Reporting to the Principal
Attracting the Sharks: Corporate Innovation and Securities Class Action Lawsuits
Elisabeth Kempf & Oliver Spalt
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper provides novel evidence suggesting that securities class action lawsuits, a central pillar of the U.S. litigation and corporate governance system, can constitute an obstacle to valuable corporate innovation. We first establish that valuable innovation output makes firms particularly vulnerable to costly low-quality class action litigation. Exploiting judge turnover in federal courts, we then show that changes in class action litigation risk affect the value and number of patents filed, suggesting firms take into account that risk in their innovation decisions. A new perspective we provide is that innovation success, not only innovation failure, can increase firms' securities class action litigation risk.
Political Connections and the SEC Confidential Treatment Process
Anne Thompson
Journal of Accounting and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
SEC confidential treatment (CT) orders are regulatory exemptions that enable firms to redact proprietary information from SEC filings if the disclosure would cause competitive harm and if the information is immaterial to investors. This study examines the role of firms' political connections in the SEC's decisions to approve versus reject CT requests before and after Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny into the CT process. CT requests from politically connected firms are less likely to be rejected before Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny and are more likely to be rejected following these events. When the SEC rejects CT requests, firms must disclose the contents of the unapproved redactions. These disclosures are informative to investors, on average, and are less informative following Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny. Together, these findings contribute to the literature on political influence in SEC oversight and disclosure regulation and provide unique evidence on the role of Congressional intervention in SEC decision making.
Analyzing Active Fund Managers' Commitment to ESG: Evidence from the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment
Soohun Kim & Aaron Yoon
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) is the largest global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiative in the asset-management industry to date. We analyze what happens after active U.S. mutual funds sign the PRI to assess whether they exhibit ESG implementation. We find that PRI signatories attract a large fund inflow, but we do not observe improvements in fund-level ESG scores or fund returns. We consider a battery of ways to proxy for funds' ESG incorporation (e.g., entry/exit, screening, engagement, voting for pro-ESG proposals), but fail to observe evidence of meaningful on average follow-through. Next, we explore cross-sectional fund characteristics and find that only quant funds exhibit small improvements in ESG performance versus other funds, mainly through buying high-ESG-performing stocks. Furthermore, we note that signatories are not superior performers in ESG issues prior to joining the PRI relative to non-PRI funds, but PRI affiliation tends to be widely advertised on company websites, marketing materials, and fund documents. Overall, a reasonable reader may perceive our findings as consistent with PRI funds' greenwashing. We note, however, that what we uncover is based only on outcome-based measures and may miss some actual efforts of signatories.
Shareholder Litigation and Corporate Social Responsibility
Steven Freund, Nam Nguyen & Hieu Phan
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examines the relation between shareholder litigation and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Exploiting exogenous changes in shareholder litigation rights following the staggered adoption of universal demand laws by U.S. states and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling on securities class action lawsuits, we show that weaker shareholder litigation rights lead to lower CSR scores. Moreover, the relation is stronger for firms facing higher litigation risk, and a decreased CSR score enhances firm value. Our evidence suggests that firms engage in CSR activities partly to reduce shareholder litigation risk ex ante and mitigate its consequences ex post.
A Tale of Two Networks: Common Ownership and Product Market Rivalry
Florian Ederer & Bruno Pellegrino
NBER Working Paper, April 2022
Abstract:
We study the welfare implications of the rise of common ownership in the United States from 1994 to 2018. We build a general equilibrium model with a hedonic demand system in which firms compete in a network game of oligopoly. Firms are connected through two large networks: the first reflects ownership overlap, the second product market rivalry. In our model, common ownership of competing firms induces unilateral incentives to soften competition. The magnitude of the common ownership effect depends on how much the two networks overlap. We estimate our model for the universe of U.S. public corporations using a combination of firm financials, investor holdings, and text-based product similarity data. We perform counterfactual calculations to evaluate how the efficiency and the distributional impact of common ownership have evolved over time. According to our baseline estimates the welfare cost of common ownership, measured as the ratio of deadweight loss to total surplus, has increased nearly tenfold (from 0.3% to over 4%) between 1994 and 2018. Under alternative assumptions about governance, the deadweight loss ranges between 1.9% and 4.4% of total surplus in 2018. The rise of common ownership has also resulted in a significant reallocation of surplus from consumers to producers.
The spillover effect of shareholder activism: Evidence on firm reporting
Haowen Tian et al.
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the spillover effect of shareholder activism against target firms on financial reporting by non-target firms in portfolios held by the same activist shareholders. We find that firms that are not the target of institutional shareholders' activism campaigns report more positive abnormal accruals. Cross-sectional tests indicate that the effect is more pronounced i) for firms that have more opportunities to engage in upward earnings management, or for firms with less effective alternative monitoring forces, and ii) when investors are more sensitive to good news. We also find that the effect is stronger when activist shareholders are more experienced, are waging more confrontational campaigns against target firms, and have larger holdings in non-target firms. We further find that non-target firms tend to report lower magnitude of asset write-downs, are more likely to restate financial statements and meet or beat earnings benchmarks, and exhibit a more optimistic tone in their 10-K/10-Q filings. Overall, our findings suggest that firms tend to window-dress their mandatory reporting to preempt possible shareholder activism against them.
