Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies最新文献

This study investigates whether firms make efficient labor investment decisions in response to media attention. The results show that media attention lowers labor investment efficiency, not through over-firing but through over-hiring, under-firing, or under-hiring. We interpret these findings as firms' intentional adjustment of their labor resources to recover from or preempt reputational damage. Overall, the media's pressure effects on labor investment efficiency suggest that media coverage can serve as friction in firms' labor investment decisions, highlighting the relatively unexplored role of the media compared with its monitoring function.

This paper investigates how incentives generated by intrafirm tournaments affect the informativeness of bold forecasts issued by sell-side analysts who have recently switched employers. Prior literature suggests that bold forecasts may lose accuracy when they are influenced by tournament-induced incentives. Extending this literature, I find that bold forecasts from transitioning analysts tend to result in decreased forecast accuracy. This negative effect is mitigated when analysts are less concerned about their disadvantages in the new intrafirm tournament—specifically, when they are more experienced, more competent, or have moved to more prosperous brokerage houses. These findings suggest that bold forecasts by transitioning analysts are partly influenced by intrafirm tournament-induced risk-taking, which can deteriorate performance quality.

This study investigates the Korean audit market, revealing that increased audit efforts correlate with reduced stock price crash risk, suggesting audits bridge the information gap between managers and investors, deterring negative news hoarding. The study also finds that this relationship is stronger in firms with more external directors, institutional investor presence, and financial analyst oversight, highlighting the importance of robust corporate governance. The research implies that in emerging markets, comprehensive audits and strong governance are crucial to protect investors from the adverse effects of stock price crashes.

We find a significantly positive relationship between the Tier 1 capital ratio and on-balance-sheet liquidity creation for Canadian Big Six banks, implying that large banks in Canada can take risk due to risk absorption by using capital to fund illiquid assets. Our results are robust to the 2018 initiation of a domestic stability buffer (DSB) of total risk-weighted assets for Pillar 2 risks, core deposits financing, non-deposit funding restrictions, and bank mergers and acquisitions. The positive relation (regulatory capital ratio with liquidity creation) becomes significantly negative during the 2007–9 Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 pandemic.

Economic value added (EVA) is a useful concept for creating investment strategies for fund managers and scholars. This paper analyzes an alpha-seeking strategy with EVA. We use a long-short portfolio with high EVA and low EVA stocks. Using the normalized EVA, we construct a portfolio from the first to the fifth quintile and test the effectiveness of the strategy with the Carhart four-factor model. We find the following: (1) The portfolios with high EVA stocks outperform those with low ones; (2) EVA-based long-short portfolio generates 6.5% return per annum. This paper provides an empirical basis for launching a new equity fund with EVA in Korea. This strategy suggestion could also be extended to introduce new EVA investment strategies in other global markets.

This study uses data from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2009 to 2021 to explore how enterprise digital transformation affects stock price delays. We find that implementing enterprise digital transformation significantly alleviates stock price delays. The mechanism analysis shows that enterprise digital transformation significantly alleviates stock price delays in enterprises with high information transparency and robust internal control. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that digital transformation's alleviating effect on stock price delays is stronger for non-SOEs and enterprises with high industry competition. This study provides valuable insights into alleviating stock price delays, thus enhancing capital market pricing efficiency.

Using data from 34 Chinese industries from January 2007 to February 2024, we examine risk spillover in the economic system and the channels through which geopolitical risk (GPR) influences contagion effects. Risk spillover measurements are calculated for both the short and long term by combining variational mode decomposition with the variance decomposition of vector autoregression. Our findings provide evidence of significant and time-varying spillovers among industries over time. The results on densities and assortativity coefficients indicate the presence of structural changes in the risk network during geopolitical crises. Furthermore, we find that the real linkage (input–output nexus) is an important determinant of long-term spillovers during periods of high GPR, and the information channel (market sentiment) is associated with risk contagion caused by GPR in both the short and long term. Overall, this paper offers valuable insights to prevent and mitigate the negative consequences triggered by geopolitical events on the stability of the economic system.