Agency Conflicts and Corporate Payout Policies: A Global Study

We investigate the roles of finn and country level agency conflicts in determining corporate payout policics. Based on a large sample of 29,610 firms in 42 countries from 2001 to 2006, we show there is a form of "pecking order" in investors' ability to extract cash (whether as dividends only or share repurchases) from firms. Although investors are able to use their legal powers to extract cash from firms in high protection countries, their ability to do so can be substantially hindered when agency costs at the firm level are high. In poor protection countries, investors seem to take whatever cash they can get, even though the amount may be small, and with scant regard for investment opportunities and firm level agency conflicts. Finally, compared to repurchases, we find dividends are more likely to be the sole method of payout in high protection countries and in non insider-dominated firms.

The'dream'of multi-agency crime prevention : pitfalls in policy and practice

During the 1980s, terms such as interagency or multi-agency cooperation, collaboration, coordination, and interaction have became permanent features of both crime prevention rhetoric and government crime policy. The concept of having the government, local authorities, and the community working in partnership has characterized both left and right politics for over a decade. The U.S. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals in the U.S.. Circulars 8/84 and 44/90 released by the U.K. Home Office, and the British Morgan Report-coupled with the launch of government strategies in France, the Netherlands, England and Wales, Australia, and, more recently, in Belgium, New Zealand, and Canada-have all emphasized the importance of agencies working together to prevent or reduce crime. This paper draws upon recent Australian research and critically analyzes multi-agency crime prevention. It suggests that agency conflicts and power struggles may be exacerbated by neo-liberal economic theory, by the politics of crime prevention management, and by policies that aim to combine situational and social prevention endeavors. Furthermore, it concludes that indigenous peoples are excluded by crime prevention strategies that fail to define and interpret crime and its prevention in culturally appropriate ways.

Essays on the Costs and Benefits of Large Shareholders in Corporate Governance (summary section only)

“Corporate governance deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to firms assure themselves of getting a return on their investment” (Shleifer and Vishny (1997, p. 737). According to La Porta et al. (1999), research in corporate finance relevant for most countries should focus on the incentives and capabilities of controlling shareholders to treat themselves preferentially at the expense of minority shareholders. Accordingly, this thesis sets out to answer a number of research questions regarding the role of large shareholders in public firms that have received little attention in the literature so far. A common theme in the essays stems from the costs and benefits of individual large-block owners and the role of control contestability from the perspective of outside minority shareholders. The first essay empirically examines whether there are systematic performance differences between family controlled and nonfamily controlled firms in Western Europe. In contrast to the widely held view that family control penalizes firm value, the essay shows that publicly traded family firms have higher performance than comparable firms. In the second essay, we present both theoretical and empirical analysis on the effects of control contestability on firm valuation. Consistent with the theoretical model, the empirical results show that minority shareholders benefit from a more contestable control structure. The third essay explores the effects of individual large-block owners on top management turnover and board appointments in Finnish listed firms. The results indicate that firm performance is an important determinant for management and board restructurings. For certain types of turnover decisions the corporate governance structure influences the performance / turnover sensitivity. In the fourth essay, we investigate the relation between the governance structure and dividend policy in Finnish listed firms. We find evidence in support of the outcome agency model of dividends stating that lower agency conflicts should be associated with higher dividend payouts.

Corporate Governance in China (summary section only)

The negative relationship between economic growth and stock market return is not an anomaly according to evidence documented in many economies. It is argued that future economic growth is largely irrelevant for predicting future equity returns, since long-run equity returns depend mainly on dividend yields and the growth of per share dividends. The economic growth does result in a higher standard of living for consumers, but does not necessarily translate into higher returns for owners of the capital. The divergence in performance between the real sector and stock markets appears to support the above argument. However, this thesis strives to offer an alternative explanation to the apparent divergence within the framework of corporate governance. It argues that weak corporate governance standards in Chinese listed firms exacerbated by poor inventor protection results into a marginalized capital market. Each of the three essays in the thesis addresses one particular aspect of corporate governance on the Chinese stock market in a sequential way through gathering empirical evidence on three distinctive stock market activities. The first essay questions whether significant agency conflicts do exist by building a game on rights issues. It documents significant divergence in interests among shareholders holding different classes of shares. The second essay investigates the level of agency costs by examining value of control through constructing a sample of block transactions. It finds that block transactions that transfer ultimate control entail higher premiums. The third essay looks into possible avenues through which corporate governance standards could be improved by investigating the economic consequences of cross-listing on the Chinese stock market. It finds that, by adopting a higher disclosure standard through cross-listings, firms voluntarily commit themselves to reducing information asymmetry, and consequently command higher valuation than their counterparts.

