20th FEA Program

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20th Anniversary Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting
Friday, November 13, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009

History of the Conference

This conference was founded by professors Martin J. Gruber (NYU), Frank C. Jen (SUNY, Buffalo), and Cheng Few Lee (Rutgers.) The first FEA Conference was held at Rutgers University in October 1990. At the inaugural conference, an executive committee was established as follows:

1. Rutgers University (Bikki Jaggi, Cheng Few Lee)
2. New York University (Martin Gruber, Joshua Ronen)
3. University of Michigan (E. Han Kim, Victor Bernard)
4. SUNY at Buffalo (Frank C. Jen)
5. University of Maryland (Lemma W. Senbet, Oliver Kim)
6. Washington University at St. Louis (Nick Dopuch)

The 19th FEA Conference was held at the University of Texas at Austin.

The current executive committee members are as follows:

1. Rutgers University (Bikki Jaggi, Cheng Few Lee)
2. University of Southern California (Randolph Beatty, Yasushi Hamao)
3. Indiana University (Teri Yohn, Charles A. Trzcinka)
4. Georgia State University (Lawrence Brown, Jayant R. Kale)
5. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Adam V. Reed, Jeff Abarbanell)
6. New York University (Joshua Ronen, Kose John)
7. University of Texas at Austin (Michael Clement, Ehud I. Ronn)
8. University of Maryland (Oliver Kim, Lemma W. Senbet)

The Executive Committee Members hosting this year’s conference are Professors Cheng Few Lee and Bikki Jaggi.
Program Co-Directors of Finance: Cheng Few Lee and Daniel Weaver.
Program Co-Directors of Accounting: Bikki Jaggi and Suresh Govindaraj

Sponsors

Rutgers Business School
The Whitcomb Center for Research in Financial Services
The Rutgers Center for Governmental Accounting Education and Research
The Rutgers Accounting Research Center
Springer Publishing
World Scientific
Foundation of Pacific Basin Financial Research and Development
Beyond Bond

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13

6:45-10:45 AM Shuttle buses take participants from the Doubletree Hotel and Crowne Plaza to Rutgers Business School

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Breakfast: 7:30 - 8:30 AM
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8:30 – 10:00 AM

Accounting Session 1 (Room 107C): The Profitability of Analysts' Stock Recommendations (Agnes Cheng, LSU)

The Profitability of Analysts’ Stock Recommendations: What Role Does Investor Sentiment Play?, by Mark Bagnoli, Purdue University, Michael Clement, University of Texas at Austin, Michael Crawley, University of Texas at Austin, and Susan Watts, Purdue University.

Discussant: Hai Lu, University of Toronto.

Do Financial Analysts' Long-term Growth Forecasts reflect Effective Effort towards Informative Stock Recommendations?, by Boochun Jung, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Philip B. Shane, University of Auckland and University of Colorado at Boulder, and Yanhua (Sunny) Yang, University of Texas at Austin.

Discussant: Gus De Franco, University of Toronto.

The Impact of Stock Recommendation-Earnings Forecast Consistency on Forecast Accuracy and Recommendation Profitability, by Lawrence D. Brown, Georgia State University and Kelly Huang, Georgia State University.

Discussant: Yonca Ertimur, Duke University.

Finance Session 1 (Room 103): ASSET PRICING (Stanley Kon, New York University)

Asset Pricing with Left-Skewed Long-Run Risk in Durable Consumption, by Wei Yang, University of Rochester

Discussant: Yangru Wu, Rutgers University

Variance Risk Premia, Asset Predictability Puzzles, and Macroeconomic Uncertainty, by Hao Zhou, Federal Reserve Board

Discussant: Ken Hung, Texas A&M International University

Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing Puzzles: An Equilibrium Perspective, by Doron Avramov, University of Maryland, Scott Cederburg, University of Iowa, and Satadru Hore, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Discussant: Ren-Raw Chen, Fordham University

Finance Session 2 (Room 006): Corporate Finance (Kose John, NYU)

External Financing, Access to Debt Markets, and Stock Returns, by Eric F.Y.C. Lam, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and K.C. John Wei, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Discussant: Santiago Bazdresch, University of Minnesota

Analyzing Cost of Debt and Credit Spreads Using a Two Factor Model with Multiple Default Thresholds and Varying Covenant Protection, by S. Lakshmivarahan, Shengguang Qian, and Duane Stock, University of Oklahoma, USA

Discussant: Sris Chatterjee, Fordham University

Employee capitalism or corporate socialism? Broad-based employee stock ownership by E. Han Kim, University of Michigan, and Paige Ouimet, University of North Carolina.

