{"title":"Bankers’ pay and the evolving structure of US banking","authors":"Ronald W. Anderson , Karin Jõeveer","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102864","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102864","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider the determinants of pay in US banks since 1986 using a new structural model in which banking firms are matched in rank order with management teams of varying talent. We calibrate the model to data from US bank holding companies focussing on labor’s share of bank value-added, the level of bankers’ pay and its sensitivity to bank performance. We find that three changes in banking regulation have shaped bankers’ pay in the last three decades: (1) removal of obstacles to interstate banking set off a process of banking consolidation in the 1990s, (2) deregulation at the end of the 1990’s allowing banks to pursue non-interest income has driven a trend toward higher pay and higher incentive pay, (3) tougher regulations following the financial crisis imposing an implicit tax on size and complexity has moderated pay in large banks but in so-doing has allowed smaller banks to take on business outside of standard credit intermediation resulting higher pay in those banks. Taking these structural changes into account we find a tendency over three decades for a decline in labor’s share, in line with superstar effects implied by our structural model.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102864"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144912809","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":"Lazy dividends","authors":"Patrick J. Dennis , James P. Weston","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102858","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102858","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Dividends are clustered in increments of 5, such as 25, 50, and 75. Firms that gravitate towards these ‘prominent’ amounts have lower operating performance and lower annual five-factor alphas of 77 b.p. Consistent with agency frictions that lead to lazy decisions, clustering effects are stronger for entrenched firms, with more market power, and less shareholder activism. Dividend increases also cluster more than cuts, consistent with saliency bias. In a counterfactual exercise, we find no similar patterns in a sample of ADRs. Our results complement a number of recent studies showing the economic importance of simple decision heuristics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102858"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144866590","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":"Reputation acquisition and abnormal performance in IPO underwriting","authors":"Walid Y. Busaba , Zheng Liu , Felipe Restrepo","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102883","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102883","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine how an underwriter's reputation accumulates upon each attempt to take a firm public, conditional on the bank demonstrating abnormal performance bringing—or failing to bring—the offering to market. We develop a novel measure of abnormal underwriting performance by weighing the ex-ante difficulty of completing the offering against the actual outcome. We show this measure positively associates with future changes in the underwriter's market share and issuing volume. The effect manifests as access to more offerings and is prominent when difficult offerings are completed, for abnormal performance demonstrated in midmarket ($20–$100 million) and large IPOs, and for both the primary lead and co‑lead underwriters. Abnormal performance is associated with a higher underwriting spread and aggressive IPO pricing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102883"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145045074","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":"Birth order and fund manager’s trading behavior: Role of sibling rivalry","authors":"Vikas Agarwal , Alexander Cochardt , Vitaly Orlov","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102852","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102852","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using rich data on familial background of US mutual fund managers, this paper sheds light on the formation of risk preferences by investigating birth order effects. Consistent with sensation-seeking behavior, we find that managers who are born later in the sibling hierarchy take more risks but perform worse relative to lower-birth-order managers. Later-born managers take more extreme style bets, hold more lottery stocks, churn their portfolios more, and engage in more civil and regulatory violations. These birth-order effects are more pronounced when parental resources are limited and age spacing is lower between siblings, suggesting sibling rivalry as a potential mechanism.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102852"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144860684","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":"Negative effects of delayed retirement: Employment protection of older workers and firm value","authors":"Atsushi Chino","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102886","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102886","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Does protecting the employment of older workers affect firm value? We investigate this question by leveraging a labor-market reform in Japan that mandated firms to retain older employees beyond the statutory retirement age if those employees wished to continue working. An event study analysis reveals that firms with higher exposure to the reform experienced lower short-run abnormal stock returns around the announcement date. Long-run difference-in-differences estimates provide supporting evidence. In affected firms, average wages rose following the reform, but worker productivity remained unchanged. We also find that the number of patent applications declined in the affected firms. These findings suggest that mandatory employment protection for older workers—when not accompanied by productivity gains—can negatively impact firm value.