Um estudo sobre a relação entre ações preferenciais e valor de mercado das empresas brasileiras de capital aberto

O mercado de capitais brasileiro se caracteriza pela alta concentração de poder nas mãos de poucos acionistas controladores. No Brasil, a existência de ações preferenciais sem direito a voto enseja o surgimento de conflito de agência entre acionistas controladores e acionistas minoritários, agravado pelo fato de que o controle pode ser exercido com uma participação relativamente pequena sobre o total de ações emitidas pelas companhias. A concentração de propriedade permitiria a possibilidade de expropriação dos direitos dos minoritários. Diversos estudos empíricos vêm sendo realizados ao longo dos últimos anos com o objetivo de avaliar a influência da estrutura de propriedade das ações sobre o valor de mercado das companhias. Nesse contexto, o presente trabalho pretende trazer novas contribuições, com ênfase na participação de ações preferenciais na estrutura de propriedade. Neste trabalho, usando uma amostra de empresas de capital aberto negociadas na BM&FBOVESPA, a partir de teste de diferença de médias, rejeita-se a hipótese de igualdade de valor entre empresas que só possuem ações ON em sua estrutura de propriedade, em relação às que possuem ambos os tipos, ON e PN. Em continuidade, usando modelos de regressão linear, encontra-se relação negativa estatisticamente significativa entre valor de mercado das empresas e variável utilizada para caracterizar a estrutura de propriedade, especificamente, a diferença entre o percentual de participação dos acionistas não controladores no total de ações PN e o percentual de participação dos acionistas controladores no total de ações PN.

Board independence and innovation

Legislation introduced in the U.S. in 2002/2003 significantly changed board composition of public firms by imposing a 50% independent directors’ ratio. Research on the effect of independent directors is not consensual, implying that this exogenous shock is a unique opportunity to study their importance. This study answers the question of whether or not independent directors can effectively mitigate agency conflicts between shareholders and the management, having a positive impact on the choice of successful R&D projects. We find that an increase of board independence has a positive impact on patent counts. Hence, the results support that independent directors truly spur innovation and risk taking.

Effect of executive compensation on firm performance

The paper finds evidence that the equity-based CEO pay is positively related to firm performance and risk-taking. Both stock price and operating performance as well as firm's riskiness increase in the pay-performance sensitivities (PPS) provided by CEO stock options and stock holdings. PPS can explain stock returns better as an additional factor to the Fama-French 3-factor model. When CEOs are compensated with higher PPS, firms experience higher return on asset (ROA). The higher PPS also leads to the higher risk-taking. While CEO incentive compensation has been perceived mixed on its effectiveness, this study provides support to the equity-based CEO compensation in reducing agency conflicts between CEOs and shareholders.

Promoting while checking self-interest : a conflict-based governance approach to rebalance corporate power disequilibria in Canada and the United States

La délégation du pouvoir de gestion aux administrateurs et aux gestionnaires, une caractéristique intrinsèque à la gestion efficace de grandes entreprises dans un contexte de capitalisme, confère une grande discrétion à l’équipe de direction. Cette discrétion, si elle n’est pas surveillée, peut mener à des comportements opportunistes envers la corporation, les actionnaires et les autres fournisseurs de capital qui n’ont pas de pouvoir de gestion. Les conflits entre ces deux classes d’agents peuvent émerger à la fois de décisions de gouvernance générale ou de transactions particulières (ie. offre publique d’achat). Dans les cas extrêmes, ces conflits peuvent mener à la faillite de la firme. Dans les cas plus typiques, ils mènent l’extraction de bénéfices privés pour les administrateurs et gestionnaires, l’expropriation des actionnaires, et des réductions de valeur pour la firme. Nous prenons le point de vue d’un petit actionnaire minoritaire pour explorer les méchanismes de gouvernance disponibles au Canada et aux États‐Unis. Après une synthèse dans la Partie 1 des théories sous‐jacentes à l’étude du pouvoir dans la corporation (séparation de la propriété et du contrôle et les conflits d’agence), nous concentrons notre analyse dans la Partie 2 sur les différents types de méchanismes (1) de gouvernance interne, (2) juridiques et (3) marchands, qui confèrent du pouvoir aux deux classes d’agents. Nous examinons comment les intérêts de ces deux classes peuvent être réalignés afin de prévenir et résoudre les conflits au sein de la firme. La Partie 3 explore un équilibre dynamique de pouvoir corporatif qui cherche à minimiser le potentiel d’opportunisme toute en préservant une quantité de discrétion suffisante pour la gestion efficace de la firme. Nous analysons des moyens pour renforcer les protections des actionnaires minoritaires et proposons un survol des pistes de réforme possibles.

