June 1, 2021 16:00 Research Seminar "Empirical Research in Corporate Finance"

June 1, 2021 (Tuesday) at 16:00 online a Research Seminar "Empirical Research in Corporate Finance" will take place.

Within the framework of the seminar, it is proposed to discuss 2 reports:

1) 2-year postgraduate student Stanislav Bondarenko with the report "CEO Cultural Background and its Impact on Firms Financial Policy", prepared under the guidance of M. Kokoreva

Abstract
"Capital structure puzzle remains one of the most intrigue corporate finance issues nowadays. In the research we explore to what extent CEO cultural background determines financial policy of companies in Europe. Based on S&P Europe 350 market index we collect a dataset of 217 public firms and information about CEOs nationalities during the period of 2010-2019, and investigate whether foreign CEO behave differently in terms of capital structure decision and what particular cultural dimensions can explain these differences. Our findings show that foreign CEOs behave more conservative and use less leverage, but the effect was found only for market values. It was also found that CEOs which are more uncertainty avoidant, long-term oriented and with high degree of power distance use less debt due to their conservatism, strategic mindset and fear of power inequality. The results of the research might be beneficial to board of directors while interacting with CEOs as it demonstrates that a CEO cultural preferences matter in companies’ corporate decisions."

2) 2-year postgraduate student Alexey Kharlamov with a report “How Do International Institutions and Boards of Directors Overcome Difficulties in Sustainable Investing in Emerging Markets? The Evidence from Russia ”, prepared under the guidance of I. Ivashkovskaya.

Abstract

This paper builds on necessity of creating a system of ESG indicators to account for the specific nature of private-public partnerships (PPPs) to enable institutional, private and public market participants to conduct a comprehensive analysis of their investment activity. Those ESG indicators are required not only for feasibility studies of the project during start-up period, they are even more required at the later stages to monitor the effectiveness of the project implementation by boards of directors and by the wide range of stakeholders. A specific methodology of calculating an ESG rating of a PPP project is developed and applied to two prominent busines cases from Russia. The paper pays special attention to the operations of international financial institutions (the IFIs), such as European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the EBRD), which play a significant role in launching PPP programs for many developing countries. On the basis of real life case studies for emerging capital markets, paper contributes to the literature by developing PPP-adjusted ESG rating that is relevant for board’s decision-making and monitoring specific types of long term investments.

Keywords: private-public partnerships (PPP), ESG rating, sustainable development, sustainability reporting

Link to zoom conference:

https://zoom.us/j/93667664681