Many theories, experiments, and survey studies suggest that investors are ambiguityaverse, thereby implying the existence of a positive ambiguity premium [Please check whether this revision conveys your intended meaning. If not, please suggest a suitable alternative.]. However, some empirical studies suggest contradictory results. Baltussen, Bekkum, and Grient (2018) use the volatility of implied volatility as a proxy for ambiguity and find a negative correlation between the volatility of implied volatility and expected returns. This negative correlation is inconsistent with the theories of Epstein and Schneider (2008) and Klibanoff, Marinacci, and Mukerji (2005),which state that investors’ demand for ambiguity premiums in the stock market depends on their ambiguity avoidance. That is, while most extant theoretical studies on ambiguity suggest a positive correlation between ambiguity and expected returns on stocks, most empirical studies rarely prove this relationship. This study analyzes whether there is a significant correlation between ambiguity and expected stock returns in the Korean stock market and also empirically analyzes whether there exists a positive ambiguity premium. In the financial sector, asset-pricing models such as a capital asset -pricing model (CAPM) are based on various assumptions about the distribution of stock returns. For example, a CAPM assumes that stock returns follow a multivariate normal distribution. Many empirical studies, however, question the type of probability distributions of stock returns (Fama, 1965; Rosenberg, 1974; Tsay, 2010); they suggest that the probability distribution of stock returns does not follow a normal distribution, and are even skeptical about whether such a distribution exists. In particular, Knight (1921) argues that ambiguity is defined as the uncertainty about the location and shape of a probability distribution. Ellsberg (1961) and Camerer and Weber (1992) also note that Knightian uncertainty or ambiguity is generally defined as uncertainty about distribution. Thus, the degree of uncertainty in a distribution is directly related to Knight’s (1921) ambiguity definition. If the recent distribution of stock returns unexpectedly differ from those in the past, the investor must pay a higher cost to better understand the difference between the recent and the past probability distribution of returns. Therefore, he/she will require higher premiums to hold these stocks. The main goal of this study is to empirically analyze whether there is a premium for the ambiguity of stock returns at the individual firm-level. To estimate investors’ difficulties in understanding distributions of stock returns, this study presents the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) and Kuiper (K) statistics, which measure the difference between the probability distribution of recent stock returns and those of past returns as a proxy for the ambiguity of stock returns. The results show that high-ambiguity stocks in the probability distribution of returns earn, on average, higher returns. An investor who is averse to high-ambiguity stocks demands a premium for that stock, thereby increasing his/her expected returns of the stock. This study examines whether such an ambiguity premium exists in the Korean stock market, and demonstrates that high-ambiguity stocks in return distributions lead to, on average, higher returns. We also find that the difference between the returns for portfolios with the highest and lowest distribution uncertainty is significantly positive. The bottom decile portfolio (S) by KS shows expected average monthly returns of 0.11%, and the top decile, 3.26%. When forming decile portfolios by K, stocks (S) with the least distribution uncertainty provide 0.07% of the expected average monthly average returns, and the stocks (B) with the most distribution uncertainty, 3.22%. In terms of value-weighted average returns, the V-W average returns for portfolios with the most distribution uncertainty are substantially higher. Using Fama and French’s (2015) five-factor model, we show that our measures for distribution uncertainty are highly correlated with alphas estimated from five-factor specifications. The magnitude of the alphas is positively related to the level of distribution uncertainty, implying that high distribution uncertainty portfolios earn more positive abnormal returns. The alphas of the B-S spread are significantly positive. As a result, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistic and the Kuiper (K) statistic are correlated with future stock returns. To determine the robustness of the empirical results, we extensively investigate whether the effect of distribution uncertainty persists after controlling for firm characteristics such as beta, size, book-to-market ratio, momentum, short-term reversal, and illiquidity. Overall, the results from these robustness tests using alternative measures of distribution uncertainty still support our hypothesis. Moreover, the results remain significant even after controlling for the characteristics of the distribution of returns, such as intrinsic volatility, skewness, kurtosis, and maximum returns. Next, we examine the cross-sectional relationship between distribution uncertainty and expected stock returns at the firm level using Fama-MacBeth (1973) regressions. The results show a significant correlation between the degree of distribution uncertainty and expected returns even after controlling for a variety of other firm-level variables. Our findings demonstrate the existence of ambiguity premiums in the Korean stock market.