The impact of ownership structure on corporate debt policy : two stage least square simultaneous model approach for post crisis period : evidence from Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

Ownership concentration as a governance mechanism has received considerable attention among academician, practitioners as well as policy makers because large-block shareholders are increasingly active in their demands that corporations adopt effective governance mechanisms to control managerial decisions, which include corporate debt policy. Earlier study on the agency model of the firm widely recognizes that the managerial ownership and external debt play an important role in mitigating agency conflicts and enhancing firm value. They also found that increase in the external monitors, for example the institutional investors, can actually play a useful role in limiting agency problems in the firm. This paper, using 100 Composite Index companies from Brusa Malaysia between 1998 to 2002 explores the impact of institutional holdings on managerial ownership and debt policy in an integrated framework by using a simultaneous equations estimation procedure (2SLS). The findings show that there is a significant impact of institutional ownership which serves effective control mechanism on managerial ownership and corporate debt policy as hypothesized. Findings of such evidence suggest that institutional holding thus have played an important role in managers' strategic management decision and reduce agency conflict. In addition, corporate debt policy too is governed by managerial ownership and exhibited a negative relation.

Family control and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China

This study examines the effect of family control on the cash holding policy in China. We find that family firms with excess control rights tend to have high cash holdings that are tunneled rather than being invested or paid to shareholders. We further show that the incentive for controlling families to hold cash and for tunneling is exacerbated by the agency conflict between controlling and minority shareholders, i.e., it is weakened after the Chinese Non-tradable share (NTS) reform and strengthened by the presence of multiple large shareholders who probably play no monitoring role in Chinese family firms. Furthermore, family firms’ incentive to hold cash for tunneling is influenced by the unique characteristics of Chinese firms in the following ways: the incentive is stronger when the family founder has one child and face family succession problem, and when the founder has political connections and directly involves in firm’s management; while it is weakened by family founder’s social interpersonal trust with other entrepreneurs through their membership of Chambers of Commerce. Overall, we argue that family firms in China tend to hold high levels of cash for tunneling, which harms firm value, while the severe controlling-minority shareholder agency conflicts and unique Chinese family characteristics only make this situation worse.

Does control-ownership divergence impair market liquidity in an emerging market? Evidence from China

This paper examines how institutional characteristics of emerging economies influence the effect of control-ownership divergence on market liquidity. We find that the divergence is negatively associated with liquidity and that this negative relationship is more pronounced in firms with more severe agency problems and information asymmetry. We argue that in an emerging market, the negative effect of the divergence on liquidity is worsened by state ownership and poorer shareholder protection, both of which result in more severe agency conflicts; we also find, however, that this effect is alleviated by the NTS reform, which aligns the interest of different shareholders.

Corporate opacity and cost of debt for family firms

This paper uses a sample of Chinese firms to examine the impact of corporate opacity on the relationship between family control and firms’ cost of debt. We find that family control is associated with a lower cost of debt on average, and a negative impact exists mainly in firms with relatively low corporate opacity. We further provide evidence that the moderating effect of corporate opacity becomes more pronounced when investors’ perception of controlling families’ moral hazard of expropriation is higher. Our results are robust to alternative opacity proxies and controlling for endogeneity of family control using the instrumental variable method. Our study highlights that controlling families are heterogeneous in their impact on the shareholder–debtholder relationship in family firms, and debtholders view corporate opacity as an important reference in assessing the extent of potential agency conflicts in China.

