Jiaping Qiu

Bio: Jiaping Qiu is an academic researcher from McMaster University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Loan & Corporate governance. The author has an hindex of 29, co-authored 66 publications receiving 5265 citations. Previous affiliations of Jiaping Qiu include Wilfrid Laurier University & University of Toronto.

Corporate Misreporting and Bank Loan Contracting

Abstract: This paper is the first to study the effect of financial restatement on bank loan contracting. Compared with loans initiated before restatement, loans initiated after restatement have significantly higher spreads, shorter maturities, higher likelihood of being secured, and more covenant restrictions. The increase in loan spread is significantly larger for fraudulent restating firms than other restating firms. We also find that after restatement, the number of lenders per loan declines and firms pay higher upfront and annual fees. These results are consistent with the view that banks use tighter loan contract terms to overcome risk and information problems arising from financial restatements.

Managerial Attributes and Executive Compensation

Abstract: We study the role of firm- and manager-specific heterogeneities in executive compensation We decompose the variation in executive compensation and find that time invariant firm and especially manager fixed effects explain a majority of the variation in executive pay We then show that in many settings, it is important to include fixed effects to mitigate potential omitted variable bias Furthermore, we find that compensation fixed effects are significantly correlated with management styles (ie, manager fixed effects in corporate policies) Finally, the method used in the paper has a number of potential applications in financial economics

Understanding Earnings Quality: A Review of the Proxies, Their Determinants and Their Consequences

Abstract: Researchers have used various measures as indications of "earnings quality" including persistence, accruals, smoothness, timeliness, loss avoidance, investor responsiveness, and external indicators such as restatements and SEC enforcement releases. For each measure, we discuss causes of variation in the measure as well as consequences. We reach no single conclusion on what earnings quality is because "quality" is contingent on the decision context. We also point out that the "quality" of earnings is a function of the firm's fundamental performance. The contribution of a firm's fundamental performance to its earnings quality is suggested as one area for future work.

Why Do U.S. Firms Hold so Much More Cash than They Used to

Abstract: The average cash-to-assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms more than doubles from 1980 to 2006. A measure of the economic importance of this increase in cash holdings is that at the end of the sample period, the average firm can pay back all of its debt obligations with its cash holdings; in other words, the average firm has no leverage if leverage is measured as net debt. This change in cash ratios and net debt is the result of a secular trend rather than the outcome of the recent buildup in cash holdings of some large firms, and it is much more pronounced for firms that do not pay dividends and for firms in industries whose cash flows became riskier. The average cash ratio increases over the sample period because firms change: their cash flows become riskier, they hold fewer inventories and accounts receivable, and they are increasingly RD in contrast, in our empirical tests, agency considerations are not successful in explaining the increase.

Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large

Abstract: The theory of precautionary saving is shown in this paper to be isomorphic to the Arrow-Pratt theory of risk aversion, making possible the application of a large body of knowledge about risk aversion to precautionary saving, and more generally, to the theory of optimal choice under risk In particular, a measure of the strength of precautionary saving motive analogous to the Arrow-Pratt measure of risk aversion is used to establish a number of new propositions about precautionary saving, and to give a new interpretation of the Oreze-Modigliani substitution effect

Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To

Abstract: The average cash-to-assets ratio for U.S. industrial firms more than doubles from 1980 to 2006. A measure of the economic importance of this increase is that at the end of the sample period, the average firm can retire all debt obligations with its cash holdings. Cash ratios increase because firms’ cash flows become riskier. In addition, firms change: They hold fewer inventories and receivables and are increasingly R&D intensive. While the precautionary motive for cash holdings plays an important role in explaining the increase in cash ratios, we find no consistent evidence that agency conflicts contribute to the increase. CONSIDERABLE MEDIA ATTENTION has been devoted to the increase in cash holdings of U.S. firms. For instance, a recent article in The Wall Street Journal states that “The piles of cash and stockpile of repurchased shares at [big U.S. companies] have hit record levels.” 1 In this paper, we investigate how the cash holdings of U.S. firms have evolved since 1980 and whether this evolution can be explained by changes in known determinants of cash holdings. We document a secular increase in the cash holdings of the typical firm from 1980 to 2006. In a regression of the average cash-to-assets ratio on a constant and time, time has a significantly positive coefficient, implying that the average cash-to-assets ratio (the cash ratio) has increased by 0.46% per year. Another way to see this evolution is that the average cash ratio more than doubles over our sample period, from 10.5% in 1980 to 23.2% in 2006. Everything else equal, following Jensen (1986), we would expect firms with agency problems to accumulate cash if they do not have good investment opportunities and their management does not want to return cash to shareholders. In the absence of agency problems, improvements in information and financial