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Using an investor sentiment index and an index of sentiment changes for the Korean stock market, this study examines how investor sentiment affects a cross-section of stock returns. I examine whether more speculative and harder-to-arbitrage stocks are more sensitive to sentiment, that is, whether their returns co-move more with sentiment changes. I also test whether the returns on extremely unspeculative stocks are negatively related to changes in sentiment, that is, whether they have negative sentiment betas. According to studies on behavioral finance (Shleifer and Summers, 1990; Lee, Shleifer, and Thaler, 1991), because a mispricing is the result of an irrational demand shock in the presence of a binding arbitrage constraint, shifts in investor sentiment have cross-sectional effects when sentiment-based demands or arbitrage limits vary across stocks. Consistent with these predictions, prior empirical studies (Baker and Wurgler, 2006, 2007; Kumar and Lee, 2006) report that more speculative and harder-to-arbitrage stocks—smaller, newer, more volatile, unprofitable, non-dividend paying, distressed or those with extreme growth potential—are more likely to be affected by shifts in investor sentiment. However, the effect of sentiment on the aggregate market is somewhat less clear. Brown and Cliff (2004) show that sentiment has little predictive power for near-term future stock returns, and Schmeling (2009) insist that the effect of sentiment on aggregate stock returns is observed only in the countries that are culturally more prone to herd-like behavior. To reconcile the cross-sectional results and the aggregate results, Baker and Wurgler (2007) suggest one possible explanation known as “the sentiment seesaw,” in that if sentiment fluctuations induce demand shifts between speculative stocks and safe stocks, that is, “the flights to quality within the stock market” occur, the low (high) sentiment reduces (increases) the prices of speculative stocks and at the same time increases (decreases) the prices of safe stocks, resulting in no effect of sentiment on aggregate market returns. In line with this idea, this study analyzes the effect of broad-waved sentiment on a cross-section of stock returns in terms of sensitivity to sentiment. Using financial parlance, I investigate whether more speculative and harder-to- arbitrage stocks have higher sentiment betas, and whether extremely unspeculative and easier-to-arbitrage stocks have negative sentiment betas. As in practice, the same securities that are most sensitive to speculative demands also tend to be the costliest to arbitrage, I hypothesize that stocks most sensitive to investor sentiment are those of companies that are smaller, more volatile, have less tangible assets, are unprofitable, are distressed, and have the potential for extreme growth. At first, I construct the monthly sentiment index and the monthly index of sentiment changes for the Korean stock market based on principal component analysis using five key sentiment proxies: the volatility premium, KSE share turnover, IPO volume, IPO first-day returns, and the proportion of companies with seasonal equity offering. To increase the reliability of the indices and their comparability with international research, I develop these sentiment indices in line with those of Baker and Wurgler (2006, 2007). Using these indices and the monthly returns of all of the common stocks of the KOSPI market from 2000 to 2017, I analyze the effect of the changes in investor sentiment on a cross-section of stock returns. I start by forming equalweighted decile portfolios based on several firm characteristics such as firm size, MTB, idiosyncratic volatility, total volatility, asset tangibility, profitability, sales growth, and Rand D ratio, and look for patterns in changes in average returns across deciles when the investor sentiment index changes from +1σ to -1σ. I also consider a regression approach that allows controlling for the Fama-French (1993) factors and the Carhart (1997) momentum factor. I regress the returns of each decile portfolio and the returns of various high-minus-low portfolios on the index of sentiment changes, respectively. Consistent with my prediction, I find that the stocks with high MTB ratio, high volatility, low PPE ratio, low profitability, and low sales growth, respond more sensitively to changes in investor sentiment than the stocks with low MTB ratio, low volatility, high PPE ratio, high profitability, and high sales growth. In other words, the more speculative and harder-to-arbitrage stocks have higher sentiment betas. The returns of stocks with extremely low MTB ratios and low volatilities are negatively related to changes in sentiment. That is, most bond-like stocks appear to have slightly negative sentiment betas. These findings are consistent with those of prior studies. As the Korean stock market is an individual-crowded and highly integrated market, it is a good test bed for studying issues related to investor sentiment. Using Korean stock market data, my findings shed light on the effect of investor sentiment on a cross-section of stock returns in theory and can help practitioners establish a profitable investment strategy using investor sentiment.

