Positive Wealth Effects Research Articles

Financial Leverage, Product Quality Failures, and Product Market Effects: Evidence from Product Recalls

We study the impact of financial leverage on severe product quality failures that result in product recalls. Using a variety of tests, including two quasi-natural experiments that result in exogenous negative cash flow shocks to firms, we find that firms with higher financial leverage or likelihood of distress have a greater probability of a product recall. This is consistent with the view that these firms face investment distortions, either due to financial constraints or debt overhang, which adversely affect product quality. Further tests indicate that financial constraints, more so than debt overhang, have a greater economic impact in explaining the quality-leverage relation. Consistent with the view that taking on high debt relative to rivals makes the firm a weaker competitor, we find that recalling firms with high relative leverage experience more negative wealth effects to recalls while their industry rivals experience more positive wealth effects. These effects are, however, confined to the sub-sample of recalls in oligopolistic industries, where strategic interactions between firms are more likely. Key suppliers’ losses are exacerbated when they have more leverage or have committed larger relationship-specific investments. Overall, our paper highlights the effect of leverage not only on product quality at the firm level, but also on the broader product market effects of product quality failures.

Housing price and entrepreneurship in China

Housing price has increased dramatically in China during the past decade. The appreciation of house value could relax credit constraint and thus encourage entrepreneurship. However, a house serves as both an important investment channel and a prerequisite for marriage in China. The continuous high return of investment in housing and intensified marriage market competition make house purchase a priority for young people and their parents, which would crowd out entrepreneurial activities. Using two large datasets, we find that high housing price in general discourages entrepreneurial activities for urban adults. For house owners, while house value appreciation has a positive wealth effect, the ratio of mortgage over income has a negative effect. For non-owners, a higher ratio of housing price over income corresponds to a lower probability of entrepreneurship. This study highlights the negative consequences of surging housing price on entrepreneurship in developing countries.

Auction Design Without Quasilinear Preferences

I analyze private value auction design and assume only that bidders are risk averse and have positive wealth effects (i.e. the good is normal). I show removing the standard quasilinearity restriction leads to qualitatively different solutions to the auction design problem with respect to both efficiency or revenue maximization. On efficiency, I show that probabilistic allocations of the good can Pareto dominate the second price auction; and there is no dominant-strategy mechanism that is both Pareto efficient and individually rationality. On revenue, I construct a probability demand mechanism with greater expected revenues than standard auctions when there are sufficiently many bidders. In addition, I take a new approach to studying bid behavior when types are multidimensional. Instead of characterizing bidder's interim incentive constraints, I place bounds on their bids, and I show that these bounds are sufficient for obtaining revenue comparisons.

A Study of Wealth Effects of Takeover Announcements in India on Target Company Shareholders

The business strategy of inorganic growth is carried out by companies by resorting to actions which prominently include mergers, takeovers, and strategic alliances. There is a rapid growth of both mergers and takeovers in India subsequent to the economic liberalization. The companies consider takeover activity as the quickest means of corporate growth to enhance their size and face the domestic and global competition. In spite of several decades of vast research, researchers have not come to the final conclusion on the wealth effect of announcements of takeovers on the shareholders of participating companies. While some studies justify takeover as a socially productive activity which creates value for the shareholders, others provide contrary evidences to show that they destroy value for the shareholders. In India, only some studies have analysed the impact of M&A announcements on the stock return performance of companies involved and there is lack of evidences on wealth effects on shareholders. Therefore, this paper assesses the impact of takeover announcement on the stock price performance of target companies by taking a sample of 227 companies which received takeover bids during 1998–2007. The stock price reaction is examined for a period of 61 days surrounding the bid announcement day employing standard market model. BSE- 200 index is used as a proxy for the market. The regression co-efficient and the constant terms are estimated over a period of 250 days (-280 to -31) and the statistical significance of the results of the study is determined by non-standardized and standardized abnormal return methods. Both raw returns and log returns are examined. Results of the study show that target company shareholders experience substantial and statistically significant cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) of 27-37 percent — 37 percent when raw returns are employed and 27 percent when log returns are employed. The conclusions remain unchanged irrespective of the testing procedure used (i.e., non-standardized or standardized abnormal returns method) and even for several shorter event window periods within a broader event window of 61 days. The results for target companies are consistent with the evidence of extant research that major benefits from M&As accrue to target company shareholders. The practical implication of the study is that there is a large and significantly positive wealth effect on the target company shareholders in response to the announcement of takeovers. Takeovers offer an opportunity to shareholders of target companies and general investors to make profits both in the period before and after the announcement of the takeover bid.

