{"title":"Does Digitalization Imply Uncertainty About the Future Prospects of a Firm? Evidence From Analyst Forecast Accuracy","authors":"Guanming He, April Zhichao Li, Tiantian Lin","doi":"10.1111/fire.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In recent decades, digital transformation has proliferated and prevailed among firms, profoundly affecting their operations, investments, and information management. To the extent that applying digital technologies has pros and cons to business activities, its implications for future firm performance remain uncertain to stock market participants. This paper focuses on financial analysts, who play the role of information intermediaries in the stock market, and examines how their forecasts for firms are shaped by corporate digitalization. Based on a large sample of Chinese listed firms, we find that analysts covering firms with higher levels of digitalization are likely to make more accurate forecasts. This result is robust to using two-stage least squares regression and difference-in-differences (DID) regression to mitigate potential endogeneity concerns and elicit causal inferences. Our mediation analysis reveals that digital transformation improves firms’ operational efficiency, investment efficiency, and information quality, thereby increasing analyst forecast accuracy. We also find that the association between corporate digital transformation and analyst forecast accuracy is more pronounced for analysts with greater work capabilities and more information resources, for firms with lower levels of innovation, as well as for high-tech industries. Our study provides new insights into the implications of digitalization for firms’ future prospects through the lens of analyst forecast accuracy.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"61 1","pages":"59-91"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.70009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145986788","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}
{"title":"Does Corporate Social Responsibility Facilitate Public Debt Financing?","authors":"Xin Chang, Bin Xu, Yung Chiang Yang","doi":"10.1111/fire.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We find that firms with stronger corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance have a larger share of public debt in their total debt, particularly when they are subject to higher information asymmetry or greater financial constraints. Moreover, the CSR effect on public debt is weaker for firms in sin industries or low-trust regions where CSR is less likely to be viewed as a genuine commitment. Utilizing the BP oil spill event as a shock to investors’ CSR awareness, we document that the positive effect of CSR on public debt is more evident after the shock, particularly for firms outside the oil and gas industries.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1457-1481"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.70005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146222","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}
{"title":"Female CFOs and Relationship Lending: Implications From Gender Socialization Theory","authors":"Jie Hao, Viet Tuan Pham","doi":"10.1111/fire.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70007","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study examines the impact of CFO gender on the use of relationship lending. Building on gender socialization theory, we hypothesize that female CFOs, driven by communal values and a focus on stakeholder balance, are more inclined to utilize relationship lending to reduce conflicts between creditors and investors. We find that firms with female CFOs exhibit stronger lending relationships, including higher relationship loan frequency and amounts. These findings are robust to various model specifications, including difference-in-differences and instrumental variable approaches. Additionally, female CFOs are more likely to maintain borrowing relationships with lenders even after transitioning to different firms, suggesting female CFOs maintain personal relations with lenders. Loan purpose analysis shows that female CFOs avoid using relationship loans for risky activities such as mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, or leveraged buyouts. Collectively, these findings provide new evidence of the role of gender in shaping corporate financial practices and decision-making.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"61 1","pages":"15-38"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145986914","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}
Minyou Fan, Fearghal Kearney, Youwei Li, Jiadong Liu
{"title":"Optimizing Currency Factors","authors":"Minyou Fan, Fearghal Kearney, Youwei Li, Jiadong Liu","doi":"10.1111/fire.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70000","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We introduce a novel framework that dynamically optimizes currency factor strategies via trading currency spot and forward. We examine the performance of 24,336 portfolio optimization approaches and find that the optimized currency factors significantly outperform the naïve factors after correcting for data snooping bias. Our framework suits both symmetric factor portfolios, including carry, momentum, and value, and asymmetric factor portfolios, such as time series momentum and return signal momentum. An out-of-sample procedure that aggregates all the outperforming optimization approaches validates the economic significance of our optimized factor portfolio.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1389-1414"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.70000","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145145760","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}
{"title":"Housing Market Spillovers in China via Trading Volume: A Comparison of Two Spillover Indexes","authors":"Jian Yang, Ziliang Yu","doi":"10.1111/fire.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70004","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Proposing a new spillover/connectedness index based on data-determined structural vector autoregression (SVAR) with non-Gaussian residuals, this paper investigates nationwide housing market spillovers via transaction volumes among China's largest cities. Significant daily information transmission is documented across geographically dispersed cities, with a pattern that the first-tier cities generally play a more important role than others in the spillovers. Economic factors (e.g., income) and human capital (e.g., education) are significant determinants of the spillovers. The pattern based on the new spillover index is also substantially better explained by fundamentals than those based on the widely used Diebold-Yilmaz spillover index.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1337-1357"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145147005","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}
Houjian Li, Yiwei Li, Wei Song, Thanos Verousis, Haolan Yang
