(Debt) Overhang: Evidence from Resource Extraction

I study the empirical importance of debt overhang using a unique data set on resource extraction firms that provides ex ante measures of investment opportunities and important variation in terms of a firm’s obligations. In particular, unsecured reclamation liabilities create overhang that is costly to resolve and induces firms to forgo and postpone positive NPV investments. Traditional debt, in contrast, imposes few overhang-related investment distortions. These results show that (a) the overhang problem is potentially large and more broadly applies to firms’ nondebt liabilities and (b) overhang problems associated with traditional debt can be avoided through contracting and debt composition.

U.S. Big 4 and Local Auditors in the China Initial Public Offering Market

This paper examines (1) whether auditor type affects initial public offering (IPO) pricing; (2) whether the effect of IPO pricing is different for clients with different ownership structures. We find that (1) firms being audited by Big 4 accounting firms receive IPO premium while others being audited by local accounting firms do not; (2) Big 4 auditors receive higher audit fees than China’s Top 10 or small local auditors. This paper extends the prior research (e.g., Kumar, P and N Langberg (2009). Corporate fraud and investment distortions in efficient capital markets. The RAND Journal of Economics, 40, 144–172) that reduces agency conflicts between shareholders and manager (by means of better audit quality) and also reconciles corporate misreporting and investment distortions.

REMEDIAL ROLE OF FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN CORPORATE INVESTMENT AMID FINANCING CONSTRAINTS AND AGENCY COSTS

The study investigates the role of financial development in boosting the investment efficiency of firms’ investments in China. Using a large sample of firm-level financial data and country level economic data over the period 2004–2015, present study creates a link between financial and real economy. Firms are priori classified into under- or over-invested and effect of financial development is analyzed individually on each classification by using panel data estimations. The research concludes that firms suffering from under- (over-) investment problem due to financing constraints (agency problem), are more likely to increase (decrease) their investment` in the response of underlying financial development in the economy. This study has demonstrated a novel approach by concurrently incorporating the monitoring and financing issues that disturb the optimal level of investments. Moreover, the findings give strong implications by suggesting and empirically proving the remedy that has the potential to balance the investment distortions by rectifying monitoring and financing deficiencies.

Overinvestment of Free Cash Flow and Manager’s Overconfidence

The problem of over-investment of free cash flows has been heavily debated in the financial literature of companies. However, only a handful of studies have examined this problem in the context of behavioral finance. The objective of this article is to study the effect of the manager’s overconfidence on the over-investment of the free cash flows. We construct a proxy measure of overconfidence and we use Richardson’s model to measure over-investment expenditure. Our empirical study was conducted on a sample of 150 US companies and for a period from 1995 to 2012. Our results show a positive and significant relationship between over-investment and free cash flows. Also, we find the positive relationship is greater when managers are highly confident. The results generated by this study confirm that investment distortions are associated with behavioral attributes or biases.