Feeling Right at Home: Hometown CEOs and Firm Innovation

Extending the theories of social and place identity, we predict that CEO hometown identity has a positive and significant influence on firm innovation. Our empirical evidence, from publicly traded firms in China during 2002–2016, suggests that a firm whose CEO's hometown is in the same province or city as the firm's headquarters tends to invest more in R&D and generate more patent applications. Our results are robust to the firm fixed effects and we use difference-in-differences analysis and instrument variable regressions to mitigate endogeneity concerns. CEOs' hometown identity still has a strong and positive impact on innovation after we control for measures of social capital of CEOs. We identify the mechanisms behind the positive relation between firm innovation and CEO hometown identity: hometown CEOs enjoy more support from the board of directors, they are more willing to take risks, and they are more likely to have long-term visions

Survival and morbidity in very preterm infants in Shenzhen: a multi-center study

ObjectiveTo analyze survival and morbidity among very preterm infants (VPIs) in Shenzhen and explore factors associated with survival without major morbidity.MethodsBetween January 2022 and December 2022, 797 infants were admitted to 25 neonatal intensive care units in Shenzhen with gestational age (GA) < 32 weeks, excluded discharged against medical advice, insufficient information, and congenital malformation, 742 VPIs were included. Comparison of maternal and neonate characteristics, morbidities, survival, and survival without major morbidities between groups used Mann Whitney U test and X2 test, multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze of risk factors of survival without major morbidities.ResultsThe median GA was 29.86 weeks (interquartile range [IQR], 28.0–31.04), and the median birth weight was 1,250 g (IQR, 900–1,500). Of the 797 VPIs, 721 (90.46%) survived, 53.52% (38 of 71) at 25 weeks’ or less GA, 86.78% (105 of 121) at 26 to 27 weeks' GA, 91.34% (211 of 230) at 28 to 29 weeks' GA, 97.86% (367 of 375) at 30 to 31 weeks' GA. The incidences of the major morbidities were moderate-to-severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia,16.52% (113 of 671); severe intraventricular hemorrhage and/or periventricular leukomalacia, 2.49% (17 of 671); severe necrotizing enterocolitis, 2.63% (18 of 671); sepsis, 2.34% (16 of 671); and severe retinopathy of prematurity, 4.55% (27 of 593), 65.79% (450 of 671) survived without major morbidities. After adjustment for GA, birth weight, and 5-min Apgar score, antenatal steroid administration (OR = 2.397), antenatal magnesium sulfate administration (OR =  1.554) were the positivity factors to survival without major morbidity of VPIs, however, surfactant therapy (OR = 0.684,), and delivery room resuscitation (OR = 0.626) that were the negativity factors.ConclusionsThe present results indicate that survival and the incidence of survival without major morbidities increased with GA. Further, antenatal administration of steroids and magnesium sulfate, surfactant therapy, and delivery room resuscitation were pronounced determinants of survival without morbidities

Essays in financial economics and applied econometrics

In the first chapter, Informativeness of Analysts\u27 Recommendations , we investigate the informativeness of sell-side analysts\u27 recommendations by examining abnormal stock returns before, during and after changes in analysts\u27 ratings. First, we show that the market derives different information from the similar recommendations by different brokerage firms, especially in the case of downgrading from “buy”. The brokerage firms in the sample differ in terms of the impact of their analysts\u27 recommendations on subsequent stock returns, although they are all ranked highly. Second, we document that the market reacts quickly to the analysts\u27 recommendations, which contradicts the continuation of abnormal returns for months after recommendations, i.e., the so-called “post-recommendation drift”, documented by the literature. In the second chapter, A Model of Inside and Outside Experts-the Example of Buy-side and Sell-side Equity Analysts, we model the information transmission from multiple equity analysts to a mutual fund manager. The buy-side analyst has the same preference as the manager while the sell-side has different preference. If the fund manager relies on only sell-side analysts, a subgame equilibrium always exists in which the analysts\u27 opinions are independent of their private signals and thus the information content is totally lost. With one buy-side analyst in the panel, however, truth-telling is the only subgame equilibrium under a certain range of parameters. The equilibrium outcome is that the manager relies on both sell-side and buy-side equity analysts to make investment decisions. In the third chapter, Evaluating Preschool Programs when Length of Exposure to the Program Varies—A Nonparametric Approach, we develop a nonparametric multi-dimensional matching method and apply this method to a large, non-experimental data set to evaluate the effects of a preschool enrichment program. This generalized version of the matching method is able to control for nonrandom selectivity into the program or into alternative program duration by matching the group of interest to a comparison group on more than one dimension. It minimizes the impact of distributional assumptions. The third chapter is intimately related to the first two in that it develops the nonparametric multi-dimensional matching method which is applicable to a variety issues in corporate finance

DIRECT EVIDENCE ON THE MARKET-DRIVEN ACQUISITION THEORY

We provide direct empirical evidence that share overvaluation is an important motive for firms to make stock acquisitions. We find that more overvalued firms are more likely to acquire with stock, and acquirers are more overvalued in successful stock mergers than in withdrawn mergers. Acquirers' overvaluation, on average, exceeds the targets' premium-adjusted overvaluation. Shareholders of stock acquirers, whose overvaluation is greater than their targets' premium-adjusted overvaluation, realize sustained wealth gains from one day before the merger announcement up to three years after the merger completion, as compared with a matching sample of similarly overvalued but nonacquiring firms. 2006 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.

Replication data for: Does Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Matter in China? Evidence from Financing and Investment in the High-tech Industry

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