演讲题目： The Impact of Hedge Fund Activism on Corporate Cost Behavior
演讲者: 安恒，美国北卡卡罗莱纳大学格林斯伯勒分校金融学，（终身）副教授
演讲时间：2018年11月15日（周四）上午10：00一11：30
演讲地点: 嘉庚二205
主持人：乔政 副教授
参加者：对会计、财务研究有兴趣的师生
Abstract：We examine the impact of hedge fund activism on target firms’ selling, general and administrative (SG&A) costs. After the hedge fund intervention, the SG&A to sales ratio goes down, a sign of improved operating efficiency. Before the intervention, target firms exhibit greater level of cost stickiness which means SG&A costs fall less for sales decreases than they rise for equivalent sales increases, a symptom of agency problems according to Chen, Lu, and Sougiannis(2012). However, hedge fund intervention significantly reduces the degree of cost stickiness, and the reduction is more pronounced in firms with severe agency problems. Moreover, activist hedge funds concentrate their intervention efforts on firms whose SG&A expenditures create low firm values. Finally, a tactic employed by hedge funds to change corporate cost behavior is to replace senior corporate executives. Taken as a whole, the findings suggest hedge fund activism improves the efficiency of resource adjustments by mitigating agency problems at the target firms.