Frequent cross-border acquirers from emerging countries and cultural distance: Does the cultural difference of the initial deal matter?

This paper analyzes the relationship between national cultural differences and the performances of repeated cross-border acquirers from emerging countries, using a sample of 1079 deals conducted by 337 acquirers for the sample period of 1985–June 2008. Empirical results indicate that cross-border acquisitions on average are associated with positive wealth effects; however, for firms starting with deals with high cultural differences, abnormal returns become near zero for subsequent deals. The evidence points to the relevance of the culture factor. Moreover, the results can be consistent with either the hubris behavior (Roll, 1986) or a learning effect (Aktas et al., 2011). Conditional on successful first deals, declining abnormal return pattern is more pronounced, compared to unconditional results. Regression analyses that control for other factors point to the same conclusion that the declining abnormal return pattern is significant only for firms with high initial cultural differences. The results remain qualitatively the same after using an alternative cultural measure and accounting for country median and information asymmetry. In addition, evidence suggests that information asymmetry is greater for initial deals with higher cultural differences. The practical implication of our results is that it is generally better for firms to start international acquisitions in countries with low or medium cultural differences.

The consumption-real exchange rate anomaly with extensive margins

This paper investigates a consumption-real exchange rate anomaly from the open macroeconomics literature known as the Backus-Smith puzzle. We both analytically and quantitatively examine how an expansion of trade along extensive margins can contribute to the puzzle's resolution. Our argument is based on 1) a wealth effect due to changes in the number of product varieties, 2) statistical inefficiency in measuring the number of product varieties, and 3) market incompleteness. Contrary to complete asset markets which, in general, feature overly strong risk sharing properties, changes in the number of product varieties under incomplete markets may produce a wealth effect under high trade elasticity. Since statistical agencies systematically fail to capture the welfare impact arising from that changes, data-consistent terms of trade and real exchange rates tend to appreciate due to this positive wealth effect. This provides a realistic correlation between data-consistent real exchange rates and consumption.

The light and dark side of TARP

This paper empirically investigates the impact of the first announcement of TARP, the announcement of revised TARP, respective capital infusions under TARP–CPP and capital repayments on changes in shareholder value and the risk exposure of supported US banks. Our analysis reveals a light and a dark side of TARP. While announcements as well as capital repayments may provoke positive wealth effects and a decrease in bank risk, equity capital injections to banks are observed to be a severe impediment to restore market confidence and financial stability. Furthermore, while TARP announcements and capital injections may increase systemic risk, no significant effect on systemic risk is found for capital repayments.

Effects of public investment on sectoral private investment: A factor augmented VAR approach

Public investment decreases aggregate private investment in both neoclassical and Keynesian models. There are no findings, however, on how public investment affects private investment on a disaggregated basis, such as sectoral private investment. More specifically, previous research has neglected the distinctions of sectoral investment behavior in response to public investment and the possibility of crowd-in effects in some industries, such as industries blessed with public demand. Meanwhile, public investment decreases sectoral private investment not only by keeping rental cost high, but also by differences in the resource misallocation effect of public investment itself; one sector receives a positive wealth effect while another suffers the opposite. In this paper we use a factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR), a model capable of analyzing large-scale VAR models, to investigate the extent to which public investment is crowded out or crowded in in different categories of industrial investment. Our results demonstrate that public investment confers different effects, both quantitative and qualitative, in individual sectors. This implies that public investment reaps different benefits in different sectors and that it can bring the worse effect of resource misallocation on some sectors.

REIT stock dividends: the policy and intra‐industry wealth effects

PurposeDuring the height of the financial/credit crisis of 2008, the US Internal Revenue Service issued temporary guidance that permits REITs (real estate investment trusts) to retain cash and pay “effective stock dividends” through 2009 to meet their income distribution requirement. The purpose of this study is to investigate the policy implications of this guidance on shareholders' wealth and the intra‐industry effects for non‐event, rival REITs when event REITs announced elective stock dividends.Design/methodology/approachThis study identified the announcements of the Revenue Procedures 2008‐68 and 2009‐15 and subsequent six equity REITs announcing the distribution of effective stock dividends in the first quarter of 2009. To assess their implications, this study adopted the event study methodology and multivariate regressions to examine the REIT price reactions and their distribution to the Revenue Procedure announcements and to the elective stock dividend announcements, respectively.FindingsThe Revenue Procedure announcements have positive wealth effects on the entire REIT market and REITs with higher leverage enjoy larger abnormal returns. During firm stock dividend announcement windows, non‐event, rival REITs have higher positive price reactions when the event firm and the non‐event firm are not alike and their returns have a low correlation coefficient, when the event firm has a large negative abnormal price reaction, and when the event firm pays cash/stock dividends in the mixture of 40 percent:60 percent, instead of 10 percent:90percent.Practical implicationsThe results will help REIT investors to make better decisions. This study produces important implications for investors to pick REITs which are likely to experience higher returns at periods of turmoil when announcements about dividend policy changes are expected.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study looking into intra‐industry effects of REIT dividend announcements and the policy implications of the elective REIT stock dividends permitted by the US Internal Revenue Service. The results of this study show that the informational signals associated with these announcement events are rich and have intra‐industry implications on REIT share prices.

