Michele Fabrizi

CEO Risk Incentives and the Riskiness of Securitization Transactions in the Financial Industry

The paper investigates the role of CEO risk incentives in increasing the riskiness of securitization transactions in the financial industry. Using a sample of US financial institutions, and a system model to account for the endogeneity problem between risk incentives and securitization, we document that: i) financial institutions whose CEOs had high risk incentives engaged in securitization transactions to a larger extent than did financial institutions guided by CEOs with low risk incentives, and ii) CEOs with high risk-related incentives securitized riskier loans than did CEOs with low incentives. Thus, our results suggest that CEO risk incentives induced banks to focus on securitizations and increased the riskiness of such transactions.

Securitizations and the financial crisis: Is accounting the missing link?

Abstract In this paper we focus on the interplay between securitization accounting and regulatory capital rules to discuss how the misalignment between these two sets of regulations offered banks the opportunity to engage in opportunistic behaviors and incented them to take on too much risk.

It is not a flat world after all: Tax repatriation costs and cash value

US corporations have accumulated record‐high amounts of cash, and most of it is trapped in foreign accounts. This study tests the hypothesis that the marginal value of cash decreases in the presence of tax repatriation costs, as these costs are a strong indication that part of the cash is trapped abroad. Cash abroad is not readily available to the company because it is subject to an additional layer of tax before it can be used or distributed. Moreover, uncertainty surrounds the potential use of foreign cash, and research documents that firms holding high amounts of cash abroad are likely to invest in negative net present value activities. Finally, possible changes in tax regulation are an additional source of uncertainty. Consequently, foreign cash should be worth less than domestic cash. Using a large sample of US firms drawn from COMPUSTAT during the 1991–2012 period, the analysis suggests that shareholders value an extra dollar of cash at

Privatized Returns and Socialized Risks: CEO Incentives, Securitization Accounting and the Financial Crisis

1.086. However, this result changes dramatically when the change in cash is interacted with the tax cost of repatriating the earnings. That is, the marginal value of cash decreases significantly in the presence of tax repatriation costs, and shareholders discount cash when it is likely to be held abroad. This study contributes to the literature on cash holding by investigating whether tax repatriation costs affect the value of corporate cash. Moreover, the findings show that there are important economic consequences linked to the phenomenon of cash accumulation in foreign countries and therefore provide regulators with a sound foundation on which to take additional actions to require more disclosure of and transparency in the actual location of firms’ cash holdings.

The Role of CEO’s Personal Incentives in Driving Corporate Social Responsibility

The paper investigates the role of CEO’s equity and risk incentives in boosting securitization in the financial industry and in motivating executives to reduce the perceived risk while betting on it. Using a sample of US financial institutions over the period 2003-2009 we document that CEOs with high equity incentives have systematically engaged in securitization transactions to a larger extent than CEOs with low incentives. We also show that CEOs with high equity and risk-related incentives have engaged in the securitization of risky loans and have used securitization for transferring risks to outside investors. Finally, we show that executives incentivized on risk have provided outside investors with low quality disclosure about losses recorded on securitized loans thus contributing to increase the opacity of securitization transactions undertaken. Overall, we interpret our results as evidence that CEOs have foreseen in securitizations under US GAAP an opportunity for hiding risks while bearing them and generating profits and cash flows because of the risks. Our results are robust to several model specifications as well as to endogeneity concerns.