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102886"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145044985","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":"Does brand capital influence corporate environmental policies? Evidence from toxic release inventory data","authors":"Md Ismail Haidar , Mark Kroll , Nam H. Nguyen","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102885","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102885","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the relationship between brand capital and corporate environmental policies using toxic chemical release data. Using a sample of 4752 publicly listed U.S. firm-year observations from 1991 to 2020, we find that brand capital is significantly and negatively related to firm's toxic emissions, suggesting that firms with stronger brand capital tend to exhibit more environmentally responsible behavior. Further evidence reveals that the effect of brand capital on corporate environmental policies is more pronounced for firms in communities that prefer stringent environmental regulations. Additional analysis points to increased financial stability, environmental innovations, and environmental abatement investments as the mechanisms behind the documented effect of brand capital on firms' environmental policies. The results are robust to numerous robustness tests, including the use of alternative measures of brand capital, environmental policies, and several endogeneity tests. The results support the idea that strong brand capital can promote environmental responsibility in firms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102885"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145044984","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}
Heng Geng , Harald Hau , Roni Michaely , Binh Hoang Nguyen
{"title":"Common institutional investors and board representation in rival firms","authors":"Heng Geng , Harald Hau , Roni Michaely , Binh Hoang Nguyen","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102836","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102836","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The large increase in common institutional ownership has raised legitimate antitrust concerns. While the exact channel by which common institutional shareholders might influence firm policy remains unclear, a prominent potential mechanism is corporate board representation. Using hand-collected data on shareholders' board representation, we show that instances of institutional investors simultaneously holding board positions in rival companies are exceedingly rare and do <em>not</em> account for the positive correlation between common institutional ownership and firm-pair profitability. Our findings suggest that board representation by institutional investors is unlikely to represent an empirically potent channel of influence on corporate policy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102836"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144298227","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":"Cash holdings and relationship lending","authors":"Sandeep Dahiya , Issam Hallak , Thomas Matthys","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102845","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102845","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine the effect of relationship lending on a firm’s cash-holding levels. Relationship lending allows lenders to generate private information about borrowers, which mitigates their financial constraints. Using exogenous shocks to identify stress to lending relationships, we show that strong lending relationships translate into lower cash holding for borrowers. We also show that the impact of lending relationships on cash holdings is greatest for firms faced with high information asymmetry. Thus, opaque firms are more likely to use their borrowing relationship as a substitute for cash holdings. We find that relationships have a negative impact on the market value through a firms’ <em>level</em> of cash holding. This impact is significantly greater when firms experience a large <em>change</em> in their cash holdings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102845"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144686550","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}
Shouyu Yao , Tianze Li , Jing Liao , Kam C. Chan , Xutang Liu
{"title":"Transparency as the antidote: Do trade disputes intensify corporate earnings management?","authors":"Shouyu Yao , Tianze Li , Jing Liao , Kam C. Chan , Xutang Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102826","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102826","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using manually matched data from US-China trade dispute records and Chinese customs trade data, this study assesses the impact of the US-China trade disputes on corporate earnings management (EM) of Chinese listed companies. We find a significant reduction in accrual-based EM in firms affected by the retaliatory tariff changes due to the trade disputes. Furthermore, the impact of this shock goes beyond the directly affected firms and spreads along the supply chain as well as through block shareholding. Importantly, after excluding alternative explanations such as government subsidies, or managerial slack caused by government implicit guarantees, our results remain robust. Our mechanism analysis suggests that in response to the trade disputes, contracting parties seek transparency to alleviate information asymmetry, therefore, the increased demands for high earnings quality from creditors explain the impact of trade disputes on EM. We further find that trade disputes mainly reduce downward earnings manipulations, with no significant impact on upward EM or real EM. Additionally, the trade disputes effect is weaker in firms with political connections and effective monitoring mechanisms. Overall, this study highlights that firms strategically manage the disclosure of accounting information under uncertainties, where contracting demand is a significant factor explaining why firms enhance earnings quality in reaction to trade disputes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":15525,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Corporate Finance","volume":"94 ","pages":"Article 102826"},"PeriodicalIF":7.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144185208","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}