scholarly journals The effectiveness of risk disclosure practices in the European insurance industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-147
Author(s):  
Irma Malafronte ◽  
Maria Grazia Starita ◽  
John Pereira

Purpose This paper aims to examine whether risk disclosure practices affect stock return volatility and company value in the European insurance industry. Design/methodology/approach Using a self-constructed “risk disclosure index for insurers” (RDII) to measure the extent of information disclosed on risks and using panel data regression on a sample of European insurers for 2005-2010, it tests the relationship between RDII and stock return volatility; whether this relationship is affected by financial crisis; and whether RDII affects insurance companies’ embedded value. Findings The main results indicate that higher RDII contributes to higher volatility, suggesting that “less is more” rather than “more is good”. However, higher RDII leads to lower volatility when the insurer has a positive net income, thus “more is good when all is good” and “less is good when all is bad”. Furthermore, the relationship between RDII and stock return volatility is not affected by financial crisis, raising concerns regarding the effectiveness of insurers’ risk disclosure to reassure the market. Moreover, higher RDII is found to impact positively on embedded value, thus contributing toward higher firm value. Practical implications The findings could drive insurers’ choices on communication and transparency, alongside regulators’ decisions about market discipline. They also suggest that risk disclosure could be used to strengthen market discipline and should be added to the other variables traditionally used in stock return volatility and firm value estimation models in the insurance industry. Originality/value This paper offers new insights in the debate on the bright and dark sides of risk disclosure in the insurance industry and provides interesting implications for insurers and their stakeholders.

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-600
Author(s):  
Konpanas Dumrongwong

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how institutional ownership is related to the stock return volatility of initial public offerings (IPOs) in an emerging market and to examine the relationship between institutional ownership and underpricing. Design/methodology/approach This paper investigates these relationships using White’s (1980) regression and 2 × 3 portfolios sorted by firm size and institutional holdings. The regression method examines the relationships across firms with different characteristics such as size, stock price, growth potential, firm age and type of investors. The data were chosen for this sample to cover the new equity issuances listed on the Thailand Stock Exchange for the period 2001–2019. Findings The empirical results suggest that institutional ownership is negatively associated with initial stock return volatility. This highlights the importance of institutional investors in maintaining stability in emerging stock markets. Additionally, it was found that institutional holding and underpricing are negatively correlated. The results are robust after controlling for potential heteroskedasticity and differences in firm characteristics. Originality/value To the best knowledge of the author, this paper is the first to study the relationship between institutional investors and volatility in Thai IPOs, and hence provides a deeper understanding of how investors influence the price formation and volatility of stock prices in emerging markets. Furthermore, besides academics, the results presented in this paper could be useful for market regulators and policymakers in designing future market regulations to efficiently stabilize equity markets.


2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah L. Murphy ◽  
Ronald E. Shrieves ◽  
Samuel L. Tibbs

AbstractWe examine the relationship between allegations of corporate misconduct and changes in profitability and risk of the alleged offender. Profitability is measured as reported earnings and analysts’ earnings forecasts. Risk is measured as stock return volatility and concordance among analysts’ forecasts. Decreases in earnings and increases in risk are found to accompany allegations of misconduct, and although the results are somewhat sensitive to the earnings and risk metrics used, the changes are found to be consistently greater for related-party offenses. The importance of reputational penalties is underscored by analysis of the association between allegation-related changes in firm value and changes in earnings and risk.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 252-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Aabo ◽  
Nicklas Bang Eriksen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking. Design/methodology/approach The authors provide a novel and unobtrusive measure of CEO narcissism based on LinkedIn profiling. The authors investigate the relationship between CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking (stock return volatility) for a sample of 475 US manufacturing firms in the period 2010-2014. Findings The authors find an inverse U-shape relationship between CEO narcissism and stock return volatility. The inverse U-shape relationship (the “humpback”) is caused by the paradoxical nature of the narcissistic personality in which the self-esteem is high but at the same time fragile with a combination of self-admiration and a constant need of having this positive self-view confirmed. The results are robust to alternative specifications of CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking. The results are economically meaningful. Thus, a moderate degree of CEO narcissism – as compared to a very low or a very high level of CEO narcissism – is associated with an increase in corporate risk taking of approximately 12 percent. Originality/value Previous literature provides multiple analyses on the association between managerial overconfidence and corporate decisions. As opposed to overconfidence, narcissism is a personality trait having both cognitive and behavioral dimensions. This paper provides a novel contribution to the growing literature on the association between managerial biases/traits and corporate decision-making.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 338-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Li