Discussant: Diana Knyazeva, University of Rochester

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10:00 AM – 10:30 AM Coffee Break

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10:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Accounting Session 2 (Room 107C): Pricing of Information Quality (Jeffery Abarbanell, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Investor Competition and the Pricing of Information Asymmetry, by Brian Akins, MIT, Jeffrey Ng, MIT, and Rodrigo Verdi, MIT.

Discussant: Gunter Strobl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Information Quality, Systematic Risk and the Cost of Capital, by Chris Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania, Snehal Banerjee, Northwestern University, and Carlos Corona, University of Texas at Austin.

Discussant: Ryan Ball, University of Chicago.

Information Risk and Fair Value: An Examination of Equity Betas and Bid-Ask Spreads, by Edward J. Riedl, Harvard Business School, and George Serafeim, Harvard Business School.

Discussant: Sean Wang, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Finance Session 3 (Room 103): Corporate Governance (Ivan Brick, Rutgers University)

Thirty Years of Corporate Governance: Determinants & Equity Prices, by Martijn Cremers, Yale and Allen Ferrell, Harvard Law School.

Discussant: Lukas Roth, University of Alberta

Property Rights Protection, Corporate Transparency, and Growth, by Art Durnev, McGill University, Vihang Errunza, McGill University, and Alexander Molchanov, Massey University.

Discussant: Anup Agrawal, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Heterogeneity in expertise and incentives of board members, by Anzhela Knyazeva, University of Rochester, Diana Knyazeva, University of Rochester, and Charu Raheja, Wake Forest University.
Discussant: Mark A. Chen, Georgia State University

Finance Session 4 (Room 006): Investments I (Charles Trzcinka, Indiana University)

Local Institutional Investors, Information Asymmetries, and Equity Returns, by Bok Baik, Seoul National University, Jun-Koo Kang, Nanyang Business School, and Jin-Mo Kim, Rutgers Business School .

Discussant: Nishant Dass, Georgia Institute of Technology

Industry Recommendations: Characteristics, Investment Value, and Relation to Firm Recommendations, by Ohad Kadan, Washington University, Leonardo Madureira, Case Western Reserve University, Rong Wang, Singapore Management University; and Tzachi Zach Ohio State University.

Discussant: Ryan Israelsen, Indiana University

Global, Local, and Contagious Investor Sentiment, by Malcolm Baker, Harvard Business School and NBER, Jeffrey Wurgler NYU Stern School of Business and NBER, and Yu Yuan University of Iowa.

Discussant: David Ikenberry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Lunch: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM

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1:30 – 3:00 PM

Accounting Session 3 (Room 107C): Earnings Quality and Transparency (Suresh Govindaraj, Rutgers University)

Product Market Competition: Disciplining or Malefic Role? Evidence from Earnings Restatements, by Karthik Balakrishnan, NYU Stern School of Business, and Daniel A. Cohen, NYU Stern School of Business.

Discussant: Foong Soon Cheong, Rutgers University.

Earnings Non-synchronicity and Voluntary Disclosure, by Guojin Gong, Penn State University, Laura Y. Li, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Ling Zhou, Tulane University.

Discussant: Vivian Fang, Rutgers University.

Deferred Revenues and the Matching of Revenues and Expenses, by Rachna Prakash, College of William and Mary, and Nishi Sinha, Boston University.

Discussant 1: Yoel Beniluz, Rutgers University.

Discussant 2: Andrew Yim, Tilburg School of Economics and Management

Finance Session 5 (Room 103): Hedge Funds and REITS (Stephen Brown, NYU)

Do Stock Prices Move too much to be Justified by Changes in Dividends? Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts, by Tobias Muhlhofer and Andrey D. Ukhov, Indiana University.