The Informational Role of Acquirer Dividend Policy in Corporate Takeovers

Various studies have analyzed the main determinants of payment method in M&As since the 1980s. We survey 2,260 US acquisitions to determine how relative the existing dividend policy of the acquirer affects the choice of the payment method. Based on the contingent-pricing effect of stock offer, we hypothesize that the likelihood of stock payment increase with the pre-merger dividend policy of the acquirer since the information content of dividends can alleviate adverse selection effects. In a second step, we show that bidder announcement returns are, on average, less negative in all-stock offers for listed targets when the acquirer is a dividend payer. Our findings indicate that acquirer dividend level is a determinant of payment method choice in acquisitions of publicly traded firms. The price reaction analysis suggests that the positive wealth effect is related to the informative effect of acquirer dividend against the risk of information asymmetry when using stock as a means of payment.

Drug approval decisions: A note on stock liquidity effects

Abstract We analyze the relationship between positive stock returns, changes in trading activities, and liquidity improvements following drug approval announcements. Using a unique hand-collected data set on approval decisions in Europe, we find that stock liquidity does change. Stocks temporarily exhibit strong abnormal trading volume, lower spreads, and permanently become more liquid. Our results suggest that the initial positive wealth effect of a new drug release reflects both positive information content and liquidity improvements.

The Informational Role of Acquirer Dividend Policy in Corporate Takeovers

Various studies have analyzed the main determinants of payment method in M&As since the 1980s. We examine how relative the existing dividend policy of the acquirer affects the choice of the payment method. Based on the contingent-pricing effect of stock offer, we hypothesize that the likelihood of stock payment increase with the pre-merger dividend policy of the bidder since the information content of dividends can alleviate adverse selection effects. In a second step, we show that bidder announcement returns are, on average, less negative in all-stock offers for public targets when the acquirer is a dividend payer. Our analysis suggests that the positive wealth effect is related to the informative effect of acquirer dividend against adverse selection risk when using stock as a means of payment.

The simple macroeconomics of fiscal austerity: Public debt, deficits and deficit caps

This paper explores the macroeconomics of fiscal austerity. A binding budget deficit cap makes the economy more volatile by turning the government budget into an automatic destabilizer. Public debt helps maintain aggregate demand (AD) in the presence of a lower price level because a lower price level increases the real value of public interest payments and also has a positive wealth effect. That makes public debt significantly different from private debt. If the economy is subject to a binding deficit cap public debt may no longer stabilize output. This is because increased real interest payments may be matched by spending cuts, giving rise to a negative balanced budget multiplier.

Activism

The US recovery from the 2008 financial and economic crisis has been disappointingly tepid. What is most notable in sifting through the variables that might conceivably account for the lacklustre rebound in GDP growth and the persistence of high unemployment is the unusually low level of corporate illiquid long-term fixed asset investment. As a share of corporate liquid cash flow, it is at its lowest level since 1940. This contrasts starkly with the robust recovery in the markets for liquid corporate securities. What, then, accounts for this exceptionally elevated level of illiquidity aversion? I break down the broad potential sources, and analyse them with standard regression techniques. I infer that a minimum of half and possibly as much as three-fourths of the effect can be explained by the shock of vastly greater uncertainties embedded in the competitive, regulatory and financial environments faced by businesses since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, deriving from the surge in government activism. This explanation is buttressed by comparison with similar conundrums experienced during the 1930s. I conclude that the current government activism is hampering what should be a broad-based robust economic recovery, driven in significant part by the positive wealth effect of a buoyant U.S. and global stock market.

