{"title":"Impact of target firm’s social performance on acquisition premiums","authors":"Mahfuja Malik , Md Al Mamun","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100417","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100417","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates whether a target firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences the acquisition premium paid by an acquirer. Using the US public mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals, this study finds that acquisition premium increases as targets’ perceived CSR quality increases, an effect incremental to previously documented drivers of such premiums. Additional findings reveal that the positive association between targets’ CSR quality and acquisition premiums is stronger for large targets and acquirers with high CSR performance. The study also documents that targets’ environmental performance has the strongest effects on acquisition premiums compared to other dimensions of CSR such as community, employees, diversity, or product. This study contributes to the literature by documenting the value of CSR in an unconventional manner using evidence from the M&A market. The findings are robust after controlling for the target-specific, acquirer-specific, deal-specific, and macro-economic variables and by using different proxies for CSR and acquisition premiums.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100417"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140281773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pretending to be sustainable: Is ESG disparity a symptom?","authors":"Gabriel de la Fuente, Pilar Velasco","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100418","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100418","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates a novel dimension of ESG (environmental, social, and governance), namely the degree of inequality in the distribution of a firm’s overall ESG performance across the three pillars. By grounding our arguments on the agency theory, we argue that such a dimension can discern the degree of authenticity of managers’ ESG awareness. A more unequal distribution might be due to a discretionary and self-interested adoption of ESG principles in order to win the favour of key stakeholders. Using a sample of U.S. listed companies, we provide empirical evidence that disparity in ESG scores between pillars detracts value from ESG engagement. Moreover, such a negative moderating effect worsens in companies that are more prone to agency problems (e.g. higher cash holdings), lack ESG-based compensation, have lower leverage, and are more exposed to the investor spotlight (e.g. higher analyst coverage). Overall, our findings suggest the importance of accounting for managerial motivations to engage in ESG and support the idea that a lower perceived authenticity of these programmes results in lower value outcomes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100418"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566924000183/pdfft?md5=6d88fe8b736bc653f1d132958c4dc294&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566924000183-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140276379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate carbon reduction and tax avoidance: International evidence","authors":"Zhi-Yuan Feng , Ying-Chieh Wang , Wen-Gine Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100416","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Using data on firms’ carbon emissions in 28 countries, we document that a firm’s initiation of carbon reduction activities relates to lower tax payments. This result endorses a perception of legitimacy theory suggesting that companies can gain legitimacy with tax authorities by adopting carbon reduction strategies. Our study also shows that the positive relationship between lower tax payments and a firm’s carbon reduction leads to higher Return on Assets (ROA), particularly for firms with lower operating performance. Moreover, our study documents that firms that engage in carbon reduction activities can mitigate their tax burden in countries that impose a carbon tax, have higher media freedom, judicial independence, and robust legal systems. These various institutions within a country can influence the relationship between a company’s carbon emission reductions, lower tax payments, and its overall performance. Our findings are robust even when using alternative measures of carbon emissions, control variables for corporate social responsibility, and the entropy-balance or propensity score matching sample.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100416"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140163764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lending corruption and bank loan contracting: Cross-Country evidence","authors":"Liangliang Jiang, Chong Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100415","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Using World Bank survey data, we document that banks extend more favorable loan terms to borrowers in countries with more lending corruption. This relation is stronger when borrowers have financing constraints but weaker in countries with stronger monitoring of foreign bank ownership or with stronger religiosity. We also find that banks in countries with high lending corruption have poor loan quality and earnings performance and are more susceptible to trouble during a financial crisis. Overall, our findings suggest that corruption “greases the wheels” for borrowers but is detrimental to bank shareholders.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100415"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140113452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Managerial ability and supply chain power","authors":"G M Wali Ullah , Jane Luo , Alfred Yawson","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100414","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100414","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper investigates how major customer firms, managed by highly capable managers, can gain bargaining power over their suppliers. Our results document a positive association between managerial ability and the supply chain power a major customer firm holds over its suppliers. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns, tested through two-stage least squares (2SLS) regressions and difference-in-differences estimates surrounding forced CEO turnovers. We find the positive association to be stronger for durable goods manufacturers and higher ability managers engaged in socially responsible activities and corporate innovation. We provide evidence that higher-ability managers use their enhanced bargaining power to secure greater supplier trade credit.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 2","pages":"Article 100414"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566924000146/pdfft?md5=c9f7080b008d6e592dac14fbe3c67db6&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566924000146-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140054570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Predicting financial distress using machine learning approaches: Evidence China","authors":"Md Jahidur Rahman , Hongtao Zhu","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100403","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>This study uses machine learning techniques to construct financial distress prediction (FDP) models for Chinese A-listed construction companies and compares their classification performance with conventional Z-Score models. Three machine learning algorithms (Classification and Regression Tree, AdaBoost, and CUSBoost) are used to generate machine-learning-based classifiers, and four Z-Score models (Altman Z-Score, Sorins/Voronova Z-Score, Springate, and Z-Score of Ng et al.) are selected for comparison. The sample comprises 1782 firm-year observations from Chinese A-listed construction companies on the Shenzhen and Shanghai Stock Exchanges from 2012 to 2021. The out-of-sample predicting performance of the classifiers are measured using the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and under the precision-recall curve (AUPR). In additional tests, Pearson's correlation coefficients and the variance </span>inflation<span> factor are utilized to identify correlations among the raw financial predictors, while principal component analysis<span> is used to address high-correlation issues among the features. Results confirm that machine learning classifiers can effectively predict financial distress for Chinese A-listed construction companies and are more accurate than Z-Score models. Furthermore, the CUSBoost classifier is identified as the most precise model based on the AUC and AUPR metrics in both primary and additional tests. This study addresses the gap concerning the application of machine learning in FDP for Chinese-listed construction companies. Additionally, the CUSBoost Algorithm is introduced into the field of FDP research for the first time. Through the comparison of machine learning and Z-Score models, this study also contributes to the literature related to the contrast between machine learning and statistical modeling techniques.