Discussant: Oded Palmon, Rutgers University

Hedge Funds: Pricing Controls and the Smoothing of Self‐Reported Returns, by Gavin Cassar, University of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Gerakos, University of Chicago.

Discussant: Christopher Schwarz, University of California - Irvine

The Road Less Traveled: Strategy Distinctiveness and Hedge Fund Performance, by Zheng Sun, Ashley Wang, and Lu Zheng, University of California - Irvine.

Discussant: Naveen D. Daniel, Drexel University

Finance Session 6 (Room 006): Corporate Finance (Glenda W. Kao, University of Illinois at Urbana and Champaign)

"Preparing" the Equity Market for Adverse Corporate Events: Theory and Evidence from Firms Cutting Dividends, by Thomas J. Chemmanur, Boston College, and Xuan Tian, Indiana University.

Discussant: Avri Ravid, Rutgers University

The Relation between Corporate Governance and CEOs’ Equity Compensation, by Lawrence D. Brown, Georgia State University, and Yen-Jung Lee, National Taiwan University.

Discussant: Art Durnev, McGill University

Personal Income Tax and Corporate Investment, by Murray Z. Frank, Raj Singh, and Tracy Yue Wang, University of Minnesota.

Discussant: Darius Palia, Rutgers University

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3:00 – 3:30 PM Coffee Break

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3:30 – 5:00 PM Sessions

Accounting Session 4 (Room 107C): Government & Nonprofit Accounting (Michael Schoderbek, Rutgers University)

The Causes and Consequences of Internal Control Problems in Nonprofit Organizations, by Christine Petrovits, New York University, Catherine Shakespeare, University of Michigan, and Aimee Shih, New York University.

Discussant: Erica Harris, Temple University

Economic Consequences of Expense Misreporting in Nonprofit Organizations: Are Donors Fooled?, by Michelle Yetman, University of California – Davis.

Discussant: Mary Michel, Manhattan College

Do Local Governments Present Required Disclosures for Defined Benefit Pension Plans? by Thomas E. Vermeer, University of Delaware, Alan K. Styles, California State University – San Marcos, and Terry Patton, Midwestern State University.

Discussant: Angela Gore, George Washington University

Accounting Session 5 (Room 006): Executive Compensation (Joshua Ronen, NYU Stern School of Business)

Why Do Managers Avoid EPS Dilution?, by Rong Huang, Baruch College, Carol Marquardt, Baruch College, and Bo Zhang, Baruch College.

Discussant: Merle Ederhof, Yale School of Management.

Shareholder Activism and CEO Pay, by Yonca Ertimur, Duke University, Fabrizio Ferri, Harvard Business School, and Volkan Muslu, University of Texas at Dallas.

Discussant: Suraj Srinivasan, Harvard Business School.

Relative Weights on Performance Measures in a Principal-Agent Model with Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection, by Rajiv D. Banker, Temple University, Jose M. Plehn-Dujowich, Temple University, and Chunwei Xian, Temple University.

Discussant: Carlos Corona, University of Texas at Austin.

Finance Session 7 (Auditorium at Beck Hall): Options ( Mao-Wei Hung, National Taiwan University)

The Valuation and Information Content of Options on Crude-Oil Futures Contracts, by J. Glenn Andrews and Ehud I. Ronn, University of Texas .

Discussant: Chunchi Wu, University of Missouri

The Information Content of Option-Implied Volatility for Credit Default Swap Valuation, by Charles Cao, Pennsylvania State University, Fan Yu, Claremont McKenna College, and Zhaodong Zhong, Rutgers University.

Discussant: Louis O. Scott, Morgan Stanley

Asymmetric Volatility and the Cross-Section of Returns: Is Implied Market Volatility a Risk Factor?,by R. Jared Delisle, James S. Doran, and David R. Peterson, Florida State University.

Discussant: Jack C. Francis, Baruch College

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                    5:15 – 6:00 Key Note Speech
        Speaker: Martin J. Gruber, New York University
                       Auditorium at Beck Hall
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5:15-6:20 PM buses take participants from Rutgers Business School to the Doubletree Hotel

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6:30 – 7:30 Reception
7:30 PM – 9:30 PM Dinner
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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14

6:45-10:45 AM Shuttle buses take participants from the Doubletree Hotel and Crowne Plaza to Rutgers Business School

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Breakfast: 7:30 - 8:30 AM

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8:30 – 10:00 AM

Accounting Session 6 (Room 107C): International Accounting and Capital Markets (Elizabeth Gordon, Temple University)

Earnings Quality and International IPO Underpricing, by Thomas J. Boulton, Miami University, Scott B. Smart, Indiana University Bloomington, and Chad J. Zutter, University of Pittsburgh.

