How do foreign investors deviate from plans in response to new information? Prior literature shows that how utilized foreign direct investment (FDI) is affected by uncertainty depends on the type of FDI. We examine how utilized FDI differs from planned investments by studying the commitment ratio, defined as the ratio of the two FDI flows, in the context of China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand over 1996-2013. First, we find that the commitment ratio exceeds 1 in China and Indonesia but is lower than 1 in the Philippines and Thailand. Second, we find a higher commitment ratio, which means investments are likely to be a larger fraction of what was proposed, when economic uncertainty regarding the destination country is reduced after a project is proposed and the destination environment is politically stable and financially open.

Corporate philanthropy has long been recognized as an important part of multinational strategy, yet we know relatively little how charitable giving is allocated across countries. Using a sample of 208 U.S.‐based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, we find that the foundations give more in countries with opaque institutional environments, but they do so through international intermediaries. They also give more when the funding firms have new entries in countries with weak institutions—hence greater needs for the social license to operate—or when their operations require stronger connections with local suppliers or customers. These findings point to the use of corporate philanthropy as part of corporate diplomacy when the local institutions are ineffecctive and the importance of reaching out to local constituents is high.

We examine whether companies from certain countries are more likely to honor investment pledges.  Using data on contracted and utilized FDI in China, we find that firms honor an average of 59% of their pledges within two years.  The propensity to honor pledges is lower for firms from countries with greater uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and egalitarianism; higher if the source country is more traditional; and is unaffected by popular attitudes towards China.  Prior literature has found that these cultural characteristics are associated with higher levels of utilized FDI. We extend this to show that announcements of planned corporate activity may be more reliable for firms from countries with certain cultures.

We examine the determinants of managerial investments in mutual funds and the subsequent impacts of these investments on fund performance.  By using panel data we show that investment levels fluctuate within funds over time, contrary to the common assumption that cross-sectional data are representative.  Managerial investments reflect personal portfolio considerations while also signaling incentive alignment with investors.  The impact of managerial investment on performance varies by whether the fund is solo- or team- managed.  Fund performance is higher for solo-managed funds and lower for team-managed funds when managers invest more. These results are consistent with the higher visibility of solo managers, and less extreme investment returns of team-managed funds.  Our results suggest investors may not benefit from all managerial signals of incentive alignment as managerial investments also reflect personal portfolio considerations.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) could lead to a firm diversifying into new industries, and the impact of this may be related to the firm’s prior diversification. Using a panel of 1030 M&A transactions from 2000 to 2010, we find that previously diversified firms are more likely to pursue industrially diversifying M&As. Both previous and contemporary diversification measures are not associated with the firm’s cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) at time of announcement but have a lasting effect on various performance measures up to two years later. We find evidence supporting both a diversification discount and premium, which can be predicted by the sign of the CAR at the time of announcement. This suggests that while diversification is necessary to explain firm value, it is not sufficient.

This paper exploits the substantial variation in market institutions across provinces in China to examine the impact of institutional quality on foreign listing. Firms that are listed on the U.S. and U.K. exchanges are more likely to come from better regulated provinces and tend to be at the top of a corporate pyramid. However, though the impact on firm performance of market institutions and pyramidal affiliations persists briefly post-listing with firms recording lower EPS and higher raw returns in the first year, it does not help predict whether firms remain listed abroad in 2012. Thus, we conclude that headquarters’ market institutions shape a firm through time of listing and have diminished influence over time.

When a firm has minimal agency and informational asymmetry problems it should make efficient capital budgeting decisions. Many firms over-invest prior to CEO turnover, halt investments in the period surrounding the turnover, and then greatly increase their level of expenditures. Empirical analysis of the cross-sectional and inter-temporal variation in the quality of firms’ corporate capital budgeting decision reveals that the impact of CEO  turnover is asymmetric between under- and over-investing firms, and this complements the larger literature using average firm-wide performance measures. Firms are more likely to have forced turnovers when there is more over-investment prior to the turnover, and these firms make more efficient investment decisions subsequently. Board influence is largely insignificant prior to a CEO turnover but is consistently associated with higher levels of investment subsequently.

Two-step estimation with large panel data sets generally involves estimating vectors of individual-specific coefficients in a first-stage. In a second-stage estimation a vector of estimated coefficients is used as the dependent variable. Potential problems of heteroskedasticity in the second stage may be mitigated by weighting all independent observations by the inverse of the variance of the dependent variable, which is obtained from the first stage estimation. This approach needs to be modified if the dependent variable in the second stage is a non-linear function of the estimated coefficient.

Firms must overcome agency and information asymmetry problems to make efficient corporate capital budgeting decisions; this is particularly true for firms with multiple units dispersed across geographic locations. Internal communication and coordination may therefore be crucial in reducing information asymmetry and achieving efficient resource allocation. We examine the relationship between corporate capital budgeting decisions and the degree of internal information sharing using a dataset of 342 U.S. firms from 1993 to 2002. Information sharing is measured by the internal linkages observed in firms’ research and development activities worldwide. The efficiency of a firm’s capital budgeting decisions is measured by the deviation of the firm’s estimated marginal q from the theoretical tax-adjusted benchmark. We observe a significant relationship between value-enhancing capital budgeting decisions and stronger internal linkages. Specifically, corporate overinvestment is significantly reduced with better information sharing across units. All results are robust to firm- and industry-level controls.

There are major differences between ex ante corporate investment plans and ex post investments. The case of China is useful for understanding this problem because there is substantial time series and cross sectional variation in the ratio of utilized to contracted FDI (UC ratio), which is less than one in most province-year observations. Provinces may believe that they are rewarded for reporting higher levels of contracted FDI, which would lead to lower UC ratios and higher policy incentives in subsequent years. Alternatively, provinces may be rewarded for reporting data more accurately, which would lead to higher UC ratios and policy incentives in subsequent years. Empirical analysis supports the second, institutional theory and suggests that provinces may increase their rate of utilizing pledged FDI by strengthening their legal systems and reducing government bureaucracy.

With U.S. multinational enterprises playing increasingly important roles in the global economy, it is important to understand the efficiency of their capital budgeting decisions.We examine an unbalanced panel of 332 U.S. firms from 1992–2000. Using the deviation of a firm’s estimated marginal Tobin’s q from a benchmark as an indicator of effective resource allocation, we find that widespread multinationals make more efficient capital budgeting decisions. We also test whether this reflects the MNEs’ investment locations, but do not obtain support for the hypotheses that they might be monitored by more agents or more successfully resist pressures from interest groups and governments.