Yangfa Chen , Ji Jiang , Jie Liu , Xiao Liu , Weili Wu
{"title":"Registration system reform, information environment, and market manipulation","authors":"Yangfa Chen , Ji Jiang , Jie Liu , Xiao Liu , Weili Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102797","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102797","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In 2019, Chinese stock market regulators launched a comprehensive reform of the IPO regulatory system, transitioning from the approval system to the registration system. Using this reform as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate the impact of IPO systems on market manipulation. We find that the registration system reform significantly inhibits market manipulation by improving the quality of firms' information supply and reducing stock information asymmetry. In addition, our results indicate that the inhibitory effect of the registration system reform on market manipulation is more pronounced for firms with higher information exposure, greater information complexity, and a greater proportion of investors with better ability to interpret information. Further analyses show that the registration system reform also lowers trading values around manipulation events, and inhibits other types of trade-based manipulation and misconduct. This study sheds light on the crucial role of information transparency in financial markets' effectiveness and investor protection.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102797"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143847296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Long-term effect of social disasters on stock market participation","authors":"Yang Cai , Shuo Chen , Dongxu Li","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102799","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102799","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the long-term impact of social disaster experiences on household finance. Using the Cultural Revolution in China, the country's most pronounced sociopolitical turmoil that completely disrupted millions of people's lives, we show that households are more likely to participate in the stock market if their eldest member was more exposed to the turmoil. The results remain robust to alternative historical events, socioeconomic factors, and household characteristics. Survey results suggest that the more exposed individuals invest in the stock market because they perceive stocks as low risk rather than have altered risk preferences or trust in stock markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102799"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143855783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Firms save from bonds but not from loans","authors":"Paolo Colla , Florian Nagler","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102781","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102781","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We empirically study the corporate propensity to save from bonds versus loans. Our findings indicate that firms save approximately 14 cents of every dollar borrowed through bonds, while they do not exhibit similar savings behavior with loans. Saving from bonds is pervasive over time, and in the cross-section pledgeability is a key driver of this behavior. Specifically, we find that lower asset tangibility and shorter asset maturities are linked to substantial increases in saving rates from bond borrowings. We show that our results align with a model that incorporates external financing frictions and costly default.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102781"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143833982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wenjing Li , Yuanhuai Peng , Hanwen Sun , Youchao Tan
{"title":"Trade shocks and investment efficiency","authors":"Wenjing Li , Yuanhuai Peng , Hanwen Sun , Youchao Tan","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102795","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102795","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate how international trade shocks affect corporate investment efficiency. Utilizing a novel pairwise firm-product level dataset in China, we find that the investment efficiency of target firms significantly improves following the implementation of trade defense instruments (TDIs), including antidumping, countervailing, and safeguard measures. The reduction in free cash flow and heightened competition triggered by TDIs discourage overinvestment, particularly in firms more prone to overinvestment and those operating in industries with lower <em>ex-ante</em> competition. Moreover, the efficiency-enhancing effect is more pronounced in firms subject to stricter penalties and higher-value targeted products. Taken together, these findings suggest that Chinese target firms respond to international trade shocks by altering their investment strategies and improving efficiency.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102795"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143844190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ralph De Haas , Sergei Guriev , Alexander Stepanov
{"title":"State ownership and corporate leverage around the world","authors":"Ralph De Haas , Sergei Guriev , Alexander Stepanov","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102782","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102782","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Does state ownership hinder or help firms access credit? We use data on almost 4 million firms in 89 countries to study the relationship between state ownership and corporate leverage. Controlling for country-sector-year fixed effects and conventional firm-level determinants of leverage, we show that state ownership is robustly and negatively related to corporate leverage. This relationship holds across most of the firm-size distribution – with the important exception of the largest companies – and is stronger in countries with weak political and legal institutions. A panel data analysis of privatized firms and a comparison of privatized with matched control firms yield similar qualitative and quantitative effects of state ownership on leverage.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102782"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143817640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Betting on my enemy: Insider trading ahead of hedge fund 13D filings","authors":"Truong Duong, Shaoting Pi, Travis R.A. Sapp","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102794","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102794","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Corporate insiders often become aware of hedge fund attention prior to a 13D filing. We find abnormal buying activity by insiders in the months leading up to hedge fund 13D filings. Whereas 13D announcement abnormal returns are 7.72 %, profits to insiders who buy average 12.09 %. Insider buying is not linked to common firm characteristics that predict activist targeting. Our findings indicate that insiders are benefiting from private knowledge that their firm has become the focus of hedge fund activism, and sometimes this knowledge comes directly from the activist. However, insiders largely refrain from trading when there is formal communication with the activist. Profits to insiders who buy when there are no talks prior to the 13D filing are 14.49 %, triple the amount for insiders who have had early talks with the hedge fund. Insider trading is linked to indicators of poor corporate culture, but not related to outcomes of activism campaigns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102794"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143826203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Panayiotis C. Andreou , Neophytos Lambertides , Lenos Trigeorgis , Ruslan Tuneshev
