THREE ESSAYS IN EMPIRICAL CORPORATE FINANCE

Abstract

<p>This thesis explores the following three important issues in the field of corporate finance: window dressing in corporate cash holdings, market effects of SEC regulation of short-term borrowing disclosure and market response to dividend change announcements by unregulated versus regulated firms.</p> <p>First, I find strong evidence of upward window dressing in cash holdings by U.S. industrial firms during the fourth fiscal quarter. This behavior is robust to several controls and a December year-end dummy. Further cross-sectional analysis reveals that the window dressing is sensitive to firm size and level of information asymmetry. I also find that firms manipulate discretionary accruals to dress up fourth quarter cash, perhaps to gain favourable credit terms on issuing short-term debt.</p> <p>Second, I use portfolios of financial and non-financial SEC registrants to examine the market reaction to proposed SEC short-term borrowing disclosure regulation. Using event study methodology, I find that the market reaction is positive and significant at the announcement date and negative and significant at the voting date. Overall, I observe a positive market reaction, indicating the usefulness of the disclosure from the vantage point of users. The results for various subsets confirm the expectations and suggest that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to regulation is undesirable.</p> <p>Finally, I use large samples of dividend increase and decrease announcements for the period 1960 to 2010 in order to compare stock price reactions of unregulated and regulated firms. I observe a stronger market reaction to the dividend increase announcements of unregulated firms compared to those of regulated firms after controlling for firm characteristics, market factors and contemporaneous earnings announcements, a result consistent with the dividend signaling hypothesis and uniqueness argument for regulated firms. However, I find that the market reaction to dividend decrease announcements is similar for unregulated and regulated firms. The cross-sectional analysis further confirms that the stronger stock price reaction to dividend increase announcements of unregulated firms is associated with the level of information asymmetry.</p>