Matching Items (16)
Description
In this paper, I investigate whether participation in employee stock option exchange programs contains private information about future stock returns. High participation in employee stock option exchange programs is associated with negative future abnormal returns over the ensuing 12-month period. This association is moderated by the transparency of the firm's information environment: high institutional ownership and high financial statement informativeness weaken the negative relation between participation and abnormal returns. Controlling for transparency of the firms' information environment, the association between participation and future returns arises primarily from firms that allow the CEO to participate.
ContributorsMakridis, Vanessa Radick (Author) / Matejka, Michal (Thesis advisor) / Hwang, Yuhchang (Committee member) / Kaplan, Steven E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this study, I examine the extent to which firms rely on relative performance evaluation (RPE) when setting executive compensation. In particular, I examine whether firms use information about peer performance to determine compensation at the end of the year, i.e. after both firm and peer performance are observed. I find that RPE is most pronounced for firms that allow little or no scope for ex post subjective adjustments to annual bonuses. Conversely, firms that rely mainly on subjectivity in determining bonus exhibit little use of RPE. These findings suggest that information about peer performance is not used at the end of the year. Instead, peer performance seems to be incorporated in performance targets at the beginning of the year, at least among firms primarily using objective performance measurements. In addition, I provide new evidence on the determinants of the use of subjectivity.
ContributorsTsui, Stephanie (Author) / Matejka, Michal (Thesis advisor) / Hwang, Yuhchang (Committee member) / Kaplan, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this study, I test whether firms reduce the information asymmetry stemming from the political process by investing in political connections. I expect that connected firms enjoy differential access to relevant political information, and use this information to mitigate the negative consequences of political uncertainty. I investigate this construct in the context of firm-specific investment, where prior literature has documented a negative relation between investment and uncertainty. Specifically, I regress firm investment levels on the interaction of time-varying political uncertainty and the degree of a firm's political connectedness, controlling for determinants of investment, political participation, general macroeconomic conditions, and firm and time-period fixed effects. Consistent with prior work, I first document that firm-specific investment levels are significantly lower during periods of increased uncertainty, defined as the year leading up to a national election. I then assess the extent that political connections offset the negative effect of political uncertainty. Consistent with my hypothesis, I document the mitigating effect of political connections on the negative relation between investment levels and political uncertainty. These findings are robust to controls for alternative explanations related to the pre-electoral manipulation hypothesis and industry-level political participation. These findings are also robust to alternative specifications designed to address the possibility that time-invariant firm characteristics are driving the observed results. I also examine whether investors consider time-varying political uncertainty and the mitigating effect of political connections when capitalizing current earnings news. I find support that the earnings-response coefficient is lower during periods of increased uncertainty. However, I do not find evidence that investors incorporate the value relevant information in political connections as a mitigating factor.
ContributorsWellman, Laura (Author) / Dhaliwal, Dan (Thesis advisor) / Hillegeist, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Walther, Beverly (Committee member) / Mikhail, Mike (Committee member) / Hillman, Amy (Committee member) / Brown, Jenny (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study provides new evidence on the choice of performance measures used in dual-class firms to incentivize CEOs. The choice of performance measures is informative about the extent to which the board of directors focuses CEO efforts on firms' long-term versus short-term objectives. To empirically operationalize performance evaluation horizon, I measure the length of the performance evaluation period in CEO stock awards, the use of stock-based measures, and the use of peer-based measures. I collect data on 419 dual-class firms and match them with a control group of single-class firms. I find that market-based metrics are less likely to be used by dual-class firms relative to single-class firms. In addition, I find that peer-based measures are much less common for dual-class than single-class firms. These findings suggest that dual-class firms shield their executives from short-term market pressures and design stock compensation contracts that deemphasize volatile stock prices.
ContributorsLi, Ji (Author) / Matejka, Michal (Thesis advisor) / Hwang, Yuhchang (Committee member) / Reckers, Philip (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
A Chief Audit Executive (CAE) is the leader of a company’s internal audit function. Because there is no mandated disclosure requirement for the internal audit structure, little is understood about the influence of a CAE on a company. Following the logic that a CAE disclosed in SEC filings is more influential in a company’s oversight function, I identify an influential CAE using the disclosure of the role. I then examine the association between an influential CAE and monitoring outcomes. Using data hand collected from SEC filings for S&P 1500 companies from 2004 to 2015, I find companies that have an influential CAE are generally larger, older, and have a larger corporate board. More importantly, I find that an influential CAE in NYSE-listed companies is associated with higher internal control quality. This association is stronger for companies that reference a CAE’s direct interaction with the audit committee. This study provides an initial investigation into a common, but little understood position in corporate oversight.
