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Two Essays on An Examination of Life Cycle Effects and Firm Policies

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Date Issued:
2018
Abstract/Description:
In Essay 1, I investigate the impact of corporate life cycle dynamics on the observed negative association between asset growth and stock returns in the crosssection. I find that the asset growth effect on average exists across some life cycle stages measured using cohorts. However, controlling for certain variables associated with the theoretical explanations, I find there is no relation between asset growth and returns. I argue this evidence is consistent with an agency-based explanation of the asset growth effect. Furthermore, a decomposition of the drivers of the effect shows that different components of assets (i.e. working capital and financing) drive asset growth effect at different life cycle stages. From a decomposition analyses, results show that in the youngest firms (cohort 1), asset growth effect is mostly driven by both operating liability and stock financing on one side (financing) and noncash current assets, PPE, and growth in other assets (for working capital) while cohort 3’s drivers appear to be stock issuances, together with noncash current assets, which I conclude offer further support for agency issues. In Essay 2, I examine how firms’ life cycle affect insider trading behavior, profits surrounding trades, price informativeness, and financing constraints. I argue that if firms’ policies and characteristics change over time as shown in lifecycle literature, then from firm characteristics that motivate insider-trading behavior, one should observe some differences across varying life cycle stages measured using age cohorts. I find that insiders are net sellers at all life cycle stages of a firm. Furthermore, insiders tend to trade more in younger firms than in older firms even though they have fewer numbers of insiders trading. Trading characteristics are generally statistically significant across cohorts. Overall, insiders appear to predict the correct direction for positive wealth generation when trading. Specifically, at all lifecycle stages, they appear to sell before negative CARs, and buy during periods associated with negative CARs that lead to positive CARs days after insider transactions. The findings on price informativeness suggest that in general insider purchases enhance price informativeness for firms at different lifecycle stages, however, this finding holds only for cohort 4 (oldest firms) in the case of insider sales. The implication of this finding is that regulation should be more lax towards purchases as compared to sales for firms, except for sales in firms that are older. Lastly, insider trades are linked with positive investment-cash flow sensitivities for both insider purchases and insider sales, which generally increase monotonically across cohorts. This finding is robust to using GMM approach.
Title: Two Essays on An Examination of Life Cycle Effects and Firm Policies.
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Name(s): Danso, Charles K. A., author
Garcia-Feijoo, Luis, Thesis advisor
Pennathur, Anita K., Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
College of Business
Department of Finance
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Created: 2018
Date Issued: 2018
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 204 p.
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: In Essay 1, I investigate the impact of corporate life cycle dynamics on the observed negative association between asset growth and stock returns in the crosssection. I find that the asset growth effect on average exists across some life cycle stages measured using cohorts. However, controlling for certain variables associated with the theoretical explanations, I find there is no relation between asset growth and returns. I argue this evidence is consistent with an agency-based explanation of the asset growth effect. Furthermore, a decomposition of the drivers of the effect shows that different components of assets (i.e. working capital and financing) drive asset growth effect at different life cycle stages. From a decomposition analyses, results show that in the youngest firms (cohort 1), asset growth effect is mostly driven by both operating liability and stock financing on one side (financing) and noncash current assets, PPE, and growth in other assets (for working capital) while cohort 3’s drivers appear to be stock issuances, together with noncash current assets, which I conclude offer further support for agency issues. In Essay 2, I examine how firms’ life cycle affect insider trading behavior, profits surrounding trades, price informativeness, and financing constraints. I argue that if firms’ policies and characteristics change over time as shown in lifecycle literature, then from firm characteristics that motivate insider-trading behavior, one should observe some differences across varying life cycle stages measured using age cohorts. I find that insiders are net sellers at all life cycle stages of a firm. Furthermore, insiders tend to trade more in younger firms than in older firms even though they have fewer numbers of insiders trading. Trading characteristics are generally statistically significant across cohorts. Overall, insiders appear to predict the correct direction for positive wealth generation when trading. Specifically, at all lifecycle stages, they appear to sell before negative CARs, and buy during periods associated with negative CARs that lead to positive CARs days after insider transactions. The findings on price informativeness suggest that in general insider purchases enhance price informativeness for firms at different lifecycle stages, however, this finding holds only for cohort 4 (oldest firms) in the case of insider sales. The implication of this finding is that regulation should be more lax towards purchases as compared to sales for firms, except for sales in firms that are older. Lastly, insider trades are linked with positive investment-cash flow sensitivities for both insider purchases and insider sales, which generally increase monotonically across cohorts. This finding is robust to using GMM approach.
Identifier: FA00013057 (IID)
Degree granted: Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018.
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Includes bibliography.
Subject(s): Corporations--Growth.
Stocks--Rate of return.
Insider trading in securities.
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Sublocation: Digital Library
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013057
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Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.