Richard S. Warr

The Characteristics of Firms That Hire Chief Risk Officers: Chief Risk Officers

We examine the characteristics of firms that adopt enterprise risk management (ERM) and find support for the hypothesis that firms adopt ERM for direct economic benefit rather than to merely comply with regulatory pressure. Using chief risk officer (CRO) hires as a proxy for ERM adoption we find that firms that are larger, more volatile, and have greater institutional ownership are more likely to adopt ERM. In addition, when the CEO has incentives to take risk, the firm is also more likely to hire a CRO. Finally, banks with lower levels of Tier 1 capital are also more likely to hire a CRO.

Price Pressure on the NYSE and Nasdaq: Evidence from S&P 500 Index Changes

Using additions of NYSE- and Nasdaq-listed firms to the S&P 500, between 1989 and 2000, we explore the price effects of noninformation related demand shocks. After controlling for various firm characteristics, index fund growth, and arbitrage risk, we find that NYSE stocks suffer less pronounced price effects than do Nasdaq stocks on the day stocks are added to the Index. For NYSE stocks, this effect is reversed immediately, but Nasdaq stocks, show a partial reversal taking place over several days. We interpret this result as evidence of the superiority of the specialist system over the dealer system in mitigating price pressures.

Equity Mispricing and Leverage Adjustment Costs

We find that equity mispricing impacts the speed at which firms adjust to their target leverage (TL) and does so in predictable ways depending on whether the firm is over- or underlevered. For example, firms that are above their TL and should therefore issue equity (or retire debt) adjust more rapidly toward their target when their equity is overvalued. However, when a firm is undervalued but needs to reduce leverage, the speed of adjustment is much slower. Our findings support the role of equity mispricing as an important factor that alters the cost of making capital structure adjustments.

Reassessing the Impact of Option Introductions on Market Quality: A Less Restrictive Test for Event-Date Effects

Prior research concludes that option introductions improve the average liquidity of the underlying stocks. We develop an improved, generalizable test to assess whether market quality changes occur on or near an event date. Applying this method to option listing events, we conclude that options do not systematically improve the market quality of the underlying security; rather, the market quality of the underlying security improves before the listing decision. Hazard model tests indicate that improving liquidity is a selection criterion in the option listing decision. Moreover, these tests suggest that the size of a stocks bid-ask spread is the single most important option listing determinant.

Capital Structure, Equity Mispricing, and Stock Repurchases

We evaluate motives for share repurchases using a unified framework where a firm has a target capital structure and has equity that can be mispriced. We document that capital structure adjustments are a value-increasing motive for repurchases and that the extent to which adjusting capital structure through a repurchase creates value depends on the undervaluation of the firm. Underlevered and undervalued firms enjoy the greatest economic gains from a repurchase, as evidenced by the stock price reaction to the repurchase announcement, and these firms are more likely to announce a share repurchase program.

Auditor Fees, Market Microstructure, and Firm Transparency

Auditors, as corporate insiders, have access to private information regarding the firms financial and business opacity that is unavailable to outside investors. We test whether auditors price their knowledge of firm opacity in their audit fees by examining two competing hypotheses. The first states that higher audit fees may reflect the greater risk that the auditor faces in auditing an opaque firm. Under this hypothesis, market based measures of opacity will be positively correlated with higher fees. The second hypothesis states that firms buy reputational capital from their auditor by paying high fees in an attempt to improve the markets perception of the firms transparency. In this case, higher audit fees are negatively correlated with market based measures of opacity. Our results are consistent with the first hypothesis, that auditors price opacity risk into their fees. Copyright 2007 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Is the Adverse Selection Component Really Higher on the NYSE/Amex than on the Nasdaq?

Affleck-Graves, Hegde and Miller (1994) find that the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread is higher for NYSE and Amex stocks than for Nasdaq stocks. Using the model of Huang and Stoll (1997), we revisit their study and find the opposite to be true - the adverse selection component is actually higher for Nasdaq stocks than for NYSE and Amex stocks. The economic magnitude of this additional adverse selection cost is very significant. Our results have important implications for the understanding of information production in dealer versus auction markets, and the costs of trading on such markets. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

Single Stock Futures as a Substitute for Short Sales: Evidence from Microstructure Data

We examine how the introduction of single-stock futures impacts short sale costs and short interest levels in the underlying spot market. We find that short selling in the underling securities declines, after futures are introduced, the cost of borrowing stock for short sales declines and the available unborrowed supply of lendable shares increases. These results are consistent with futures exchanges providing a low-cost substitute market for establishing short positions. Microstructure evidence also suggests that the lower cost and greater ease of short selling via futures markets draws informed traders from the spot market. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

REIT Auditor Fees and Financial Market Transparency

This article examines the relationship between overinvestment in audit services, abnormal nonaudit fees paid to the auditor and market-based measures of firm transparency. Because real estate investment trusts (REITs) must distribute 90% of their earnings as dividends, many are repeat participants in the seasoned equity market. Thus, REITs have unusually strong incentives to strive for security market transparency. We find that the capital markets reward REITs that overinvest in audit services with better liquidity as measured by bid-ask spreads. However, firms with abnormally high nonaudit expenditures appear to be penalized with wider spreads, consistent with the notion that such fees may compromise auditor independence.

Does Employee Treatment and Workforce Diversity Impact Corporate Innovative Efficiency

Using patents and citations per R&D dollar as measures of innovation efficiency, we find that corporate policies that result in better treatment of employees and a more pro-diversity culture, specifically treatment of women and minorities, enhance future innovative efficiency, even after controlling for endogeneity. Such positive effect is stronger in more innovative firms, more financially constrained firms, more undervalued firms, firms where employees are more valuable, firms in industries with longer employee tenure and firms with stronger governance. Better employee treatment and diversity policies also increase firm value via this positive effect on innovation efficiency. We suggest a channel through which employee treatment may enhance firm value.