Discussant: Ting Chen, City University of New York, Baruch College.

Corporate Governance in the Recent Financial Crisis: Evidence from Financial Institutions Worldwide, by David Erkens, University of Southern California, Mingyi Hung, University of Southern California, and Pedro Matos, University of Southern California.

Discussant: April Klein, New York University.

The Effect of Product Market Competition on Earnings Management: Some International Evidence, by Surjit Tinaikar, University of Florida, and Song Xue, University of Florida.

Discussant: Stephen Brown, University of Maryland.

Finance Session 8 (Room 103): Market Structure (Dan Weaver, Rutgers)

Turnover: Liquidity or Uncertainty? by Alexander Barinov, University of Georgia.

Discussant:

Strategic Order Splitting in Automated Markets, by Zinat Alam and Isabel Tkatch, Georgia State University.

Discussant: Amber Anand, Syracuse University

Market Microstructure Invariants, by Albert S. Kyle and Anna Obizhaeva, University of Maryland.

Discussant: Ana Babus, University of Oxford

Finance Session 9 (Room 006): Institutional Investors (Jayant R. Kale, Georgia State University)

Bear Raids And Short Sale Bans: Is Government Intervention Justifiable? By Richmond Mathews, Duke University

Discussant: Valentin Dimitrov, Rutgers University

Do Institutional Investors Have an Ace up Their Sleeves? --Evidence from Confidential Filings of Portfolio Holdings, by Vikas Agarwal, Georgia State University, Wei Jiang, Columbia University, Yuehua Tang, Georgia State University, and Baozhong Yang, Georgia State University.

Discussant: Michael Gombola, Drexel University

Success in Global Venture Capital Investing: Do Institutional and Cultural Differences Matter? by Sonali Hazarika, Rajarishi Nahata, and Kishore Tandon, Baruch College.

Discussant: Karthik Krishnan, Northeastern University

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10:00 AM – 10:30 AM Coffee Break

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10:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Accounting Session 7 (Room 107C): Firm Disclosure (Teri Yohn, Indiana University Bloomington)

Large-sample Evidence on Firms' Year-over-Year MD&A Modification, by Stephen V. Brown, University of Florida, and Jennifer Wu Tucker, University of Florida.

Discussant: Feng Li, University of Michigan.

Do Firms' Nonfinancial Disclosures Enhance the Value of Analyst Services?, by D. Craig Nichols, Cornell University, and Matthew M. Wieland, University of Georgia.

Discussant: Franco Wong, University of Toronto.

Disclosure Tone and Shareholder Litigation, by Jonathan L. Rogers, University of Chicago, Andrew Van Buskirk, University of Chicago, and Sarah L. C. Zechman, University of Chicago.

Discussant: Karen Nelson, Rice University.

Finance Session 10 (Room 103): Corporate Finance (Lemma Senbet, University of Maryland)

How do business groups evolve? Evidence from new project announcements, by Meghana Ayyagar George Washington University, Radhakrishnan Gopalan, Washington University, and Vijay Yerramilli, Indiana University.

Discussant: Xuan Tian, Indiana University

A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing: Model Specification, Data History, and CDO (Mis)Pricing, by Dan Luo, University of Hong Kong, Dragon Yongjun Tang, University of Hong Kong, and Sarah Qian Wang, University of Hong Kong.

Discussant: Nikunj Kapadia, University of Massachusetts

Insider Trading and Conflicts of Interest: Evidence from Corporate Bonds, by Simi Kedia, Rutgers Business School and Xing Zhou, Rutgers Business School.

Discussant: N. K. Chidambaran, Fordham University

Finance Session 11 (Room 006): Investments II (Mike Long, Rutgers University)

Fallen Angels and Price Pressure, by Brent W. Ambrose, Pennsylvania State University, Kelly N. Cai, University of Michigan – Dearborn, and Jean Helwege, Pennsylvania State University.