{"title":"Customer orientation and stock resilience during adversity periods","authors":"Panayiotis C. Andreou , Neophytos Lambertides , Lenos Trigeorgis , Ruslan Tuneshev","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102780","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102780","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Customer orientation reflects the organizational culture and climate that promote behaviors enabling the firm to create superior value for its customers. Using a textual measure of customer orientation (<span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span>) constructed from 10-K filings, we document a positive and economically significant relation between <span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span> and stock returns in the financial crisis of 2008–2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic. High-<span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span> firms outperform low-<span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span> firms by 1.5% per month during the financial crisis and by 4.7% per month during the COVID-19 crisis. This positive <span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span>-returns relation is robust to different treatments and persists after accounting for factors that contribute to corporate resilience, such as <span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>R</mi></mrow></math></span> activities. Our findings lend credence to the notion that customer orientation enhances a firm’s social capital, leading to improved operational performance during adverse periods, whilst our empirical evidence further supports that <span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>s</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>r</mi></mrow></math></span> and <span><math><mrow><mi>C</mi><mi>S</mi><mi>R</mi></mrow></math></span> represent distinct pathways for building trust. Consequently, firms that prioritize customer orientation experience greater resilience to negative shocks, especially during periods of low market confidence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102780"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143844191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander Peter Groh , Juliane Proelss , Aurélie Sannajust , Denis Schweizer
{"title":"Misconduct in the SPAC market: Evidence from venture capital exits","authors":"Alexander Peter Groh , Juliane Proelss , Aurélie Sannajust , Denis Schweizer","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102792","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102792","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the performance of venture capital-backed (VC-backed) firms upon their exits through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) or “more traditional” initial public offerings (IPOs) during the recent SPAC wave. Compared to their IPO peers, VC-backed ventures merging with SPACs tend to exhibit smaller size, less current and analyst-projected future profitability, and additional characteristics that indicate lower venture quality. Notably, SPACs merging with VC-backed ventures demonstrate significant underperformance relative to both SPACs merging with non-VC-backed companies and “standard” IPOs. This suggests that VCs may have exploited a relative lack of regulation and investor naivety. They may have presented their lower-quality ventures as appealing opportunities for mergers with SPACs, which resulted in their substantial underperformance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102792"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143844189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of product market competition on workplace safety","authors":"Emdad Islam, Blake Loriot, Lubna Rahman","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102778","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102778","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the impact of product market competition (PMC) on workplace health and safety violations. Our findings reveal that firms facing intense PMC have higher incidences of workplace safety standards violations and pay higher penalties for such offenses. By leveraging reductions in import tariffs as quasi-exogenous shocks, we demonstrate that competitive pressures significantly worsen these violations. The strategic orientations of firms, whether towards cost-cutting or product differentiation, markedly shape these outcomes. Furthermore, pressure from analysts amplifies the negative impact, while labor unionization helps mitigate these detrimental effects, highlighting the nuanced interplay between governance and market forces.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102778"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Drawing up the bill: Are ESG ratings related to stock returns around the world?","authors":"Rómulo Alves , Philipp Krüger , Mathijs van Dijk","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102768","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102768","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We provide the most comprehensive analysis to date of the relation between ESG ratings and stock returns, using 16,000+ stocks in 48 countries and seven different ESG rating providers. We find very little evidence that ESG ratings are related to global stock returns between 2001 and 2020. This finding obtains across different regions, time periods, ESG (sub)ratings, ESG momentum, ESG downgrades and upgrades, and best-in-class strategies. We further find little empirical support for prominent hypotheses from the literature on the role of ESG uncertainty and of country-level ESG social norms, ESG disclosure standards, and ESG regulations in shaping the relation between ESG and global stock returns. Overall, our results suggest that ESG investing did not systematically affect investment performance during the past two decades.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"93 ","pages":"Article 102768"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143792434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}