Earticle

This paper examines how cross-listing of Chinese A- and Hong Kong H-shares (AH cross-listed) affects the value of corporate cash holdings. Using a sample of AH cross-listed firms, we find that the value of cash holdings is higher for cross-listed than for non-cross-listed firms. The results remain robust to alternative measures of change in cash and consideration of state-owned enterprises. The AH cross-listing valuation premium for cash holdings decreases after a governance reform in the Chinese stock market. Our results suggest that AH cross-listing enhances firms’ transparency and disclosure, and thereby the value of cash holdings relative to non-cross-listed companies.

Firms can issue stocks classified in many ways, including in terms of voting rights, dividend rights, redemption rights, and conversion rights. This study investigates the desirability of giving firms greater freedom to choose their share classes. Making use of the setting created by the 2011 Commercial Act amendment that significantly relaxed regulation over share classes in Korea, we study the motivation behind and the effect of adopting two newly emergent classes: preferred stocks convertible to voting stocks at the discretion of management and preferred stocks redeemable at the discretion of investors. We find that firms adopt the former for managerial entrenchment purposes and destroy firm value, while firms adopt the latter in times of financial constraint but fail to arrest the decline in firm value.

This study seeks to explore the peculiar impact of critical indicators: dollar index, oil price, sovereign credit default swap (CDS), stock market returns and Libor-OIS on the Korean won (KRW) cross-currency basis (CCB) at the maturity of 1-and- 5-years by segregating the timeframe from March 2003 to September 2019 into four periods: before the global financial crisis (GFC), during GFC, during eurozone crisis and after the crisis. Hence, for this time series data, simple linear regression with ARMA errors is employed to determine the direction and magnitude of regressors’ impact on KRW as well as to deal with possible heteroskedasticity and serial correlation issues. Vector autoregression (VAR) is used to obtain forecast error variance (FEV) decomposition to ascertain the dynamic relationship and predictive influence of these variables, especially in the advent of shocks. It is affirmed that CDS, stocks and Libor-OIS were most significant during GFC. Also, all regressors were relatively significant for the overall dataset with oil having the least impact.

This study examines the interactions between investment and financing decisions under Knightian uncertainty. We first derive the optimal coupon and investment threshold under Knightian uncertainty. When financing and investment decisions interact, the jointly optimal coupon decreases with the degree of Knightian uncertainty, which supports empirical research. We show that the tax effect on investment decisions increases as the degree of Knightian uncertainty increases. We also find that the jointly determined coupon is less influenced by Knightian uncertainty.

On 19 February 2020, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported that at least 11 cases of COVID-19 belonged in the same, initial cluster as Shincheonji Daegu church, with confirmed cases then standing at 31. This was the earliest news coverage of the COVID-19 “super-spreader” Daegu/ Gyeongsangbuk since the outbreak had begun in South Korea. In this paper, I concentrate on the relationship between the occurrence of a “super-spreader” and a negative stock market reaction during the earliest phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. Using location data of public firms’ headquarters, I find that local firms are more negatively affected by the announcement of this exogenous shock than others. However, local firms’ accounting performance and long-term stock market performance are insignificant, or even positive. Overall, this study sheds light on understanding the relationship between changes of local public health risk and stock market reaction.