Kose John

Bio: Kose John is an academic researcher from New York University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Corporate governance & Debt. The author has an hindex of 56, co-authored 223 publications receiving 15322 citations. Previous affiliations of Kose John include Stellenbosch University & University of Iowa.

Dividends, Dilution, and Taxes: A Signalling Equilibrium

Abstract: A signalling equilibrium with taxable dividends is identified. In this equilibrium, corporate insiders with more valuable private information optimally distribute larger dividends and receive higher prices for their stock whenever the demand for cash by both their firm and its current stockholders exceeds its internal supply of cash. In equilibrium, many firms distribute dividends and simultaneously issue new stock, while other firms pay no dividends. Because dividends reveal all private information not conveyed by corporate audits, current stockholders capture in equilibrium all economic rents net of dissipative signalling costs. Both the announcement effect and the relationship between dividends and cum-dividend market values are derived explicitly. DIVIDENDS HAVE LONG PERPLEXED financial economists. Despite recent successes in constructing signalling equilibria with dividends, many important questions remain unanswered.' For example, why do corporations declare dividends and simultaneously sell new stock or, alternatively, distribute dividends and not repurchase stock? How do dividends with their dissipative costsprimarily adverse personal taxes-coexist with other presumably less costly technologies for releasing inside information, like audited annual reports? Do plausible signalling equilibria with dividends require transaction costs incurred by either corporations when issuing or retiring stock or investors when trading outstanding shares? Finally, how do the tax rates and demands for liquidity of such investors as widows, senior citizens, and financial institutions influence signalling equilibria? A satisfactory theory of signalling with dividends must also have empirical content. In particular, such a theory should provide empirically testable propositions detailing the effects of announced dividends on stock prices,2 crosssectional connections between dividends and market values, and any resulting relationships between payout ratios and rates of return on stocks.3 In addition,

Corporate governance and board effectiveness

Abstract: This paper surveys the empirical and theoretical literature on the mechanisms of corporate governance. We focus on the internal mechanisms of corporate governance (e.g., corporate board of directors) and their role in ameliorating various classes of agency problems arising from conflicts of interests between managers and equityholders, equityholders and creditors, and capital contributors and other stakeholders to the corporate firm. We also examine the substitution effect between internal mechanisms of corporate governance and external mechanisms, particularly markets for corporate control. Directions for future research are provided.

Corporate Governance and Risk-Taking

Abstract: Better investor protection could lead corporations to undertake riskier but value-enhancing investments. For example, better investor protection mitigates the taking of private benefits leading to excess risk-avoidance. Further, in better investor protection environments, stakeholders like creditors, labor groups, and the government are less effective in reducing corporate risk-taking for their self-interest. However, arguments can also be made for a negative relationship between investor protection and risk-taking. Using a cross-country panel and a U.S.-only sample, we find that corporate risk-taking and firm growth rates are positively related to the quality of investor protection.

Corporate Governance and Risk Taking

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between investor protection and corporate insiders' incentive to take value-enhancing risks. In a poor investor protection environment corporations are often run by entrenched insiders who appropriate considerable corporate resources as personal benefits. When these private benefits are large, insiders may undertake sub-optimally conservative investment decisions to preserve them. Better investor protection reduces these private benefits and may therefore induce riskier but value enhancing investment policy. Such a relationship can also result from risk-averse behavior on the part of dominant shareholders with undiversified exposure in their own firms, which is again more prevalent in countries with poorer investor protection. If prominent non-equity stakeholders such as banks, labor unions or the government can influence corporate investment, and their influence is decreasing in investor protection, that can also give rise to a positive relationship between investor protection and investment risk. We test these predictions using a large cross-country panel. We find empirical confirmation that corporate risk-taking and firm growth rates are positively related to the quality of investor protection. On the other hand, the data do not lead to consistent evidence for the alternative channels.

A Survey of Corporate Governance

Abstract: This paper surveys research on corporate governance, with special attention to the importance of legal protection of investors and of ownership concentration in corporate governance systems around the world.

A Survey of Corporate Governance

Abstract: This article surveys research on corporate governance, with special attention to the importance of legal protection of investors and of ownership concentration in corporate governance systems around the world. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE DEALS WITH the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment. How do the suppliers of finance get managers to return some of the profits to them? How do they make sure that managers do not steal the capital they supply or invest it in bad projects? How do suppliers of finance control managers? At first glance, it is not entirely obvious why the suppliers of capital get anything back. After all, they part with their money, and have little to contribute to the enterprise afterward. The professional managers or entrepreneurs who run the firms might as well abscond with the money. Although they sometimes do, usually they do not. Most advanced market economies have solved the problem of corporate governance at least reasonably well, in that they have assured the flows of enormous amounts of capital to firms, and actual repatriation of profits to the providers of finance. But this does not imply that they have solved the corporate governance problem perfectly, or that the corporate governance mechanisms cannot be improved. In fact, the subject of corporate governance is of enormous practical impor

The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems

Abstract: Since 1973 technological, political, regulatory, and economic forces have been changing the worldwide economy in a fashion comparable to the changes experienced during the nineteenth century Industrial Revolution. As in the nineteenth century, we are experiencing declining costs, increasing average (but decreasing marginal) productivity of labor, reduced growth rates of labor income, excess capacity, and the requirement for downsizing and exit. The last two decades indicate corporate internal control systems have failed to deal effectively with these changes, especially slow growth and the requirement for exit. The next several decades pose a major challenge for Western firms and political systems as these forces continue to work their way through the worldwide economy.

The Theory of Capital Structure

Abstract: This paper surveys capital structure theories based on agency costs, asymmetric information, product/input market interactions, and corporate control considerations (but excluding tax-based theories). For each type of model, a brief overview of the papers surveyed and their relation to each other is provided. The central papers are described in some detail, and their results are summarized and followed by a discussion of related extensions. Each section concludes with a summary of the main implications of the models surveyed in the section. Finally, these results are collected and compared to the available evidence. Suggestions for future research are provided.

Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: correlation or misspecification?

Abstract: Researchers have reported a positive, negative, and neutral impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on financial performance. This inconsistency may be due to flawed empirical analysis. In this paper, we demonstrate a particular flaw in existing econometric studies of the relationship between social and financial performance. These studies estimate the effect of CSR by regressing firm performance on corporate social performance, and several control variables. This model is misspecified because it does not control for investment in R&D, which has been shown to be an important determinant of firm performance. This misspecification results in upwardly biased estimates of the financial impact of CSR. When the model is properly specified, we find that CSR has a neutral impact on financial performance. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.