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100403"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139682476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chaebol-affiliated analysts and biases in interpreting accruals","authors":"Seunghee Yang , Lee-Seok Hwang , Yewon Kim","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100402","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100402","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates whether analysts exhibit accrual-related biases in forecasting earnings in the presence of conflicts of interest arising from business group affiliation. Our findings reveal that chaebol-affiliated analysts are more likely to overreact to accruals than do independent analysts by overestimating the persistence of accruals. Notably, affiliated analysts’ accrual-related biases are not reduced with analysts’ experience but intensify when analysts have stronger incentives to provide favorable forecasts for member firms. This suggests a possibility that in the presence of conflicts of interest analysts do not fully incorporate the implications of accruals into their forecasts, potentially with an intention to benefit group interests. In additional analyses, we find that the presence of affiliated analysts does not exacerbate accrual mispricing, which suggests that investors do not take affiliated analysts’ biased forecasts at face value. We also provide evidence that despite issuing less accurate forecasts than unaffiliated analysts, affiliated analysts do not necessarily encounter more career disadvantages.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100402"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139577865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do managers respond to tax avoidance incentives by investing in the tax function? Evidence from tax departments","authors":"John Li","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100401","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2024.100401","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While prior literature examines the role of certain incentives in motivating top managers (CEOs and CFOs) to engage in corporate tax avoidance, there is little evidence on the specific actions that managers take in response to these incentives. Motivated by the premise that a manager can influence a firm’s tax activities by directing resources towards the tax function, I investigate whether four specific tax avoidance incentives studied in prior literature (financial constraints, equity risk incentives, hedge fund interventions, and analyst cash flow forecasts) induce managers to make investments in hiring personnel within the firm’s tax department. Using a dataset of tax department employees collected from the professional networking website <em>LinkedIn</em>, I find evidence that each incentive is significantly associated with an increase in the number of individuals employed within the tax department. This association is generally stronger among higher ranked employees and employees with prior tax department experience. Overall, my findings are consistent with the premise that managers invest resources in the tax function when they are incentivized to avoid taxes. My study also provides some assurance that the association between tax avoidance incentives and effective tax rates documented in prior studies is reflective of intentional tax avoidance behavior.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100401"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566924000018/pdfft?md5=17cec1eabe35ee5fe82b5d420de25964&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566924000018-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139515121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A robust model to estimate a firm’s average economic return","authors":"Morris G. Danielson","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100400","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100400","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Theoretical studies question the ability of financial statement information to provide evidence about a firm’s economic performance, as the mathematical relation between a firm’s accounting and economic returns becomes intractable when economic depreciation is defined endogenously—as a function of the firm’s cash flow stream—and when its internal rate of return (IRR) and investment growth rate have not been constant. This paper derives a new equation, called the average internal rate of return (</span><em>AIRR</em>) estimation model, in which a firm’s <em>AIRR</em> is estimated as a function of its current-year accounting return, its current-year asset growth rate, a measure of accounting conservatism, and a term that identifies the firm’s historical investment growth rate <em>trend</em>. Because the model allows economic depreciation to be defined exogenously, non-constant returns and growth rates can be aggregated across investment cohorts, allowing a firm’s accounting return to be reconciled to its <em>average</em> economic return. One such exogenous schedule—called competitive market depreciation—is used to illustrate the model’s implications. The <em>AIRR</em><span> estimation model empowers analysts to identify the direction and magnitude of the potential difference between a firm’s accounting and economic return created by fixed asset depreciation, accounting accruals<span>, and the immediate expensing of intangible assets.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100400"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139375430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Acquirers’ political connections and bargaining outcomes in corporate takeover negotiations: Evidence from antitrust reviews","authors":"Simon Yu Kit Fung, Lawrence (Hong) Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100399","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jcae.2023.100399","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We examine how acquirers’ political connections affect takeover bargaining that involves significant regulatory uncertainties, when the target’s options of putting itself to another bidder are restricted. Opposite to prior takeover theories, we show that a politically connected acquirer pays a lower (rather than higher) takeover premium to and shares a smaller portion of the takeover gains with the target in the context of antitrust reviews, consistent with a bargaining benefit for the connected acquirer. Corroborating this bargaining argument, we find that the results are more pronounced in situations where: (1) the antitrust concerns are more severe; (2) the targets have fewer outside options other than the connected acquirers; and (3) the acquirers’ political connections are more valuable. Our results highlight the value of political connections to shareholders in takeovers, affecting not only the likelihood of completion but also the bargaining outcomes of the deal under the shadow of costly regulation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46693,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics","volume":"20 1","pages":"Article 100399"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566923000498/pdfft?md5=ed30292d501f88a02c27224062e42327&pid=1-s2.0-S1815566923000498-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139079019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}