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The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the influence of corporate governance variables relating to the board of directors, audit and ownership on the agency problems that inflict a firm's investments in capital and research and development (R&D) expenditures. This study posits that the R&D investments are inflicted by the agency problem of “quiet life” whereas “empire-building” agency problem affects capital expenditure decisions.

This study analyses the investment behaviour of non-financial and non-utility firms listed on NIFTY 200 from FY 2009 to FY 2018 using a static and dynamic model.

The results from the static model suggest that ownership concentration mitigates the agency problem of the “quiet life” that affects R&D expenditures. However, no corporate governance attribute has a significant impact on R&D investments under the assumption of the dynamic model. In respect of capital expenditures, the analysis of static model yields that audits by large auditor firms and usage of non-audit services ameliorate the agency problem of “empire-building”. The results from the dynamic model show that independent boards worsen it. They also continue to provide empirical evidence in favour of large auditors.

This paper contributes to the literature on the corporate governance-investment association by simultaneously examining the impact of multiple corporate governance attributes on the agency problems of “quiet life” and “empire-building” that affect R&D and capital expenditures, respectively, in a static and dynamic context for a sample of Indian firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which stock market valuation and managerial incentives jointly affect merger and acquisition (M&A) decisions and post‐M&A performance, and to provide new evidence on the agency implications where such acquisitions are driven by the stock market.

Utilizing all publicly‐traded US firms in the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ during the period from 1992 to 2005 (excluding financial and utility firms), obtained from COMPUSTAT, CRSP, I/B/E/S, and the M&A database provided by SDC Platinum, this paper adopts a two‐stage approach: the first stage, predicts the probability of an M&A based on the market valuation variables; the second stage, regresses the post‐M&A firm performance on the predicted probability of a merger or acquisition from the first stage and other control variables.

Market valuation has a significant influence on corporate acquisition decisions, particularly for those firms whose compensation packages include less managerial equity ownership, more executive stock options and no long‐term incentive plans, and in those firms where CEOs are serving on the board of directors. The value‐destroying acquisitions made by these types of managers are likely to be financed using the firms' stocks, executed with high premiums and undertaken during periods of high market valuation.

The main finding suggests that market‐driven acquisitions could be value destroying when managers engage in opportunistic acquisitions for reasons of self‐interest. Managerial myopia, overconfidence, misaligned incentives, empire‐building motives and poor corporate governance can all exacerbate the agency problem of market‐driven acquisitions.

Prior studies document increased share repurchase activity after the temporary tax holiday under the American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA) of 2004. Our study examines the moderating effect of financial statement readability on share repurchases in response to a temporary reduction in repatriation tax. Building on prior literature, we argue that firms with excess cash overseas, despite the lack of investment opportunities, produce less readable financial statements to hide bad news. We find that firms with less readable financial statements initiated higher levels of share repurchases after the AJCA. Our results contribute to the existing literature showing (1) firms hold excess cash overseas mainly for tax reasons rather than for nontax reasons such as precautionary motives or empire-building concerns and (2) firms return excess funds to investors rather than squander the funds once the tax cost of repatriation is reduced. Firms that suffer from the overinvestment problem using hard-to-read financial statements to hide the bad news of a lack of investment opportunities are more likely to benefit from the tax cut. Our study provides timely evidence of potential firm response to the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which permanently removes the repatriation tax.

This paper investigates how the global financial crisis changes the effects of state ownership and foreign ownership on corporate cash holdings in an emerging market.

We employ an interactive term between state ownership (foreign ownership) and a crisis dummy to analyze how the global financial crisis determines the effect of state ownership (foreign ownership) on corporate cash holdings.

With a research sample including 5,493 observations from 621 listed firms over the period 2007–2017, we find that state ownership (foreign ownership) is negatively (positively) related to corporate cash holdings and the effect of state ownership (foreign ownership) is stronger (weaker) during the crisis period. Moreover, the increase in the effect of state ownership is larger in financially unconstrained firms.

Prior research shows that the effects of state ownership and foreign ownership on corporate cash holdings in emerging markets are still debatable. This paper extends this line of research by investigating how the global financial crisis – an exogenous shock – changes these effects.

Using a sample of US firms more likely to be affected by agency problems, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate value and financial policies and to study whether credit market freedom (CMF) affects this relationship.

The authors identify a sub-sample of non-financial US firms potentially affected by agency problems using a joint criterion of over-investment and high cash-holdings. A generalized method of moment econometric framework is then used to estimate the impact of cash-holdings and leverage policies on firm value for this sub-sample. This exercise is also performed by taking into account the level of CMF of the state where the firm operates.

