Three essays on information production and monitoring role of institutional investors

This thesis includes one essay about the information production of institutional investors and two essays about the monitoring role of institutional investors. The first essay empirically examines the association between investor base and information production in the context of stock splits. Using the proportion of 13F filers as the proxy for the size of investor base, we show that three proxies for stock price informativeness, adjusted probability of information-based trading (AdjPIN), price non-synchronicity and probability of information-based trading (PIN), decrease significantly due to enlarged investor base after stock splits. It suggests that institutional investors are less incentivized to gather firm specific information when firm’s investor base expands, which is consistent with the “risk sharing hypothesis”, proposed by Peress (2010). Furthermore, we find that the change of the price informativeness around splits is negatively related to the magnitude of positive return drifts following splits. This result is consistent with the notion that less information incorporated in stock prices results in a sluggish response by the market to corporate event. The second essay empirically identifies an external corporate governance mechanism through which the institutional trading improves firm value and disciplines managers from conducting value-destroying behaviors. We propose a reward-punishment intensity (RPI) measure based on institutional investors’ absolute position changes, and find it is positively associated with firm’s subsequent Tobin’s Q. Importantly, we find that firms with higher RPI exhibit less subsequent empire building and earnings management. It suggests that the improved firm values can be attributed to the discipline effect of institutional trading on managers, which is in line with the argument of “Governance Through Trading’. Furthermore, we find that the exogenous liquidity shock of decimalization augments the governance effect of institutional trading. We also find that the discipline effect is more pronounced for firms with lower institutional ownership concentration, higher stock liquidity, and higher managers’ wealth-performance sensitivity, which further supports the notion that institutional trading could exert discipline on a manager. The third essay focuses on a particular type of institutional investor, short sellers, and explores the discipline effect of short selling on managerial empire building. Employing short-selling data from 2002-2012, we find a significantly negative association between the lending supply in the short-selling market and the subsequent abnormal capital investment. Besides, we find a positively significant association between the lending supply and the mergers and acquisitions announcement returns of acquiring firms. These results suggest that the short-selling potential could deter managers from conducting over-investment and value-destroying acquisitions. In addition, the discipline effect is stronger for firms with higher managers’ wealth-performance-sensitivity, for firms with lower financial constraints, and for stock-financed acquisition deals. Finally, firms with higher lending supply also have higher Tobin’s Q in the subsequent year. These results indicate that short-selling is another important external governance force.