Mauricio Jara-Bertin

PRÁCTICAS DE RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL, REPUTACIÓN CORPORATIVA Y DESEMPEÑO FINANCIERO

Este trabajo analiza si la adopcion de estrategias de divulgacion de informacion voluntaria de practicas de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE) a traves de distintos medios de comunicacion tiene incidencia sobre el desempeno financiero y la reputacion corporativa. Una vez identificadas las distintas dimensiones por las cuales las empresas emiten informacion (social, etica, medioambiental, colaboradores) por medio de un analisis de contenidos para una muestra de 55 empresas chilenas cotizadas durante el periodo 2007-2012, nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto que la implementacion de las cuatro dimensiones en su conjunto, al igual que la dimension etica y social, influyen positivamente sobre el desempeno financiero. Mientras que un tratamiento responsable a los colaboradores impacta positivamente sobre la Reputacion Corporativa medida como el crecimiento de las ventas. Asi, nuestro trabajo provee nueva evidencia para una economia emergente y algunas luces acerca del efecto potencial que tiene la adopcion de practicas de RSE.

Diversification and control in emerging markets: the case of Chilean firms

We analyze the effect of two types of corporate diversification (business diversification and ownership diversification) on the market value of the Chilean firms. For a sample of 83 nonfinancial firms listed on the Santiago Stock Market from 2005 to 2013, we find a discount for both business and ownership diversification, which is consistent with that reported for other economic or institutional settings. Second, we find that the business diversification discount is related to the ownership structure and is due to the excess of the largest shareholders’ control rights. Third, we find that the ownership diversification discount becomes a premium when the ownership diversification enables the control of the affiliated firms. This effect can be explained by the improvement of internal capital markets that allows overcoming the limitations of Chilean external capital markets.

Determinants of Bank Performance: Evidence for Latin America

We analyze the impact of macroeconomic-industrial and bank-specific factors on Latin American banks’ performance. For that purpose, we use a data panel system estimator version of the generalized method of moments to estimate the determinants of return on assets and interest margin for a sample of 78 commercial banks from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela over the period from 1995 to 2010. Our results show that, on the one hand, bank performance is positively related to idiosyncratic factors, such as service diversification, size, capital ratio, and specialization degree, and to macroeconomic-industrial factors such as economic growth, inflation, and bank concentration. On the other hand, the results show that bank performance is negatively related to credit risk, liquidity risk, and operational inefficiencies.

Is there a corporate diversification discount or premium? Evidence from Chile

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of the corporate ownership diversification, i.e. how the involvement in the ownership of other non-financial firms affects the value of listed firms. The authors control for the unrelated diversification when the firm has different business segments in different sectors. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyze a sample of Chilean-listed firms between 2005 and 2009, in two stages. First, the authors compute the diversification premium or discount, defined as the part of the firms’ capitalization that stems from the diversification strategy. Then, the authors regress the premium or discount against the business and ownership diversification measures and other control variables. Findings In addition to a discount for unrelated business diversification, the authors find an ownership diversification discount when non-financial firms are shareholders of other firms. However, this discount turns into a premium when the firm gains the control of t...

Earnings management and performance in family-controlled firms: Evidence from an emerging economy

This study introduces an earnings management dimension to compute premanipulated accounting performance to determine whether family-controlled firms have higher performance relative to non-family-controlled firms. Using a premanipulated return on assets measure for Chilean firms dataset, we find that the premanipulated performance of familycontrolled firms is superior to that of non-family-controlled firms. We also show that the presence of institutional investors in the firm’s ownership structure has a positive influence on performance of family companies. The results suggest that earnings management behavior is not sufficient to explain the higher performance of family-controlled firms that has been reported in the literature.