Sleep Deprivation and Financial Misreporting: Evidence from US Time Zone Boundaries
Ashiq Ali et al.
University of Texas Working Paper, January 2022
Abstract:
We examine how managers' sleep deprivation affects financial misreporting likelihood. Extant evidence in organizational science research suggests that sleep deprivation increases individuals' unethical conduct in workplace, presumably due to sleep deprivation-induced cognitive impairment decreasing their self-control. Contrastingly, a proposition in psychology research claims that deception is more cognitively demanding than truth-telling, implying that sleep deprivation decreases unethical conduct involving deception. Furthermore, evidence in finance research suggests that sleep deprivation deters such risky behavior. To address this open question, we use a regression discontinuity design and provide robust evidence that for firms headquartered on the late sunset side of U.S. time-zone boundaries, where individuals are found to sleep less, the likelihood of financial misreporting is significantly smaller than for firms headquartered on the other side. These results suggest that sleep deprivation decreases financial misreporting, and that the effects due to deception avoidance and risk-aversion dominate the effect due to diminished self-control.
Can Social Media Inform Corporate Decisions? Evidence from Merger Withdrawals
Anthony Cookson, Marina Niessner & Christoph Schiller
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, March 2022
Abstract:
This paper examines the role of social media in informing corporate decision-making by studying the decision of firm management to withdraw an announced merger. A standard deviation decline in abnormal social media sentiment following a merger announcement predicts a 0.73 percentage point increase in the likelihood of merger withdrawal (18.9% of the baseline rate). The informativeness of social media for merger withdrawals is not explained by abnormal price reactions or news sentiment, and in fact, it is stronger when these other signals disagree. Consistent with learning from external information, we find that the social media signal is most informative for complex mergers in which analyst conference calls take a negative tone, driven by the Q&A portion of the call. Overall, these findings imply that social media is not a sideshow, but an important aspect of firm information environment.
CEO Marketability, Employment Opportunities, and Compensation: Evidence from Compensation Peer Citations
Daewoung Choi, David Cicero & Shawn Mobbs
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mandatory disclosure of CEO compensation peers signals potential outside opportunities for the cited CEOs by revealing which companies view them as viable executive candidates. CEOs cited often as compensation peers - especially by larger firms, which represent attractive opportunities - are more likely to leave for better positions or receive compensation increases. Equity-based awards following cites by larger firms have shorter vesting periods, suggesting these CEOs gain negotiating power relative to their boards. The disclosure requirement enhanced labor market transparency and led to higher compensation for highly cited CEOs without penalizing less cited CEOs, putting upward pressure on CEO compensation.
I only fear when I hear: How media affects insider trading in takeover targets
Mark Aleksanyan et al.
Journal of Empirical Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study how target firm insiders respond to Wall Street Journal articles referring to illegal insider trading in past mergers. Such articles lead to target insider share purchases before bid announcement to drop by 75%. This effect is stronger nearer the bid announcement and increases with article visibility. It remains significant after controlling for public enforcement intensity, but is weakened by the greater potential for profitable trading. Our results suggest insider trading articles temporarily heighten the perception of litigation and reputation risks. Overall, our study indicates that such articles have a meaningful short-term deterrence effect on opportunistic insider trading, and highlights the disciplinary role of the media.
Does CEO Succession Planning (Disclosure) Create Shareholder Value?
John McConnell & Qianru Qi
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Average cumulative abnormal returns around proxy statements containing "in-depth" disclosures of planning for CEO succession are significantly positive indicating that succession planning is a value-added undertaking. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment based on a 2009 SEC ruling that induced more succession planning disclosures, we find that succession planning is not value-adding for all firms. Rather, succession planning is value-enhancing for larger, more complex, and more stable firms. Importantly, CEO succession planning appears to be value reducing for smaller, simpler, less stable firms.
Toward a "Tender Offer" Market for Labor Representation
Aneil Kovvali & Jonathan Macey
Boston College Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
American workers are not sharing in the robust growth of the economy. Traditionally, large numbers of workers sought to improve their lot by bargaining collectively through unions. But the strategy does not seem to be working for enough workers. Despite some renewed recent activity, private sector unionization rates remain below 10%, and the unions that are in place have struggled to perform well, either in avoiding scandals or in delivering significant returns to workers in the form of job security or wage growth. This Article proposes a radical fix to the problem of declining unions. Drawing inspiration from corporate governance and its success in delivering financial returns to shareholders, the Article proposes allowing pro-worker investors to offer workers cash upfront for the right to represent them. If an investor succeeds in persuading a majority of workers in a workplace, the investor would be certified as the exclusive bargaining representative for the workers, and would be entitled to a percentage of any wage gains it obtained for the workers through collective bargaining. The resulting market for union representation would deliver cash to workers upfront, allow investors to demonstrate their capacity for delivering concrete results to workers, and attract resources to the cause of improving workers' conditions of employment. The proposal's new methodological approach also provides a lens for a constructive reevaluation of the objectives and tactics of American labor law.