This paper addresses a problem that may damage the reliability of an interbank offered rate (IBOR) system. Using evidence from the Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (SHIBOR), we show that some SHIBOR panel banks imitate peers’ quotes after observing them on the next business day. The strength of the intertemporal behavior can be measured by a “Signed Active-minus-Stationary (SAmS)” index, which significantly predicts SHIBOR changes. Moreover, we find that the consequences of the imitation behavior are not fully perceived and understood by the market, and, as a result, SHIBOR-linked derivatives are mispriced. Our findings suggest that regulators of a poll-based interest rate benchmark should pay attention to the intertemporal imitation of submissions, in addition to bad faith collusion. The SAmS index can be utilized in the quality control of panel bank submissions.

We investigate an alternative economic channel of a positive relationship between risk and compensation, as documented by Cheng et al. (2015). We propose that when information asymmetry exists, firms generally seek to use compensation as a signal of their CEOs’ ability. The risks arising from information asymmetry tend to encourage firms to pay higher compensation to their CEOs in a pattern of financial incentives we call the “Lake Wobegon effect”. However, when individual firms pursue complete signaling, a higher equilibrium compensation level can be achieved. This paper explores the factors that give rise to the “Lake Wobegon effect” and the learning process by which this effect can be counterbalanced over time (Hayes and Schaefer, 2009).

Ellis et al. [Ellis, K., Michaely, R., O’Hara, M., 2000. The accuracy of trade classification rules: Evidence from Nasdaq. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 35 (4), 529–551] find that trade classification rules have limited success in classifying trades which execute inside the quotes. We reconfirm this result and propose an alternative algorithm to improve the classification accuracy for trades inside the quotes. This alternative algorithm improves the overall success rate for classifying trades, especially for trades that occur inside the quotes. Additionally, we show that the Lee and Ready [Lee, C., Ready, M., 1991. Inferring trade direction from intraday data. Journal of Finance 46, 733–747] and Ellis et al. (2000) trade classification algorithms provide biased estimates of the actual effective spreads and price impacts, while our algorithm provides statistically unbiased estimates of actual effective spreads and price impacts.

This study examines how options trading influences brand development strategies by encouraging managerial risk-taking. We find that firms with higher levels of options trading tend to introduce more new trademarks, which exhibit lower citation rates from subsequent trademarks. These firms favor brand creation over extension, leading to increased brand riskiness, as evidenced by greater trademark diversity. Potential channels for these effects include increased institutional ownership by transient investors and enhanced managerial hedging opportunities. These effects are more pronounced in firms with weaker governance, managers with higher pay-risk sensitivity, younger managerial teams, and intense competition. Additionally, we observe a negative relation between unrelated brand diversification, driven by options trading, and firm value. Our findings support the notion that active options markets incentivize managers to pursue riskier brand strategies.

This paper explores whether firms manage their earnings after stock splits to meet the raised expectations from the market due to the positive signal sent by the splits. We first document that post-split drift mainly exists in the first three months and is positively associated with post-split standardized unexpected earnings (SUE). However, the higher post-split SUE of split firms is associated with higher discretionary accruals and abnormally lower R&D expenses. This result is consistent with our hypothesis that split firms overstate their post-split earnings by manipulating accruals and reducing R&D spending. Moreover, post-split abnormal returns increase with discretionary accruals and R&D reduction for about six months and tend to reverse over longer horizons, especially for firms with negative pre-split SUE. Overall, our results indicate that the post-split drift is a short-term phenomenon and partly attributable to the earnings management after the splits.

This paper examines the impact of social trust on stock price crash risk. Social trust measures the level of mutual trust among the members of a society. Using a large sample of Chinese listed firms for the 2001–2015 period, we find that firms headquartered in regions of high social trust tend to have smaller crash risks. This result is robust to a battery of sensitivity tests and is more prominent for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), for firms with weak monitoring, and for firms with higher risk-taking. Moreover, we observe that firms in regions of high social trust are associated with higher accounting conservatism and fewer financial restatements. Our study suggests that social trust is an important variable that is omitted in the literature investigating the predictors of stock price crashes.

This study evaluates the link between CEO governance heterogeneity, power structure of the firm, and product market competition on various facets of post-IPO cash policy. Our results suggest that post-IPO cash holdings as well as marginal value of cash reserves are higher under a founder CEO governance regime relative to non-founder CEOs. Concentrating board power in the hands of founder CEOs however, reduces their ability to maintain higher post-IPO cash reserves. Our results also suggest that product market competition influences both the level and marginal value of cash reserves in the hands of founder CEOs. Further, we find that stronger internal governance reduces the tendency of IPO firms to deploy excess cash reserves to fund internal investments in excess of industry rivals. Finally, our results suggest that excess cash reserves in competitive industry environments lead to superior post-IPO operating performance.

Can bank competition help to attenuate the prevalence of zombie firms? Motivated by a stylized model, this paper studies the effect of bank competition on the formation of zombie firms in two stages: the formation of distressed firms and distressed firms obtaining zombie lending. Using China's 2009 bank entry deregulation as a quasi-natural experiment, the paper finds that bank competition lowers the probability of the formation of distressed firms, while it increases the probability of distressed firms obtaining zombie lending. Overall, bank competition decreases the formation of zombie firms. In addition, the findings show that a higher ex ante proportion of bad loans and higher probability of bad loan recovery lead to a higher probability of distressed firms receiving zombie lending. Both factors encourage banks to sustain lending to distressed firms to keep them alive and to gamble that those firms may recover in the future.

Using transaction-level data from a large online lending marketplace, we explore the role of homophilous intensity in online lending and uncover the evidence of a significant impact of homophily on the bidding behavior and economic effects of both lenders and borrowers. Lenders are more likely to invest in borrowers with more homophilous traits, and homophily induces higher bidding amounts. Moreover, lenders charge lower prices to more homophilous borrowers, but are able to earn higher returns due to better repayment from these borrowers. Our findings suggest that homophilous intensity has a statistically and economically significant effect on both borrowers and lenders in the online lending environment.

This study examines how different components of executive compensation affect the cost of debt. We find that debt-like and equity-like pay components have differing effects: an increase in defined benefit pensions is associated with lower bond yield spread, while higher share holdings lead to higher spreads. In addition, we find that stock options have a mixed impact on the cost of debt whereas cash bonus has no significant impact. Overall, our results indicate that corporate bondholders are fully aware of both risk-taking and risk-avoiding incentives created by various executive pay components.