CEO tenure and other determinants of bank performance in Nigeria

 In 2010, the Central Bank of Nigeria announced a tenure limit policy for bank CEOs in Nigeria. Designed to evaluate this policy, this thesis found that a longer CEO tenure is actually associated with superior bank performance in Nigeria. It has therefore provided solid research evidence on the debatable policy.

Does CEO pay dispersion matter in an emerging market? Evidence from China’s listed firms

This paper examines how the institutional features of emerging economies (i.e., government ownership, political connections, and market reform) influence CEO pay-dispersion incentives. Consistent with our expectation, we find that CEO pay dispersion generally provides a tournament incentive in China's emerging market, as it is positively associated with firm performance. In addition, tournament incentives are weaker where firms are controlled by the government and where the CEO is politically connected, but it became stronger after the China's split-share structure reforms. Further, we find that in state controlled firms the satisfaction gained by meeting multiple economic and social goals largely reduces the effectiveness of tournament incentives, while the managerial agency problems inherent in private firms might mitigate them.

Shame sanctions and excessive CEO pay

The debate over excessive CEO compensation has roiled scholars,corporations, and the government for some time. This article suggests that there is an alternate way of attacking the problem of excessive executive pay—one that sidesteps the law and instead appeals to executives' emotions. Shame sanctions, as they are called, offer a nonlegal route to curbing exorbitant CEO compensation. This article argues that increased disclosure of executives' compensation agreements will trigger emotions like shame, guilt and embarrassment by corporations and executives. This in turn has the potential to influence financial behavior and cause corporations to be more likely to heed the concerns of the public and shareholders vis-à-vis executive pay.

Changing social norms and CEO pay: the role of norms entrepreneurs

This is the third in a series of papers examining different aspects of the CEO compensation debate. This Article will explore attempts by norms entrepreneurs to create or modify social norms. It argues that the relevant social norms are in a state of flux because of the work of norms entrepreneurs, whose efforts might reduce the need for legislative intervention. Several new norms like majority voting for board election, say on pay, smaller multiples for severance packages, and respect for shareholder activists may be emerging due to the work of norms entrepreneurs. Part II analyzes the rich literature on social norms to determine if there are models capable of application to better correlate executive compensation with performance. Despite several problems at the definitional level, it argues that the actions of constituencies relevant to the CEO pay debate might be explained by signaling, esteem, and expressive theories. Further, social norms theories neglecting internalization are deficient; corporate actors undertake self-improvement only when they internalize norms. Part III identifies the work of norms entrepreneurs in creating or changing norms pertaining to CEO compensation, and analyzes the reasons for their success. The examples considered demonstrate the effects of dynamic normative transformations on corporate actors and illustrate the contrast in behavioral changes accompanying resistance and acceptance of new norms. Part IV concludes that norm creation in corporate law is facilitated by the role of groups where membership benefits are dependent on reputation; that directors cannot tradeoff reputation like CEOs, making the deployment of reputational sanctions against them powerful; that behavioral change is more effective when there is norm internalization; and that norms entrepreneurs ought to focus on socializing relevant actors if they aspire to be successful in achieving normative change.

Intellectual capital disclosures and corporate governance: an empirical examination

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Empirical examinations of the links between corporate governance and intellectual capital are underresearched, particularly from the context of emerging economies where corporate governance mechanisms tend to be largely ceremonial due to family dominance. This study aims to address this gap in the intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) literature by undertaking an empirical examination of the relationship between corporate governance and the extent of ICD of Bangladeshi companies. Inter alia, the key findings of this study suggest that there is a non-linear relationship between family ownership and the extent of ICD. This research also found that foreign ownership, board independence, and the presence of audit committees are positively associated with the extent of ICD. Conversely, family duality (i.e., where the positions of CEO and chairperson are occupied by two individuals from the same family) is negatively associated with the extent of ICD.

CEO overconfidence and the impact on M&A activity

What drives mergers and acquisitions decisions? Can an overconfidence bias affect decisions within the management team? This study complements recent work developed within the behavioral finance analyses of Mergers & Acquisitions and proposes the use of new variable to measure overconfidence. Using a sample of 8,895 takeover transactions completed by 993 CEOs in the United States – between 1992 and 2008 – it can be noticed that overconfident CEOs have 22% higher odds of engaging in corporate takeovers than rational CEOs.

Empresas com CEO/Chairman fundador apresentam retorno superior ao mercado?

