Control risk premium: Dual-class shares, family ownership, and minority investor returns
控制权风险溢价：双重股权结构、家族所有权与中小股东回报
Despite exhibiting significant valuation discounts, dual-class shares surged from 1% of initial public offerings in 1980 to nearly half in recent years. This study investigates the potential harm of such structures by examining the identity and returns of minority shareholders. We find that sophisticated investors predominantly hold low-voting shares. Furthermore, outside shareholders earn a positive risk premium rather than suffering low returns, consistent with the hypothesis that market prices compensate for the risk associated with dual-class structures. Our analysis reveals that such structures are confounded with family control, which is present in 89% of dual-class firms in the Russell 3000. Interestingly, single-class firms with family shareholders also enjoy positive abnormal returns, implying minority shareholders care more about the presence of a controlling shareholder than a specific voting structure. This research contributes to the ongoing debate on restricting dual-class structures by highlighting the complex relationship between ownership, control, and shareholder returns.
尽管双重股权结构公司通常存在显著的估值折价，其在首次公开募股中的占比却从1980年的1%上升至近年来的近一半。本文通过分析中小股东的身份及其回报，探讨此类结构可能带来的负面影响。研究发现，低投票权股份主要由具备专业能力的投资者持有。此外，外部股东获得了正向的风险溢价，而非低回报，这与市场通过价格补偿双重股权结构相关风险的假设一致。进一步分析表明，双重股权结构常与家族控制相伴而生，在Russell 3000指数成分股中，89%的双重股权公司为家族控制企业。值得注意的是，具有家族股东的单一股权结构公司也表现出正向的异常回报，表明中小股东更关注是否存在控股股东，而非具体的投票权结构。本研究通过揭示所有权结构、控制权安排与股东回报之间的复杂关系，为有关限制双重股权结构的政策讨论提供了新的视角。
Echoes of insecurity: The detrimental effect of crime on corporate employment
不安全感的回响：犯罪对企业雇佣的负面影响
This study investigates the influence of local crime on corporate employment in China. Leveraging a comprehensive data set of 85 million court judicial documents, we construct city-level crime measures. We find that local crime is negatively associated with corporate employment. Using China's Gang Crime Crackdown program as a quasi-natural experiment and the difference-in-differences approach, we further identify the causal relationship. Violent crimes and those with longer sentences drive the negative correlation between local crime and corporate employment. This relation is particularly pronounced among low-skilled employees, in cities with inadequate commuter security, and in financially constrained firms. Our findings emphasize the role of a secure social environment in the local labor market and firms' employment decisions.
本研究考察了中国地方犯罪对企业雇佣的影响。借助8500万份法院裁判文书构建的城市级犯罪指标，我们发现地方犯罪水平与企业雇佣呈显著负相关关系。利用中国的“扫黑除恶”专项行动作为准自然实验，并采用双重差分方法，我们进一步识别了该关系的因果效应。研究表明，暴力犯罪以及判刑时间较长的犯罪类型是驱动犯罪与企业雇佣负相关关系的主要因素。该效应在低技能劳动者、通勤安全保障不足的城市以及融资受限的企业中尤为显著。研究结果突显了安全社会环境在地方劳动力市场和企业雇佣决策中的重要作用。
Economic policy uncertainty and institutional portfolio investment
经济政策不确定性与机构投资者的资产配置
This paper investigates the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on institutional investors’ holdings of common stocks. Using a large sample of quarterly institutional ownership data from 28 countries/markets between 2000 and 2021, we find that EPU negatively affects institutional investments in both domestic and overseas stock markets. Policy uncertainty also deters foreign institutions’ inbound investments. The adverse effect of policy uncertainty on crossborder institutional investment is particularly pronounced when the investment destination country does not share the same official language or legal origin as the investing country, consistent with the information asymmetry hypothesis. Additionally, firms with higher cash holdings and lower market-to-book ratios are less vulnerable to the withdrawal of investment by foreign institutional investors.
本文研究了经济政策不确定性（EPU）对机构投资者普通股持仓的影响。基于2000年至2021年间28个国家/地区的大型季度机构持股数据样本，研究发现，EPU对机构投资者在本国及海外股市的投资均产生负面影响，政策不确定性同时抑制了外国机构的流入性投资。这一不利影响在投资目的国与投资国之间不共享官方语言或法律起源时尤为显著，支持了信息不对称假说。此外，持有较高现金储备且市净率较低的公司在面对外国机构投资者撤资时表现出更强的抗冲击能力。
Employee demographic diversity and firm performance
员工人口多样性与企业绩效
This article examines the relationship between employee demographic diversity and firm performance measured by future stock returns for a large sample of US public companies. We use novel demographic data extracted from employees' online profiles and resumes and focus on three key aspects of employee demographic diversity: age, gender, and ethnicity. We find no evidence supportive of an outperformance associated with greater employee-diverse companies, neither using portfolio-sorting approaches nor cross-sectional and panel regressions. We also find no significant associations between employee demographic diversity and ROE, gross profit, and labor productivity.