Conflito de agência no consórcio DPVAT: uma análise à luz da nova economia institucional sob a perspectiva da teoria da agência

Diferentes arranjos institucionais resultam em diferentes incentivos para a realização de trocas econômicas. Com efeito, estruturas regulatórias implementadas em determinado contexto histórico-econômico podem resultar em consequências diversas daquelas originariamente pretendidas, impondo ao regulador a necessidade de constante monitoramento e de intervenções com vistas a diagnosticar e corrigir ou minimizar possíveis distorções nas relações entre os atores envolvidos. Assim, esta dissertação tem por objetivo analisar o funcionamento do Consórcio do Seguro DPVAT como mecanismo de conexão entre seus diversos stakeholders. Pretende-se analisar a existência de conflitos de interesses derivados das diversas relações entre as partes interligadas – geradas pelo arranjo institucional firmado para a gestão dos recursos arrecadados com os prêmios pagos pelos proprietários de veículo automotor para o Seguro de Danos Pessoais Causados por Veículos Automotores de Via Terrestre, ou por sua carga, a Pessoas Transportadas ou Não (DPVAT) – que possam suscitar intervenção regulatória no sentido de evitá-los, ou, ao menos, mitigá-los. A pesquisa é conduzida a partir da identificação dos comportamentos esperados de agentes econômicos autointeressados, tendo por referência os pressupostos da Nova Economia Institucional sob a perspectiva da Teoria da Agência, e do exame das principais mudanças legislativas havidas na estrutura do seguro obrigatório de trânsito no Brasil nos últimos 50 anos. Na sequência, com base em elementos teóricos e empíricos, foram identificados e analisados três conflitos de agência entre os stakeholders do Consórcio DPVAT: o primeiro seria aquele havido entre a entidade gestora do Consórcio DPVAT (agente) e as sociedades seguradoras consorciadas (principal); o segundo conflito observado refere-se à relação mantida entre a entidade gestora do Consórcio DPVAT (agente) e o órgão regulador (principal); e, por fim, o conflito de agência existente entre a seguradora que administra o referido consórcio (agente) e os proprietários de veículo automotor (principal).

Problemas de agência no setor público: o papel dos intermediadores da relação entre poder central e unidades executoras

Este estudo teve como objetivo central identificar de que forma a alocação de indivíduos como intermediadores das relações de agência impacta os conflitos inerentes à relação principal-agente no âmbito da administração pública. Para tanto, foi considerado o contexto do arranjo contratual existente entre o Escritório de Gerenciamento de Projetos da Secretaria Municipal da Casa Civil (CVL/EGP-Rio), representante do poder central da Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, e os órgãos e entidades executoras dos projetos e metas estratégicos definidos por esse poder central. A revisão bibliográfica apontou a existência de quatro problemas de agência principais, os quais dizem respeito às diferenças de motivações e objetivos, às assimetrias de informação, às distintas propensões ao risco e aos diferentes horizontes de planejamento. Foram realizadas dez entrevistas semi-estruturadas com ocupantes do cargo de Analista de Gerenciamento de Projetos e Metas (AGPM), que atuam como intermediadores da relação de agência entre CVL/EGP-Rio e unidades executoras. Os resultados do estudo indicam que o intermediador da relação de agência analisada é capaz de provocar redução naqueles conflitos de agência relacionados com as diferenças de motivações e objetivos e com as assimetrias de informação. Quanto aos problemas de agência que dizem respeito às distintas propensões ao risco e aos diferentes horizontes de planejamento, a pesquisa demonstra que o intermediador não promove qualquer impacto, seja no sentido de acentuá-los ou atenuá-los.

The NASCAR phenomenon: Auto racing sponsorships and shareholder wealth

This study presents the first analysis of the impact of NASCAR sponsorship announcements on the stock prices of sponsoring firms. The primary finding of the study-that NASCAR sponsorship announcements were accompanied by the largest increases in shareholder wealth ever recorded in the marketing literature in response to a voluntary marketing program-represents a striking and unambiguous stock market endorsement of the sponsorships. Indeed, the 24 sponsors analyzed in this study experienced mean increases in shareholder wealth of over $300 million dollars, net of all of the costs associated with the sponsorships. A multiple regression analysis of firm-specific stock price changes and select corporate and sponsorship attributes indicates that NASCAR sponsorships with more successful racing teams, corporate (as opposed to product or divisional) sponsorships, and sponsorships with direct ties to the consumer automotive industry are all positively correlated with perceived sponsorship success, while corporate cash flow per share (a well-known proxy for agency conflicts within the firm) is negatively related with shareholder approval.