ContributorsZhang, Wei (Author) / Lamoreaux, Phillip (Thesis advisor) / Kaplan, Steve (Committee member) / Li, Yinghua (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This study investigates the relation between credit supply competition among banks and their clients’ conditional accounting conservatism (i.e., asymmetric timely loss recognition). The Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act (IBBEA) of 1994 permits banks and bank holding companies to expand their business across state lines, introducing a positive shock to credit supply competition in the banking industry. The increase in credit supply competition weakens banks’ bargaining power in the negotiation process, which in turn may weaken their ability to demand conservative financial reporting from borrowers. Consistent with this prediction, results show that firms report less conservatively after the IBBEA is passed in their headquartered states. The effect of the IBBEA on conditional conservatism is particularly stronger for firms in states with a greater increase in competition among banks, firms whose operations are more concentrated in their headquarter states, firms with greater financial constraints, and firms subject to less external monitoring. Robustness tests confirm that the observed decline in conditional conservatism is causally related to the passage of IBBEA. Overall, this study highlights the impact of credit supply competition on financial reporting practices.
ContributorsHuang, Wei (Author) / Li, Yinghua (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Xiaochuan (Committee member) / Kaplan, Steve (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
In 2004, the American Jobs Creation Act allowed a yearlong repatriation holiday for corporations in the United States. The corporations could bring their earnings back to the United States at a considerably reduced tax rate under this repatriation holiday. Despite some criticisms of the original repatriation holiday, there have been attempts to recreate the repatriation holiday. I created an estimate of what the companies who participated in the first repatriation holiday would pay in taxes and what amount of previously permanently reinvested earnings they would be able to bring back to the United States under a second repatriation holiday. This revealed $744 billion in post-tax earnings that could be brought back to the United States. The data is a good starting point for expanded research on the impacts and implications of a new repatriation holiday, despite the hypothetical nature of the data and its potential for obsolescence.
ContributorsMasters, Matthew Brandon (Author) / Brown, Jenny (Thesis director) / Levendowski, Glenda (Committee member) / Duncan, William (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
This paper will discuss the creation of account level basis pooling in order to measure the basis of transactions occurring within virtual worlds. The paper examines the history of virtual worlds and how they impact the debate on virtual taxation. Furthermore, it addresses the difference in virtual world taxation proposals and how they affect tracing basis through virtual worlds. The proposal will address the administrability concerns that face tracing basis through virtual property.
ContributorsJohnson, Kyle Andrew (Author) / Brown, Jenny (Thesis director) / Chodorow, Adam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The results in this research study shows that experience with corruption affects a person's behavior, although it does not impact their attitude towards corruption. Condemnation to both corruption and bribery is widespread amongst citizens of both countries; however, more Angolan citizens experienced bribe demands and confessed paying more bribes than Brazilians did. This paper studies the effect of corruption towards citizens by analyzing a sample of 200 surveyed Brazilians and Angolans. The surveys questioned participants about their (i.) experience with corruption by looking at the number of bribe demands, (ii.) attitudes by identifying their values or views towards corruption and bribery and finally (iii.) their behavior through their actions.
ContributorsFernandes, Domingas Manuela Da Fonseca (Author) / Samuelson, Melissa (Thesis director) / Kaplan, Steve (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
The relative performance evaluation (RPE) hypothesis holds that executive compensation should not depend on uncontrollable exogenous shocks. Nevertheless, prior studies often find limited empirical support for this hypothesis in part because it is difficult to identify peers exposed to the same exogenous shocks. I propose a new way to identify peers and to test the RPE hypothesis in the context of a specific shock. In particular, I select peers based on the sensitivity of their stock returns to exchange rate fluctuations. I find evidence that firms respond to large exchange rate movements by ex post adjusting their peer selection to include peers with similar exchange rate risk exposure. Moreover, after allowing for ex post peer group adjustments, I find a much stronger support for the RPE hypothesis than most of prior work.
ContributorsChen, Bing (Author) / Matejka, Michal (Thesis advisor) / Casas Arce, Pablo (Committee member) / Kaplan, Steve (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017