本文研究了员工人口多样性与企业绩效之间的关系，绩效以美国大样本上市公司的未来股票收益为衡量标准。我们利用从员工在线档案和简历中提取的新型人口统计数据，聚焦于员工多样性的三个关键维度：年龄、性别与种族。无论采用投资组合排序方法，还是横截面与面板回归分析，研究均未发现员工多样性更高的企业具有更优的股票回报表现。此外，员工人口多样性与企业的净资产收益率、毛利润及劳动生产率之间亦无显著相关关系。
Which proxy: Capturing lottery feature through aggregation
采用哪种代理变量：通过聚合识别彩票型特征
We develop a lottery factor from five commonly utilized lottery measures and find this factor substantially enhances the well-known factor models concerning market anomalies, particularly those related to skewness and value. Our findings emphasize that stocks exhibiting high lottery characteristics display considerable anomaly returns, primarily due to the short position of these stocks rather than their financial distress. Moreover, our research consistently indicates that lottery stocks frequently correlate with low short volume and higher shorting fees. This implies that the preference of retail investors to hold onto lottery stocks results in a reduced supply of these shares available for lending.
我们基于五种常用的彩票型特征指标构建了一个彩票因子，并发现该因子能显著提升现有因子模型对市场异象的解释能力，尤其是在偏度和价值类异象方面。研究结果表明，具有较强彩票特征的股票表现出显著的异象收益，这主要源于这些股票的空头头寸，而非其财务困境。此外，研究持续发现，彩票型股票通常伴随较低的卖空交易量和较高的借股成本。这一现象表明，散户投资者倾向于持有彩票型股票，从而减少了市场上可供出借的股票供给。
Bounded support: Success and limitations of liquidity support during times of crisis
有限支持：危机时期流动性支持的成效与局限
Our paper sheds light on the complexity of liquidity injection programs by showing unintended consequences that arise when firm heterogeneity is overlooked. Utilizing firm-level data from the Paycheck Protection Program, we find government lending effectively reduced closures, particularly if received during the first two weeks. However, we find significant heterogeneity in the effectiveness of funds, resulting from broad-brush eligibility guidelines and differences in how firms process information. The implementation relied on the banking system, which exacerbated the distributional effects by favoring firms with stronger customer capital. Our findings highlight the importance of thoughtful liquidity distribution design to maximize its benefits.
本文揭示了流动性注入计划的复杂性，指出在忽视企业异质性的情况下，此类政策可能带来意料之外的后果。基于薪资保障计划（Paycheck Protection Program）的企业层面数据，我们发现政府贷款在缓解企业倒闭方面发挥了积极作用，尤其是在最初两周内获得支持的企业成效更为显著。然而，研究也发现资金使用效果存在显著异质性，这源于宽泛的资格标准以及企业在信息处理方式上的差异。此外，该政策依赖银行体系实施，而银行倾向于优先支持客户资本较强的企业，从而加剧了资金分配的不均。研究结果强调，在设计流动性支持政策时，必须审慎考量分配机制，以实现其最大效用。
Learnings From 1000 Rejections
来自1000次拒稿的经验教训
The Review of Finance aimed to significantly increase its standards over my 6 years as managing editor and 1 year as editor. To comply with these new standards, I had to reject nearly 1000 manuscripts. This paper aims to use these rejections constructively by distilling common reasons for rejection to guide future research. They are divided into three categories: contribution, execution, and exposition. Beyond extracts from decision letters that give reasons for rejection, this paper also shares excerpts that shed light on the editorial process, such as how an editor weighs up feedback to reach a decision, as well as emails to authors outside formal letters in response to queries on the process.
在我担任《金融评论》（Review of Finance）执行主编六年、主编一年期间，期刊目标是显著提升学术标准。为达此目标，我不得不拒绝近1000篇稿件。本文旨在将这些拒稿经验加以建设性地整理，通过提炼常见的拒稿原因，为未来研究提供指导。拒稿原因主要分为三类：研究贡献、研究执行与论文表述。除了列举拒稿函中的典型内容外，本文还分享了一些揭示编辑决策过程的邮件片段，例如主编如何综合评审意见作出判断，以及针对作者在投稿流程中提出问题的非正式邮件回复。这些内容有助于学术界更好地理解编辑流程并提升投稿质量。