The results show that the relationship between cash-holdings – or leverage – and firm value is “U-shaped.” In addition, when the authors focus on the role played by the level of CMF, the authors find a number of interesting facts: CMF facilitates the firms’ access to external finance, thereby relaxing the need of internal funds for investing; the relationship between cash-holdings and firm value is “U-shaped” only in states enjoying high levels of CMF; the probability of observing firms more likely to be affected by agency problems is higher in states with high levels of CMF.

The empirical findings provide important insights to policymakers, shareholders and practitioners. To policymakers, the results suggest that providing institutional environments with greater CMF can enhance the firm access to external finance, the level of corporate investment and the economic growth. To shareholders, the findings highlight that the conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders may be more severe in states with higher CMF; therefore, adequate financing policies and corporate governance mechanisms must be used to mitigate these conflicts and maximize the firm value. Finally, to practitioners, the evidence suggests that, in valuing a firm, they must take into consideration whether the economic environment provides managers with more freedom to stockpile cash and invest sub-optimally.

The paper contributes to the corporate finance and governance literature in two respects. First, it provides new evidence on the shape of the relationship between cash holdings and firm value for firms affected by empire-building managers. Second, at the best of the knowledge, it is the first corporate finance study, which analyzes the role played by the CMF at the state level on the capital structure and the level of investment of the firms.

During the centennial anniversary of Xinhai Revolution in 2011, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television supported the production of 1911 for celebrating such an important event that lead to the rise of the Republic of China in the contemporary Chinese history. This paper aims to reflect upon this film in relation to China’s propagation of “Greater China” for the Empire-building project.

By scrutinizing the film text and following the strait controversies over the film, this paper demonstrates how the Chinese Communist agents employed the coproduction model with Hong Kong for globalizing a cinematic discourse of Greater China in part of their Empire-building project.

The study challenges how contemporary Chinese history is ideologically and politically manipulated for advancing the Chinese Communist propaganda over Taiwan. The overall objective is to reflect upon the longstanding historical divergences that stand on the current geopolitical envision and strategy of China for reunification.

This paper provides an interdisciplinary reflection upon the intricate post-Cold War politics in part of the contemporary Chinese cinema under the China–Hong Kong coproduction model. The findings advance novel and timely insights into China’s current envision and strategy for reunification.

The firm size hypothesis – takeover likelihood (TALI) decreases with target firm size (SIZE) – has enjoyed little traction in the TALI modelling literature; hence, this paper aims to redevelop this hypothesis while taking account of prevailing market conditions – capital liquidity and market performance.

The study uses a logit modelling framework to model TALI. Model performance is assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The empirical analysis is based on a UK sample of 34,661 firm-year observations drawn from 3,105 firms and 1,396 M&A deals over a 30-year period (1987-2016).

While acquirers generally seek smaller targets because of transaction cost constraints, the paper shows that the documented negative relation between SIZE and TALI arises from sampling bias. Over a full sample, mid-sized firms are most at risk of takeovers. Additionally, market conditions moderate the SIZE–TALI relationship, with acquirers more inclined to pursue comparatively larger targets when financing costs are low and market growth or sentiment is high. The results are generally robust to endogeneity.

Sample truncation on the basis of SIZE leads to empirical misspecification of the TALI–SIZE relation. In an unbiased sample, an inverse U-shaped specification between TALI and SIZE sufficiently models the underlying relation and leads to improvements in the predictive ability of TALI models.

This study advances a new firm size hypothesis which is consistent with classic M&A theories. The study also evidences market conditions as a moderator of the acquirer’s choice of target SIZE. A new model specification which recognises the non-linear relation between TALI and SIZE and accounts for the moderating effect of market conditions on the SIZE-TALI relationship leads to improvements in the performance of TALI prediction models.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate that how firms’ pre-issue investment levels and changes in institutional ownership (IO) affect their long-run performance after seasoned equity offerings (SEOs).

The authors use Richardson’s (2006) method to measure firms’ pre-issue investment levels and then divide the SEO firms into the under-, normal-, and overinvesting groups. The study examines the relation between the pre-issue abnormal investment and long-run post-issue performance. In addition, the authors examine whether changes in IO around SEOs affects SEO firms’ performance.

The authors find a quadratic relation between the pre-issue abnormal investment and the long-run post-issue performance. In other words, the underinvesting and overinvesting groups tend to underperform. The authors also find that changes in IO around SEOs positively associate with firms’ long-run performance.

The authors ascribe the underperformance of underinvesting firms to the deficiency of good growth opportunities; for overinvesting firms, the authors link to the misalignment problem of managerial incentive (i.e. empire building).

The results suggest that long-run investors should be cautious of buying new-issue shares of underinvesting and overinvesting firms, especially those with insignificant increases in IO.