loan contracts during SEC investigations. Additionally, the tightening of loan terms reverses for investigations that conclude without enforcement actions. Overall, our research identifies an economic cost of SEC investigations and alerts regulators to these costs when deciding whether to launch an investigation. Data Availability: All data used are available from the sources indicated in the paper. JEL Classifications: M41; D82; G21; K22.

ABSTRACT We examine how stock market feedback affects corporate investment when responsible investors are active in the market. These investors experience disutility when the firm’s investment decisions are misaligned with their nonfinancial preferences. A manager chooses between two projects that are ex ante financially equivalent: a “green” one aligned with investor preferences and a “brown” one that is not (e.g., due to environmental or social concerns). The success of the project depends on matching the investment with the state of nature. Because responsible investors prefer to hold green firms, trading is more informative when the firm signals green, strengthening market feedback. Anticipating this, the manager may misreport a brown signal as green to attract responsible investors. However, such manipulation can deter investors from acquiring information and reduce the firm’s value. We show that this mechanism is robust to several alternative investor compositions. JEL Classifications: G14; G30; M41.

ABSTRACT We investigate whether foreign institutional investors respond to the sustainability disclosures mandated by the EU’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive and whether disclosure location affects their response. We find that foreign institutions increase ownership in companies affected by the mandate and that the increase is greater in countries that locate the sustainability disclosures within their annual reports, referred to as combined reporting. This is consistent with combined reporting reducing investors’ disclosure processing costs by providing timelier disclosure and better integration of sustainability and financial information. We further find that the increase in ownership is greater in countries that experience a larger increase in the number of firms issuing combined reports, consistent with combined reporting increasing comparability of the sustainability disclosures. Our findings suggest that the location of sustainability reporting plays an important role in cross-border investment decisions, which provides policy implications for the implementation of global sustainability disclosure regulation.

ABSTRACT Business complexity involves important tradeoffs for managers and investors, but empirical evidence is limited by measurement issues. We construct and validate a measure of business complexity using a GPT model fine-tuned on narrative disclosures and inline XBRL tags. We first show that our measure is associated with slower price formation in capital markets, consistent with complexity increasing processing costs. Next, we apply our measure to study the complexity of debt, an economically important topic that encompasses a wide range of features. The results show that nonstandard debt features such as call and convertibility provisions underlie debt complexity. We also find that debt complexity correlates with more persistent interest expense and better performance when lending conditions worsen, suggesting it is in part an adaptive response to manage financial risk. Overall, our study underscores the tradeoffs of business complexity and provides a flexible measure of complexity for future research. Data Availability: Contact authors for data, model weights, and measure. JEL Classifications: D82; D83; G14; G30; M40; M41.