Rapporter & tendenser

Lokale kulturelle opfattelser af kvinder har stor indflydelse på kvindeandel i virksomhedernes bestyrelser: I forskningspir med titlen ” Women in the Boardroom and Cultural Beliefs about Gender Roles ” oplyses det, at ”We find that gender-beliefs have a significant impact on female board representation. In our global sample of firms, we find that women are more likely to serve on corporate boards in more gender-egalitarian countries. The results are both statistically and economically significant. As an example, on average in the three most gender-egalitarian countries, 20% of board members are female, whereas in the three least gender-egalitarian countries only 6% of board members are female. American firms headquartered in counties with greater proportions of people that emigrated from more gender-egalitarian countries have greater female board representation. A one standard deviation increase in our county-level gender-egalitarian index is associated with a 0.017 increase in the percentage of female directors, e.g., from 10% to 11.7%, which is an economically meaningful effect. Moreover, women are more likely to chair a board committee, and to serve on one of the more important board committees (e.g., audit, executive hiring) in firms located in more gender-egalitarian counties.”

Forvaltere af indeksfonde er ringe og uengagerede aktive ejere: I forskningspapir med titlen ” Index Funds and the Future of Corporate Governance: Theory, Evidence, and Policy ” hedder det blandt andet, at ”Actual Stewardship Investments. Our analysis provides estimates of the stewardship personnel, both in terms of workdays and dollar cost, devoted to particular companies. Whereas supporters of index fund stewardship have focused on recent increases in stewardship staff of the Big Three, our analysis examines personnel resources in the context of the Big Three’s assets under management and their number of portfolio companies. We show that the Big Three devote an economically negligible fraction of their fee income to stewardship, and that their stewardship staffing enables only limited and cursory stewardship for the vast majority of their portfolio companies. Behind-the-Scenes Engagements. Supporters of index fund stewardship view private engagements by the Big Three as explaining why they refrain from using certain other stewardship tools available to shareholders. However, we show that the Big Three engage with a very small proportion of their portfolio companies, and only a small proportion of these engagements involve more than a single conversation. Furthermore, refraining from using other stewardship tools also has an adverse effect on the small minority of cases in which private engagements do occur. The Big Three’s private engagement thus cannot constitute an adequate substitute for the use of other stewardship tools.”

Kapitalfonde fusker med rapporterede afkast lige før de skal hente penge til den næste fond: I forskningspapir med titlen “ Do Private Equity Funds Manipulate Re – ported Returns? ” undersøger forskerne ”the evidence on performance manipulation by buyout and venture funds. Our study is motivated by the potential incentive for general partners (GPs) of a fund to exaggerate performance to attract limited partners (LPs) to a follow-on fund. We consider if there is evidence consistent with funds manipulating their self-reported net asset values (NAVs) around the time commitments are raised for a next fund. We utilize data provided by Burgiss that includes cash flows and NAV reports for a sample of 2,071 buyout and venture funds. These data are sourced (and cross-verified) from over 200 institutional investors that represent approximately $750 billion in committed capital to private equity. We supplement these data with an independent database of private equity firms provided by StepStone. The StepStone database contains a nearly exhaustive record of institutional private equity fundraising between 1971 and 2016. This combination of data sources allows us to examine the relation between private equity (PE) performance reporting and fundraising success with a high degree of confidence in the data.”