{"title":"How Early Trauma Shapes CEO Risk Appetite for Public Debt Versus Bank Debt","authors":"Houjian Li, Yiwei Li, Wei Song, Thanos Verousis, Haolan Yang","doi":"10.1111/fire.70008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70008","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study examines the impact of CEOs’ early disaster experiences on the choice of debt structure. We find that firms led by CEOs who have endured disasters are more inclined to shift from bank debt to public debt. This evidence remains robust across various alternative measures, empirical specifications, and identification tests aimed at mitigating endogeneity. The effect of CEOs’ early disaster experiences is more pronounced under specific institutional conditions. The effect strengthens with stricter regulatory oversight and lower unemployment risk, suggesting that institutional environments shape how personal experiences manifest in financial decisions. Overall, these findings suggest that the CEOs' inclination, shaped by early disasters, to take additional risk and seek greater autonomy, can have significant effects on corporate debt structure.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"61 1","pages":"39-58"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.70008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145987282","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}
Ben Angelo, Mitchell Johnston, Atul Singh, Yun Qing Wan
{"title":"Tone Distance: Managerial Tone Divergence and Market Reaction to Earnings Announcements","authors":"Ben Angelo, Mitchell Johnston, Atul Singh, Yun Qing Wan","doi":"10.1111/fire.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We evaluate the market reaction to the between-manager variance of tone within an earnings call, which we term Tone Distance. We find that greater differences in Tone Distance are negatively associated with event period returns surrounding earnings announcements. Consistent with the notion that Tone Distance is informative, we show that Tone Distance is a positive predictor of stock volatility, information uncertainty, and operational risks. Tone Distance is inversely related to future growth prospects. Tone Distance also positively predicts monthly stock returns following the earnings announcement. We find that Tone Distance is robust to a variety of alternative constructions and after accounting for analyst tone. Overall, the results are consistent with investors interpreting greater Tone Distance as an information leakage related to the future performance of the firm.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1415-1435"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.70002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146937","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}
James M. Carson, Cassandra R. Cole, Stephen G. Fier
{"title":"Risk Tolerance, Commitment Risk Across Policy Type, and the Demand for Life Insurance","authors":"James M. Carson, Cassandra R. Cole, Stephen G. Fier","doi":"10.1111/fire.70003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.70003","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Life insurers face one-sided commitment risk that is partially mitigated by the introduction of various contract features, including front-loading and the option to backdate, that are intended, in part, to “lock in” the policyholder. While prior literature has discussed one-sided commitment and life insurance, research has not, to our knowledge, examined the intersection of risk tolerance, heterogeneity in commitment across policy type, and life insurance ownership. In this study, we employ a multi-step decision model to examine this intersection. Controlling for various financial and demographic characteristics among households that own life insurance, we provide the first evidence that as risk tolerance increases, the likelihood of owning only cash value life insurance decreases, consistent with these consumers having a greater willingness to bear the higher reclassification risks associated with term life insurance.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1437-1455"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146490","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 Resolution Time Really Matter? Evidence From Chapter 11 Firms","authors":"Ying Kai Yap, Jean-Pierre Fenech, Barry Williams","doi":"10.1111/fire.12448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.12448","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates how resolution time affects firms under Chapter 11 protection. We find a robust negative association between a firm's resolution time and its probability of emergence, using several controls for endogeneity. The probability of emergence reduces by 0.4% for each month (or 4.8% per year) spent in bankruptcy. Firms filing during recessions have a lower likelihood of emergence. Conditional upon business cycles, the explanatory power of various determinants such as firm size, pre-packaged or pre-negotiated bankruptcy, and industry are found to be different. During economic recessions, firm size and pre-packaged or pre-negotiated filings have no significant impact on the probability of emergence.</p>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1311-1335"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/fire.12448","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145146209","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}
{"title":"Too Invested to Change: The Role of Uncertainty Avoidance on Corporate Contribution to Global Warming","authors":"Abu Amin, Arun Upadhyay, Marcos Velazquez","doi":"10.1111/fire.12447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/fire.12447","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Climate change due to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is a global problem yet there is no consensus on how to resolve this problem. Although prior studies have primarily focused on firm-level determinants of GHG emissions, we explore whether the culture of a firm's host country also influences its propensity to control GHG emissions. We posit and find a positive association between collective uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 1983) and firm-level GHG emissions using a sample of firms across 38 countries. To the extent that uncertainty avoidance reflects societies' adherence to norms and rejection of a change in the social order, societies with higher uncertainty avoidance would assign higher risk premiums to carbon abatement initiatives thus discouraging the firms to emit less. The positive relationship is accentuated by a firm's dependence on external funding as well as its investment intensity, host country's propensity for economic decline, and the resilience of the social fabric. These findings highlight important policy implications for nations’ carbon neutrality objectives.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47617,"journal":{"name":"FINANCIAL REVIEW","volume":"60 4","pages":"1277-1309"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145147003","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}