Knowledge that Transforms

In this paper, we document diverse levels of managerial ability and firm performance in the cross section of acquiring firms. Acquirers with strong managerial ability realize higher announcement-period abnormal returns and experience better post-merger firm performance than their low-ability counterparts. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns and show that the observed variation in acquirer abnormal returns is attributed to the heterogeneity of managerial ability fixed effects across acquirers. Managerial ability adds value to acquirers, especially in stock-financed acquisitions, implying that the method of payment is not driving the negative stock-financed valuation effect documented in previous literature. Moreover, we find that target firms with strongly ingrained growth potential and low levels of financial constraint and bankruptcy risk are highly favored by skilled acquiring managers.

We find that the perception of corporate corruption culture in the top executive team affects both pricing and non-pricing loan provisions. Firms with higher levels of perceived corruption culture face higher interest spreads and are more likely to receive a collateral requirement. The bank syndicate is larger and more performance-based covenants and managerial negative restrictions (e.g., limits on capital expenditures or dividend restrictions) are put in place in loans made to firms with higher levels of perceived executive-based corruption. We further find that cultural proximity between lenders and borrowers mitigates the perceived corruption effects significantly, leading to contracts that are less costly and less restrictive. Additional tests suggest that lenders display an in-group bias in favor of culturally proximate borrowers.

We find that fund managers who began their careers during recessions produce superior returns. This superior performance is not unconditional, as they exhibit better market timing than their non-recession counterparts in recessions, but do not demonstrate better stock picking in booms. Exploring managers' portfolio choices across years, we find that recession managers tilt their investments towards defensive, rather than cyclical, industries during and before recession periods. Overall, our findings support the argument that the economic conditions under which an individual initially entered the labour market exert a long-term impact on her career outcomes and decision-making.

We apply textual analysis to the transcripts of nearly 78,000 earnings conference calls between 2004 and 2018, comparing the difference in sentiment between female and male senior managers (CEOs and CFOs). We focus on two main measures of sentiment: tone and vagueness. Our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we show that female executives employ a more positive and less vague tone than their male colleagues during conference calls. The more positive and less vague tone of female executives does not reflect incremental information content but instead appears to be a linguistic feature that distinguishes female from male executives. Secondly, we find that financial analysts participating in conference calls exhibit a gender bias as they are less positive and more vague when facing a female executive. However, the stock market reaction to the call is affected by the sentiment of the call, but not by the executive's gender.

We examine whether and how national culture influences corporate innovation using a newly available comprehensive database on innovation around the world. After controlling for the impacts of formal institutions, and firm-level and country-level variables, we find that culture has relevance for innovation: The probability of a firm innovating is higher in individualistic, indulgent, and long-term oriented societies, as well as in cultures with less power distance, less uncertainty avoidance, and less masculine cultures. In the innovative firms subsample, we continue to find the same significant impact of culture on firms' innovation performance/quality. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns, different model specifications, alternative measures of innovation and culture, and different subsample analyses.

This paper studies the relation between state visits and cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. Based on 1161 state visits and 11,531 cross-border acquisitions, we find that corporations from visiting countries are more likely to acquire corporations in countries hosting the visit. Domestic acquisitions in the host country or M&As with non-visiting countries are not elevated. Evidence from instrumental variable analysis points towards a causal effect of state visits on M&A activity. Further analysis shows that the elevated M&A activity originating from visiting countries can be attributed to business networking and a reduction in investment uncertainty and cultural barriers.

We show that, despite the sharp but temporary decline around the financial crisis of 2007–08, corporate debt maturity has risen significantly in the last two decades, erasing much of the secular decline from the 1980–90s documented in the literature. The reversal in debt maturity trend is driven by the rise in the use of intermediate-term debt among medium and large-sized firms. The low interest rates observed in the last two decades and the decline in the demand for long-term corporate bonds partly explains the rise in intermediate-term debt.

Banks increase cross-border syndicated lending when domestic economic policy uncertainty is high, after controlling for credit demand at the borrower country or country-industry levels. The credit migration effects are strongest for banks with diverse income and when banks face fiercer competition. Using elections as a source of plausibly exogenous variation which positively affects political uncertainty, we provide causal evidence on the effects of political uncertainty on cross-border lending. In countries with exogenous election timings, banks increase cross-border lending during the election period, especially when elections are closely fought. Compared to the extant literature, which extensively documents the negative effect of uncertainty on real investment, our findings show that uncertainty affects investments in financial assets differently.

We introduce political tournament “participation/inclusion” games. Dominant strategies determine whether players choose to compete by enhancing economic performance. Unique Nash equilibria competitors win (only) inclusion as promotion candidates. We find empirical justification for such equilibria in Chinese province heads' periodic political tournaments/elections for promotion to the Communist Party politburo and government positions. We document pervasive tournament-synchronized corporate decision-making cyclicality. Firms enhance economic performance by increasing investments, taxes, and employment before elections. Cyclicality is dominantly driven by privately-owned enterprises, is weaker in economically/politically weak(strong) provinces. Political promotions, however, are not sensitive to corporate investments enhanced before tournaments but to long-run investments.

We investigate the stock price reactions of industry competitors to IPOs in China. Contrary to findings in the U.S., we document a positive valuation effect of Chinese IPOs from 2002 to 2013. This finding is robust to alternative rival definitions, investor reaction measurement, and sample selection criteria. Based on the existing theories and institutional setup of the Chinese stock market, we propose three non-competing hypotheses: the signaling hypothesis (i.e., IPOs could convey positive industry-related information), the collusion hypothesis (i.e., rival firms can benefit from the increasing likelihood of collusion), and the substitution hypothesis (i.e., rival stocks can substitute for IPO stocks as an appealing investment). With a series of tests, we demonstrate that the substitution hypothesis can explain this phenomenon. Furthermore, we find that the spillover effects of IPOs decline with the increase in investment choices after 2014.