Wealth effects of private equity investments on the German stock market

This paper investigates the wealth effects of private equity (PE) investor purchases of shares in German quoted companies. It is the first study to analyse these effects for the German market, which is particularly interesting due to its distinct characteristics with regard to the ownership structure of publicly listed companies and the protection of minority shareholders. We find that PE investors generate positive wealth effects for target shareholders of 5.90% around the event day (t=−1 to t=0). In addition, we find that the wealth effects of PE investor involvement in Germany are positively related to the target's tax liabilities and degree of undervaluation and negatively related to the target's leverage and the shareholding of the second largest ownership block. The latter effect can be interpreted as a supplementary monitoring effect of the management or a monitoring effect of the largest shareholder through which private benefits of control are reduced.

REIT Performance and Lines of Credit

Executive Summary. Using a sample of equity real estateinvestment trusts (REITs) traded on major exchangesin the United States between 1990 and 2009,this study examines the relationship between REIT lineof credit usage and subsequent firm profitability. The results,which are robust across multiple accounting measuresof firm operating performance, indicate enhancedliquidity is strongly associated with better firm performance.Furthermore, the benefits of enhanced liquidity appearto be strongest for those firms identified as beingcapital constrained. These results also provide insightinto, and a rational economic justification for, the previouslydocumented positive borrower wealth effects associatedwith bank loan announcements.

Sources of Gains in Corporate Mergers: Refined Tests from a Neglected Industry

Our work provides refined tests of the existence and source of merger gains in a neglected industry: utilities. While excluded from traditional analyses, utilities offer fertile ground for a detailed analysis of the traditional theories of synergy, collusion, hubris and anticipation. The analysis of utilities provides methodological advantages and is important for public policy reasons. We find that utility mergers create wealth for the combined bidder and target. These positive wealth effects are consistent with both the synergy hypothesis and the collusion hypothesis. To distinguish between the hypotheses, we study the stock price returns to industry rivals across several dimensions specifically related to collusion: deregulation, horizontal mergers, geography, and withdrawn deals. We also examine the impact of mergers on consumer prices. The results are consistent with synergy and inconsistent with collusion. Analysis of industry rivals that subsequently become targets also rejects the collusion hypothesis and is consistent with the anticipation hypothesis.

Information effects of announced stock index additions: evidence from S&P 400

The study examines the information content of press announcements of S&P 400 additions between 2002 and 2007. Prior research into stock index additions has explained the positive valuation effects of additions to S&P indices mostly in terms of the price pressure hypothesis and downward sloping curve hypothesis. The two hypotheses attribute the positive market reaction purely to index-fund buying rather than information effects of announcements. My empirical investigation further reinforces the credibility of the information hypothesis by showing that the market varies its response to added firms depending on the information released about them at the announcement. The analysis demonstrates that the mode of addition, exchange listing, reason for index change, and firm size can modulate valuation effects of stock index additions. The paper also strengthens the argument that announcements of additions to an S&P index contain new signals about the industries represented by the added firms. Positive and significant wealth effects are exclusively attributable to “non-member” rival firms. Overall, the results imply that the market discerns and rewards firms that come from outside the S&P universe (pure additions) and rival firms that are not part of a target index.

Does bancassurance add value for banks? – Evidence from mergers and acquisitions between European banks and insurance companies

This paper investigates the risk and wealth effects of 72 mergers and acquisitions between banks in Europe and insurance companies during the period 1989–2004. The empirical results indicate that acquirers’ total risks remain constant relative to the world, home market indices and home banking indices. There are no changes for the systematic risks (beta) with respect to the world market index or the home banking index. After removing world and home market indices effect, systematic risk against home banking index reduce significantly for domestic deals. In addition, positive wealth effects are documented. Two factors have contributed to the bidders’ cumulative abnormal returns (CARs): relative deal size and being a serial acquirer. Finally, change of beta shows negative relations with CARs.

The Wealth Effects of Takeover Announcement for Firms in the Financial Services Sector in India

Using the parametric and non-parametric tests, this study aims to understand the wealth effects of shareholders of bidder, target and combined firms on the announcement of takeovers. The sample for the study consists of targets from financial sector which are listed in Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and listed (in BSE) corporate bidders of the aforesaid targets. The period covered by the study begins with the new millennium from January 2001 and extends to December 2007. The findings suggest that the shareholders of target firms earn significantly positive abnormal returns on takeover announcements, but further analysis reveals that the positive returns was the contribution of only 19 firms, while, for the remaining 48 firms, there was no market reaction on takeover announcements. Apparently, there was some evidence that bidders experienced post-event positive wealth effects on takeover announcements. But this was not true for the majority as the significant findings were the outcome of the reaction of only two firms. On analysis of the combined returns, positive results were observed, but this was again largely because of two pairs of companies generating significantly positive results. Overall, these results seem to suggest that except for a few cases, which show positive returns, takeovers in the financial services sector in general do not evoke market reaction.