Discussant: Sinan Tan, Fordham University

Prohibitions versus Constraints: The 2008 Short Sales Regulations, by Adam C. Kolasinski, University of Washington, Adam V. Reed, The University of North Carolina, and Jacob R. Thornock , University of North Carolina.

Discussant: Ankur Pareek, Rutgers University

Characterizing the Risk of IPO Long-Run Returns: The Impact of Momentum, Liquidity, Skewness, and Investment, by Richard B. Carter, Frederick H. Dark, and Travis R. A. Sapp, Iowa State University.

Discussant: Tim Loughran, University of Notre Dame

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                       Lunch: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
              Speaker: Shyam Sunder, Yale University
                        TV Room at Tillet Hall
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1:30 – 3:00 PM

Accounting Session 8 (Room 107C): Financial Reporting (Bharat Sarath, Rutgers University)

Transparency, Ownership, and Financing Constraints in Private Firms, by Ole-Kristian Hope, University of Toronto, Wayne B. Thomas, University of Oklahoma, and Dushyantkumar Vyas, University of Toronto.

Discussant: Christine Tan, Fordham University.

Evidence of conditional conservatism: fact or artifact?, by Panos Patatoukas, Yale University, and Jacob Thomas, Yale University.

Discussant: Crystal Xu, Rutgers University.

Prudence Demands Conservatism, by Michael T. Kirschenheiter, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ram Ramakrishnan, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Discussant: Carolyn Levine, Carnegie Mellon University.

Finance Session 12 (Room 006): TIPS and Cost of Capital (Carl R. Chen – Dayton University)

Inflation Risk Premium: Evidence from the TIPS Market, by Olesya V. Grishchenko and Jing-zhi (Jay) Huang, Pennsylvania State University.

Discussant: Ronald Sverdlove, New Jersey Institute for Technology

When Do TIPS Prices Adjust to Inflation Information? by Quentin C. Chu, The University of Memphis, Deborah N. Pittman, Rhodes College, and Linda Q. Yu, University of Wisconsin– Whitewater.

Discussant: James P. Winder, Rutgers University

CAPM for Estimating the Cost of Equity Capital: Interpreting the Empirical Evidence, by Zhi Da, University of Notre Dame, Re-Jin Guo, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ravi Jagannathan, Northwestern University and NBER.

Discussant: Wei Yang, University of Rochester

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3:00 – 3:30 Coffee Break
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3:30 – 5:30 PM

Accounting Session 9 (Room 107C): Financial Accounting and Finance (Randolph Beatty, University of Southern California)

Surprising absence of scale for forecast error and forecast dispersion distributions, by Foong Soon Cheong, Rutgers University and Jacob Thomas, Yale University.

Board interlocks and earnings management contagion, by Peng-Chia Chiu, Merage School of Business, UC-Irvine, Siew Hong Teoh, Merage School of Business, UC-Irvine, and Feng Tian, The University of Hong Kong.

Bank Monitoring Incentives and Borrower Earnings Management: Evidence from the Japanese Banking Crisis of 1993-2002, by Gil S. Bae, Korea University, Yasushi Hamao, University of Southern California, and Jun-Koo Kang, Nanyang Technological University and Michigan State University.

Managerial discretion, motivation, and accuracy of stock option estimates between voluntarily and mandatorily expensing firms by Xiaoyan Cheng, University of Nebraska, Lincoln and David Smith, University of Nebraska.

Finance Session 13 (Room 006): Special Topic: Financial Crises (Cheng Few Lee, Rutgers University)

Determinants of Corporate Bond and CDS Spreads, by Hai Lin, Xiamen University, Sheen Liu, Washington State University-Vancouver, and Chunchi Wu, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Financial institutions in crisis: Modeling the endogeneity between credit risk and capital requirements, by Ren-Raw Chen, Fordham University, N. K. Chidambaran, Fordham University, Michael B. Imerman, Rutgers University, and Ben J. Sopranzetti, Rutgers University.

Law, Institutions and Taxes: Optimal Regulation and the Financial Crisis, by Kose John, New York University, Vinay B. Nair, Ada Investment Management, and Lemma Senbet, University of Maryland.