Purpose This paper aims to study whether noisy public information that investors receive about the expected aggregate dividend growth rate can help better understand the large average equity premium and stock return volatility in the US financial market. Design/methodology/approach This paper considers a dynamic asset pricing model with a representative agent, who cannot observe the expected growth rate of dividends and must learn its value by using noisy information. In addition, this paper presents a simple model for noisy information calibration. Findings With a coefficient of relative risk aversion below 10 and the time impatience parameter between 0 and 1, the calibrated model is able to yield an average risk-free interest rate, equity premium and stock return volatility that are close to the stylized facts in the US financial market. Originality/value First, this paper presents a different equilibrium model with a simple “catching up with the Joneses” preference and noisy information. Second, this paper develops a simple calibration procedure to calibrate the information process to study whether the calibrated model can help explain the large average equity premium and stock return volatility in the US financial market data.


Author(s):  
Aloui Mouna ◽  
Jarboui Anis

This paper examines the relationship between the stock return volatility, outside directors, independent directors, and variable control using simultaneous-equation panel data models for a panel of 89 France-listed companies on the SBF 120 over the period of 2006–2012. Our results showed that the outside directors (FD) and audit size increase the stock return volatility. Furthermore, the results indicate that the independent directors and ROA have a negative effect on the stock return volatility; this result indicates that these variables contribute to decrease and stabilize the stock return volatility. This study employs a variety of econometric models, including feedback, to test the robustness of our empirical results. Also, we examine the relationship between the corporate governance and the stock returns volatility, exchange rate, and treasury bill using GARCH-BEKK model for a panel of 99 French firms over the period of 2006–2013.


Author(s):  
Ahmad Maulin Naufa ◽  
I Wayan Nuka Lantara

This study examines the relationship between foreign ownership and return volatility, trading volume, and risk of stocks at the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). Panel data of selected companies listed on the LQ45 index of the IDX was employed for the period between 2011 and 2017. Foreign ownership was found to positively affect stock return volatility, trading volume, and risk. Hence, more substantial foreign ownership of stocks meant more drawbacks to Indonesian stocks. Therefore, there is a need for the Indonesian government to limit and regulate foreign shareholders in Indonesia.  


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rubeena Tashfeen

<p>This study investigates whether there is a relationship between corporate governance and derivatives, whether corporate governance influence in firms impacts the association between derivatives and firm value, and whether corporate governance influence affects the association between derivatives and cash flow volatility, stock return volatility and market risk. This study uses two different data samples of publicly traded firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The first sample comprises a panel of 6900 firm year observations and the other consists of a panel of 6234 firm year observations both over the eight-year period from 2004-2011.  With regard to whether there is a relationship between corporate governance and derivatives, the findings from the empirical results show that corporate governance does influence derivatives and therefore is an important determinant in the firm’s decisions to use derivatives. Of the thirteen corporate governance variables examined, board size, institutional shareholders, CEO age, CEO bonus, CEO salary, insider shareholders and total CEO compensation show significant association with derivatives.  This study finds that derivative users exhibit higher firm value on account of the corporate governance influence, which is correspondingly largely insignificant for derivative non-users. Further the research indicates that the impact of corporate governance varies according to the different types of risks examined. Generally, the board of directors and CEO governance mechanisms reduce stock return volatility to achieve hedging effectiveness. This supports the view that directors and management take actions to reduce stock return volatility to protect their personal portfolios without having to bear the costs of hedging themselves.  With respect to cash flow volatility, the board of directors and CEO related corporate governance mechanisms largely exhibit increased risk to show evidence of speculative behavior. It supports the perceptions that managers and directors have a strong motivation to show higher earnings to protect jobs and reputation and to enhance compensation.  All the shareholder governance mechanisms encourage risk taking with respect to stock return volatility, without any increase in firm value. This is in line with research findings of market granularity by institutional and other larger block holders to indicate that these investors increase stock price volatilities and play the markets for their own financial gain. Besides they have little interest in diversifying firm risk as they already have well protected portfolios and would not want to incur additional costs of hedging.  The study finds evidence of association between corporate governance and hedging, speculation and selective hedging. Of the thirteen corporate governance variables examined in the study board diversity consistently shows hedging effectiveness, with accompanying increase in firm value. While board meetings, institutional shareholders, block shareholders, CEO age, CEO base salary and CEO compensation exhibit exclusive speculative behavior. The remaining corporate governance mechanisms: board size, insider shareholding, CEO tenure, CEO bonus and audit committee size, show evidence of selective hedging behavior.  The concurrent hedging and speculative behavior evidenced in this study supports literature in respect of selective hedging by non-financial firms. It also validates the idea that corporate governance delves in risk allocation strategies that have been evidenced by past research. The results remain unchanged, after using alternative measures for firm value and firm risk, and alternative methods of analyses.</p>


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