Social responsability practices, corporate reputation and financial performance

Este trabajo analiza si la adopcion de estrategias de divulgacion de informacion voluntaria de practicas de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE) a traves de distintos medios de comunicacion tiene incidencia sobre el desempeno financiero y la reputacion corporativa. Una vez identificadas las distintas dimensiones por las cuales las empresas emiten informacion (social, etica, medioambiental, colaboradores) por medio de un analisis de contenidos para una muestra de 55 empresas chilenas cotizadas durante el periodo 2007-2012, nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto que la implementacion de las cuatro dimensiones en su conjunto, al igual que la dimension etica y social, influyen positivamente sobre el desempeno financiero. Mientras que un tratamiento responsable a los colaboradores impacta positivamente sobre la Reputacion Corporativa medida como el crecimiento de las ventas. Asi, nuestro trabajo provee nueva evidencia para una economia emergente y algunas luces acerca del efecto potencial que tiene la adopcion de practicas de RSE.

How Do Banks and Investment Funds Affect Family Risk-Taking? Evidence from the Financial Crisis

We study the risk-return relationship for an international sample of family and non-family firms in the period 2007–2014. According to prior studies and following the prospect theory, we obtain a nonlinear risk-return relationship and a target level of profitability for family firms in order not to assume an excessive level of corporate risk-taking. This relationship is more prominent in companies from countries with lower protection of creditors and less aversion to uncertainty. We also find evidence that institutional investors exert pressure on family firms to increase corporate risk-taking, even when the return is lower than the target, with the negative consequence of reducing profitability and going to bankruptcy, as occurred during the years of financial crisis. Furthermore, as major shareholders, banks reduce risk as a result of trying to maintain their financial relationship with family firms. This conservative role has a positive influence on the profitability of the firm for values lower than the return target.

Implicit Bailouts and the Debt of Wholly State-Owned Enterprises

Around a tenth of the global bond market is issued by State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that do not have shares floating on public markets. Many of them are SOE banks. Sometimes governments avoid a direct capitalization of these SOEs and instead allow them to issue debt, assuming bond markets can “discipline” the company. Nonetheless bond buyers may expect that in case the SOE defaults there will be an implicit guarantee from the Treasury, either because of “too big to fail” problems or because of contagion to the sovereign bond. In this paper we use data from global bond markets in the last 20 years finding that in fact SOEs tend to get cheaper finance, on average some 30 to 80 basis points below comparable firms. This effect seems stronger for State Owned Banks than for Industrials and part of it can be rationalized by better credit rating given fundamentals. Our central results are robust to many alternative tests and do not seem to be caused by the characteristics of the issuance or the size of the firm. The bond market perceives that holding debt SOEs is on average safer, consistent with the view of an implicit state guarantee, which has implications for banking regulation and corporate governance.

Implicit Bailouts and the Debt of Wholly State Owned Corporations

Around a tenth of the global bond market is issued by State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that do not have shares floating on public markets. Many of them are SOE banks. Sometimes governments avoid a direct capitalization of these SOEs and instead allow them to issue debt, assuming bond markets can “discipline” the company. Nonetheless bond buyers may expect that in case the SOE defaults there will be an implicit guarantee from the Treasury, either because of “too big to fail” problems or because of contagion to the sovereign bond. In this paper we use data from global bond markets in the last 20 years finding that in fact SOEs tend to get cheaper finance, on average some 30 to 80 basis points below comparable firms. This effect seems stronger for State Owned Banks than for Industrials and part of it can be rationalized by better credit rating given fundamentals. Our central results are robust to many alternative tests and do not seem to be caused by the characteristics of the issuance or the size of the firm. The bond market perceives that holding debt SOEs is on average safer, consistent with the view of an implicit state guarantee, which has implications for banking regulation and corporate governance.

Do institutional blockholders influence corporate investment? Evidence from emerging markets

This paper examines the relation between firm investment ratios and institutional blockholder ownership for a sample of 6,300 publicly traded firms of 16 large emerging markets for the 2005-2014 period. Results show that independent, long-term, and local institutional investors boost investment ratios, consistent with the monitoring role and blockholder voice intervention hypotheses. The presence of institutional blockholders, regardless their monitoring involvement, reduces firm cash flow sensitivity ratios and thus decreasing firms’ financial constraints.