Knowledge that Transforms

This paper evaluates the influence of financial contracting costs on public corporations' incentives to lease fixed capital. We argue that firms facing high costs of external funds can economize on the cost of funding by leasing. We construct several measures of leasing propensity, plus some a priori indicators of the severity of financial constraints facing firms. We find that the share of total annual fixed capital costs attributable to either capital or operating leases is substantially higher at lower-rated, non-dividend-paying, cash-poor firms — those likely to face relatively high premiums for external funds.

We examine whether sample selection bias explains the difference in returns between ‘value’ stocks (high book-to-market ratios) and ‘glamour’ stocks (low book-to-market ratios). Selection bias on Compustat is not a severe problem: for CRSP primary domestic firms, the proportion missing from Compustat is not large and the average return is not very different from the Compustat sample. Mechanical problems with matching Cusip identifiers account for much of the discrepancy between CRSP and Compustat. The superior performance of value stocks is confirmed for the top quintile of NYSE-Amex stocks, using a sample free from selection bias.

We investigate the relation between liquidation costs of assets and composition of capital structure for firms that reorganized under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Firms with high liquidation costs emerge from Chapter 11 with relatively low debt ratios. The debt of these firms is more likely to be public and unsecured, and to have less restrictive covenant terms; these firms are also more likely to raise new equity capital. Assets with high liquidation costs thus lead firms to choose capital structures that make financial distress less likely.

We examine valuation effects on firms in the same industry as entities that are the subject of carve-outs (initial public offerings of subsidiary equity), spin-offs, and asset sell-offs. Share price reactions for rivals are negative in response to equity carve-outs. In comparison, rival stock returns are positive for spin-offs and normal for asset sell-offs, restructuring actions that do not entail a public offering of equity. Our results suggest managers conduct equity carve-outs when outside investors are likely to price the new shares higher than managers' perceived value.

The evidence reported in this paper suggests that institutional investors capture a large fraction of the short-run profits associated with IPOs. The favored status enjoyed by institutional investors in underpriced offerings appears, however, to carry a quid pro quo expectation that they will participate in less-attractive issues as well. This finding conforms with the Benveniste and Spindt (1989) and Benveniste and Wilhelm (1990) prediction that U.S. underwriters behave strategically in the allocation of IPOs.

This paper examines whether information across international markets is rationally incorporated into stock prices. We find that Japanese Nikkei index-based futures traded in the U.S. provide complete information about contemporaneous overnight Japanese returns. Moreover, existing cross-dependence between the U.S. and Japanese stock index returns is subsumed by the information content of the derivative securities. Our findings cast doubt on trading models based on irrational traders who either overreact or only partially adjust to movements in foreign stock markets.

This paper provides large-sample evidence that poison pill rights issues, control share laws, and business combination laws have not systematically deterred takeovers and are unlikely to have caused the demise of the 1980s market for corporate control, even though 87% of all exchange-listed firms are now covered by one of these antitakeover measures. We show that poison pills and control share laws are reliably associated with higher takeover premiums for selling shareholders, both unconditionally and conditional on a successful takeover, and we provide updated event study evidence for the three-quarters of all poison pills not yet analyzed. Antitakeover measures increase the bargaining position of target firms, but they do not prevent many transactions.

An examination of the executive compensation structure of 153 randomly-selected manufacturing firms in 1979–1980 provides evidence supporting advocates of incentive compensation, and also suggests that the form rather than the level of compensation is what motivates managers to increase firm value. Firm performance is positively related to the percentage of equity held by managers and to the percentage of their compensation that is equity-based. Moreover, equity-based compensation is used more extensively in firms with more outside directors. Finally, firms in which a higher percentage of the shares are held by insiders or outside blockholders use less equity-based compensation.

This paper investigates the relation between the number of analysts following a security and the estimated adverse selection cost of transacting in the security, controlling for the effects of previously identified determinants of liquidity. Using intraday data for the year 1988, we find that greater analyst following tends to reduce adverse selection costs based on the Kyle (1985) notion of market depth. This result is consistent with the analysis of Admati and Pfleiderer (1988). Estimates of structural parameters of a version of the Admati and Pfleiderer model of endogenous information acquisition provide qualified support for the model.

We find that asset sales lead to an improvement in the operating performance of the seller's remaining assets in each of the three years following the asset sale. The improvement in performance occurs primarily in firms that increase their focus; this change in operating performance is positively related to the seller's stock return at the divestiture announcement. The announcement stock returns are also greater for focus-increasing divestitures. Further, we find evidence that some of the seller's gains result from a better fit between the divested asset and the buyer.