Esse trabalho mostra que o retorno das ações de empresas que possuem como CEO ou Chairman o próprio fundador da empresa supera o retorno do S&P 500 no período de 1995 a 2011. É realizada também uma análise utilizando-se o Modelo de 4 Fatores de Fama-French e o resultado obtido indica que a carteira possui um retorno anualizado em excesso ajustado pelo risco de 5,79% com alta significância estatística e econômica. O trabalho também propõe mais duas análises: uma decomposição setorial da carteira, onde se verifica que o setor de tecnologia é o que mais contribui com o resultado acumulado da carteira; e um estudo sobre o múltiplo P/E (preço sobre lucro) da carteira, que surpreende ao mostrar que o P/E da carteira é sistematicamente superior ao P/E do S&P 500 no período analisado.

Board of directors and top management team: a study on CEO relative power and financial return

Best corporate governance practices published in the primers of Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission and the Brazilian Corporate Governance Institute promote board independence as much as possible, as a way to increase the effectiveness of governance mechanism (Sanzovo, 2010). Therefore, this paper aims at understanding if what the managerial literature portraits as being self-evident - stricter governance, better performance - can be observed in actual evidence. The question answered is: do companies with a stricter control and monitoring system perform better than others? The method applied in this paper consists on comparing 116 companies in respect to the their independence level between top management team and board directors– being that measured by four parameters, namely, the percentage of independent outsiders in the board, the separation of CEO and chairman, the adoption of contingent compensation and the percentage of institutional investors in the ownership structure – and their financial return measured in terms return on assets (ROA) from the latest Quarterly Earnings release of 2012. From the 534 companies listed in the Stock Exchange of Sao Paulo – Bovespa – 116 were selected due to their level of corporate governance. The title “Novo Mercado” refers to the superior level of governance level within companies listed in Bovespa, as they have to follow specific criteria to assure shareholders ´protection (BM&F, 2011). Regression analyses were conducted in order to reveal the correlation level between two selected variables. The results from the regression analysis were the following: the correlation between each parameter and ROA was 10.26%; the second regression analysis conducted measured the correlation between the independence level of top management team vis-à-vis board directors – namely, CEO relative power - and ROA, leading to a multiple R of 5.45%. Understanding that the scale is a simplification of the reality, the second part of the analysis transforms all the four parameters into dummy variables, excluding what could be called as an arbitrary scale. The ultimate result from this paper led to a multiple R of 28.44%, which implies that the combination of the variables are still not enough to translate the complex reality of organizations. Nonetheless, an important finding can be taken from this paper: two variables (percentage of outside directors and percentage of institutional investor ownership) are significant in the regression, with p-value lower than 10% and with negative coefficients. In other words, counter affirming what the literature very often portraits as being self-evident – stricter governance leads to higher performance – this paper has provided evidences to believe that the increase in the formal governance structure trough outside directors in the board and ownership by institutional investor might actually lead to worse performance. The section limitations and suggestions for future researches presents some reasons explaining why, although supported by strong theoretical background, this paper faced some challenging methodological assumptions, precluding categorical statements about the level of governance – measured by four selected parameters – and the financial return in terms of financial on assets.

Duality with time-changed Lévy processes

In this paper we study the pricing problem of derivatives written in terms of a two dimensional time{changed L¶evy processes. Then, we examine an existing relation between prices of put and call options, of both the European and the American type. This relation is called put{call duality. It includes as a particular case, the relation known as put{call symmetry. Necessary and su±cient conditions for put{call symmetry to hold are shown, in terms of the triplet of local charac- teristic of the Time{changed L¶evy process. In this way we extend the results obtained in Fajardo and Mordecki (2004) to the case of time{changed Lévy processes.

Generalized duality between local vector theories in D=2+1

The existence of an interpolating master action does not guarantee the same spectrum for the interpolated dual theories. In the specific case of a generalized self-dual (GSD) model defined as the addition of the Maxwell term to the self-dual model in D = 2 + 1, previous master actions have furnished a dual gauge theory which is either nonlocal or contains a ghost mode. Here we show that by reducing the Maxwell term to first order by means of an auxiliary field we are able to define a master action which interpolates between the GSD model and a couple of non-interacting Maxwell-Chern-Simons theories of opposite helicities. The presence of an auxiliary field explains the doubling of fields in the dual gauge theory. A generalized duality transformation is defined and both models can be interpreted as self-dual models. Furthermore, it is shown how to obtain the gauge invariant correlators of the non-interacting MCS theories from the correlators of the self-dual field in the GSD model and vice-versa. The derivation of the non-interacting MCS theories from the GSD model, as presented here, works in the opposite direction of the soldering approach.

Duality of parity doublets of helicity +/- 2 in D=2+1 dimensions

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Spin-1 duality in D dimensions

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

T-duality in 2D integrable models

The non-conformal analogue of Abelian T-duality transformations relating pairs of axial and vector integrable models from the non-Abelian affine Toda family is constructed and studied in detail.