Mengxin Zhao

Public governance and corporate finance: Evidence from corruption cases

Cross-sectional research finds that corporate financing choices are not only affected by firm and industry factors, but also by country institutional factors. This study focuses on the roles of public governance in firm financing patterns. To conduct a natural experiment that avoids endogeneity, we identify 23 corruption scandals involving high-level government bureaucrats in China and a set of publicly traded companies whose senior managers bribed bureaucrats or were connected with bureaucrats through previous job affiliations. We report a significant decline in the leverage and debt maturity ratios of these firms relative to those of other unconnected firms after the arrest of the corrupt bureaucrat in question. These relations persist even if we only focus on the connected firms that were not directly involved in the corruption cases. The relative decline in firm leverage is associated with negative stock price effects. We also examine the possibility that rent seekers are efficient firms and that corruption does not thus result in capital misallocation, but fail to find evidence to substantiate this postulation. Journal of Comparative Economics 36 (3) (2008) 343-364.

A Review of China’s Financial System and Initiatives for the Future

We provide a comprehensive review of China’s financial system and explore directions of future development. First, the current financial system is dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years, banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and improving their efficiency. It is important that these efforts are continued. Second, the role of the stock market in allocating resources in the economy has been limited and ineffective. Further development of China’s stock market and other financial markets is the most important task in the long term. Third, the most successful part of the financial system, in terms of supporting the growth of the overall economy, is a non-standard sector that consists of alternative financing channels, governance mechanisms, and institutions. This sector should co-exist with banks and markets in the future in order to continue to support the growth of the Hybrid Sector (non-state, non-listed firms). Finally, in order to sustain stable economic growth, China should aim to prevent and halt damaging financial crises, including a banking sector crisis, a real estate or stock market crash, and a “twin crisis” in the currency market and banking sector.

The IPO of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the ‘Chinese Model’ of Privatizing Large Financial Institutions

We examine the privatization process of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest bank in the world by market capitalization, and its dual initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock exchanges in 2006. The Chinese government retains majority equity ownership of ICBC while foreign institutional investors hold minority equity stakes. Other large financial institutions went through the same reform process and have similar, post-IPO ownership structures. The largest Chinese banks, as a group, outperformed their counterparts from other emerging and developed markets before and during the 2007–2009 financial crisis. We argue that the ‘Chinese model’ of privatizing and managing large financial institutions can be advantageously used in other countries.

Investor Protection and Choice of Share Issuance Mechanism

Legal investor protection is associated with how firms choose to issue shares. The likelihood of private placements relative to rights offerings increases with investor protection, as does the likelihood of public offerings relative to both private placements and rights offerings. These findings are consistent with investor protection benefitting minority investors and reducing the benefits of control. Commonly used measures of equity market development are not associated with how shares are issued, nor are measures of market inefficiency. Our study helps shed light on several current issues in the literature, including choice of share issuance mechanism, how investor protection promotes finance, whether investor protection reduces ownership concentration, and the rights offering paradox.

Cash Savings and Capital Markets

A growing literature argues that firms plan their cash policies while considering dynamics in the supply of capital. Evidence from the U.S. shows firms making large equity issues when stock prices are high for the purpose of building precautionary cash savings. We confirm this U.S. evidence, and find these effects internationally in countries like the U.S. where external finance is more accessible. In these countries, the relation between precautionary motives and cash savings disappears if the proceeds from net equity issues are removed from cash. In contrast, high precautionary motive firms do not build cash with equity issues in countries where external finance is costlier, suggesting the benefits of holding cash are outweighed by issuance costs. Our findings show that access to equity finance has a first order impact on cash policy.

A Closer Look at the Effects of Equity Market Liberalization in Emerging Markets

Previous studies link equity market liberalization to economic growth in emerging markets. In 24 emerging markets, liberalizations always coincide with other economic reforms, making identification tenuous. Theories linking liberalization to growth predict that at the firm-level liberalization leads to significant foreign ownership and influence on management, more external finance, and higher investment. We fail to find evidence that is consistent with any of these theories. Our findings suggest that either liberalization does not cause growth or that it promotes growth through a channel that is absent from the current literature.

U.S. Financial Markets Growth and the Real Economy

U.S. financial development varies a good deal over the last half century, primarily increasing since the 1980s. We ask whether this variation had consequences for the real economy. Difference-in-difference tests reveal that increases in financial development have disproportionate effects on industries that depend more on external finance. Higher financial development forecasts externally dependent industries using more external finance, having higher turnover of leading businesses, greater variation in firm-growth rates, more new firms entering, more mature firms exiting, lower concentration, and at the aggregate level more innovation and faster growth. The mosaic of our evidence is consistent with a Schumpeterian framework linking the supply of finance to competition, innovation, and growth. Our findings suggest that the growth in finance had some real effects that are socially beneficial.