{"title":"Discrimination announcements, employee opinion, and capital structure: Evidence from the EEOC","authors":"Spencer Barnes","doi":"10.1111/fire.12382","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12382","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates the impact of discrimination publicity on employee opinion. The findings suggest that employees reduce their sentiments toward the firm and its leaders when discrimination becomes public via Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announcements. Following the stakeholder theory of capital structure, the effect clusters in firms with above-average leverage. Additionally, discrimination announcements increase accruals and the E index, reinforcing a culture of negative management at the firm. These results suggest that human capital risk plays a vital role in employee reactions to discrimination announcements.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 3","pages":"745-777"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140035440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sentiment and the cross-section of expected stock returns","authors":"Gady Jacoby, Chi Liao, Nanying Lin, Lei Lu","doi":"10.1111/fire.12380","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12380","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The asset pricing Literature suggests market sentiment is a state variable. This study shows that market sentiment is positively priced at the cross-section of stock returns, conditional on aggregate investors’ sentiment. We estimate individual stock sentiment beta and find that, following low-sentiment periods, stocks in the highest sentiment beta quintile generate a 0.74% higher monthly return than stocks in the lowest sentiment beta quintile. However, this return spread is insignificant following medium- or high-sentiment periods. This finding is consistent with the argument that overpricing following high-sentiment periods is more prevalent than underpricing following low-sentiment periods due to short-sale constraints.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"459-485"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139924606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate social responsibility and investor relationship management","authors":"Jie Jiao, Yanyang Wang, An Yan","doi":"10.1111/fire.12377","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12377","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, utilities firms increase their commitments to corporate social responsibility (CSR), emphasizing on addressing environmental concerns over non-environmental ones. The intensified focus on CSR is especially significant in utilities firms with substantial institutional ownerships. Concurrent to the increase in CSR, utilities firms also exhibit a decline in advertising expenditures, a trend more pronounced in firms facing more financial constraints. Our findings suggest that utilities firms substitute CSR for advertising following the Fukushima accident. This shift appears driven by investors’ heightened focus on environmental issues in the aftermath of the accident.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 3","pages":"657-685"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139588755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The questions being asked: Academic research, the media, and regulators","authors":"Michelle Lowry","doi":"10.1111/fire.12376","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12376","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Academic research should strive to increase our understanding of the world we live in, and as such open the door for improvements in this world. With this goal in mind, this piece represents a call for academics to jointly consider their research agenda and the audience for this research. This audience might include people working in industry or policy makers. Closer connections between academia and broader audiences contribute to research that informs debates on the salient issues of today, higher quality studies on these issues, and greater impact. To provide insight on the relation between academic research and the most salient current issues, I compare topics of focus within academic journals with topics of focus in industry articles and regulatory publications. I identify gaps and suggest areas for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 3","pages":"549-560"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139552989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Short selling and readability in financial disclosures: A controlled experiment","authors":"Minxing Sun, Weike Xu","doi":"10.1111/fire.12379","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12379","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine the causal effect of short-selling on a firm's annual report readability using regulation SHO, which relaxes short-sale constraints for a random sample of pilot stocks. Pilot firms produce significantly less readable annual reports than nonpilot firms during the experiment period. Our results are more pronounced for firms that receive less investor attention and those with poorer growth prospects. Furthermore, pilot firms increase the use of uncertainty words in annual reports during the experiment period. Our results suggest that firms produce less transparent financial disclosures that are more costly for investors to comprehend when short-sale constraints are less rigorous.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"265-292"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139495992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does negative news disclosure induce better decision-making? Evidence from acquisitions","authors":"Chinmoy Ghosh, Cristian Pinto-Gutiérrez, Jaideep Shenoy","doi":"10.1111/fire.12375","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12375","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We examine the effect of negative news disclosures on acquisition decisions of firms. Using textual analysis of company press releases, we find that the percentage of negative news disclosed by a firm reduces its probability of acquisitions. However, for firms that do undertake acquisitions, the percentage of negative news disclosed is positively related to announcement-period abnormal returns. Consistent with theoretical predictions, this positive relationship is more pronounced for acquirers with low pay-performance sensitivity and those operating in concentrated industries. Overall, our results suggest that when managerial reputation concerns are high following negative news development, they make more prudent acquisition decisions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"325-372"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138959698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ETF and corporate reporting","authors":"In Ji Jang, Namho Kang","doi":"10.1111/fire.12374","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12374","url":null,"abstract":"<p>When ownership by ETFs is high, the penalty to missing earnings expectation is smaller by 43%. The smaller penalty is not due to underreaction but is attributed to the long investment horizon of ETFs. Consequently, firms with high ETF ownership engage in earnings and expectation managements less frequently and are less likely to reduce discretionary spending to marginally meet or beat. Using Russell 1000/2000 index reconstitution as an identification, we corroborate the main results. Amid conflicting evidence for the effect of ETFs on market efficiency, our finding highlights their positive effect on corporate reporting.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"293-323"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138691321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does informal governance matter to institutional investors? Evidence from social capital","authors":"Kershen Huang, Chenguang Shang","doi":"10.1111/fire.12373","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12373","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We find a positive association between institutional ownership and social capital. The social norms in a region, while not imposed by businesses or laws, play a monitoring role that disciplines managers from self-serving behaviors. The resulting trustworthiness, through its mitigation of agency problems, drives the investment preferences of institutions. Our subsample analyses based on information asymmetry and financial performance support this inference. Further, the positive association is evident for transient investors and quasi-indexers but not for dedicated institutional investors. Overall, our study underscores the impact of informal governance on institutions' investment decisions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"433-457"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138505177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Under the spotlight: The peer standard in CSR and the role of public attention","authors":"Hirofumi Nishi, S. Drew Peabody","doi":"10.1111/fire.12372","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12372","url":null,"abstract":"<p>As sustainability takes center stage in business strategies, firms lagging behind their peers on environmental initiatives are strongly motivated to bridge the gap. Analyzing the U.S. sectors primarily responsible for CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, we show that environmentally lagging firms increase the efforts to reduce emissions and adopt eco-friendly materials in the subsequent year. Interestingly, this phenomenon becomes significantly more pronounced among companies exposed to higher levels of consumer interest as measured by Google search volumes. Our finding suggests that lagging firms under greater public scrutiny recognize the need to address their sustainability deficiencies to maintain competitiveness and corporate reputation.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"373-390"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138505183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate insiders’ exploitation of investors’ anchoring bias at the 52-week high and low","authors":"Meziane Lasfer, Xiaoke Ye","doi":"10.1111/fire.12371","DOIUrl":"10.1111/fire.12371","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We find that insiders adopt dissimulation strategies to conceal their informational advantage and trade profitably when their firms’ stock prices reach 52-week highs and lows, exploiting the anchoring biases of uninformed investors. Insiders’ trading profitability depends on their firms’ future stock returns, operating efficiency, and investment sentiment, but not on earnings surprises. We document that male board members and insiders with long investment horizons are more likely to use dissimulation strategies. Overall, we provide evidence that insiders benefit from these price extremes, despite their status as publicly available, irrelevant, historical price levels that normally should not predict future stock returns.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"59 2","pages":"391-432"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.12371","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138505182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}