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The puzzle posed originally by Mehra and Prescott (1985) on the asset pricing model of Lucas (1978) consists of two parts: When asset returns predicted by the model are compared with their historical averages, the equity premium is too small and the risk-free rate too large. These phenomena are referred to as the equity premium puzzle (henceforth, Puzzle I) and the risk-free rate puzzle (henceforth, Puzzle II), respectively. Dokko, Park, and Cho (2001: henceforth, DPC) examine these puzzles in the Korean market using annual data from 1975 to 1999, and conclude that while Puzzle I is very weak, Puzzle II is quite strong. In this paper, we re-examine these issues by extending their study in the following three directions: (i) We use quarterly data instead of annual data to enlarge the sample size. (ii) We use the sample data during the 1999–2017 period, considering that a paradigm shift has taken place in the Korean economy after the 1997 “currency crisis.” (iii) Most importantly, besides the time-additive expected utility and the non-expected utility of Epstein and Zin (1989) used in DPC, we adopt five additional utility functions to explore their usefulness in resolving each puzzle. We take two approaches to this study. First, following Kocherlakota (1996), we perform statistical tests directly on the Euler equation that asset returns must satisfy in equilibrium. Second, we apply a calibration method in which closed-form solutions (or their approximations) of asset returns are compared to their historical averages. The results of the two approaches are, by and large, consistent in each of the cases of the seven utility functions that we consider. We make the following observations. In Mehra and Prescott’s basic model, the existence of Puzzle I in Korea is now apparent in the acceptable range of the relative risk aversion coefficient (2-6). The main reason for this may be that the equity premium has increased sharply over the last twenty years. Puzzle II is even stronger, as the risk-free interest rate has fallen significantly. These results, contrasted with those of DPC, are confirmed by several robustness check analyses. The non-expected utility function of Epstein and Zin (1989), in which relative risk aversion is constant with γ, makes no difference with respect to Puzzle I as the equity premium is determined independently of intertemporal substitution. However, it can alleviate Puzzle II substantially if the intertemporal substitution parameter ρ is small. Our estimation of ρ using Korean data shows that it is between 0.252 and 0.887. In this range, the risk-free rate predicted by the model is close to its historical average. The nonexpected utility function with constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) has the potential to substantially increase the equity premium significantly. As CARA is translated into increasing relative risk aversion, it makes a high degree of relative risk aversion acceptable. For the same reason, it decreases the risk-free rate further, compared with the preceding utility function. The non-expected utility function exhibiting ambiguity aversion can also be useful in explaining both puzzles. Under certain conditions, the ambiguity aversion parameter η replaces the role of γ in the Epstein and Zin utility function. As ambiguity aversion is, by definition, η > γ, it serves to enhance risk aversion if γ is kept reasonably low, which leads to higher equity premiums and lower risk-free rates. However, given that the empirical magnitude of η is unknown, the usefulness of this utility function is quite restrictive. Merits of the habit formation utility function vary with how habits are specified. A multiplicative external habit model using contemporaneous consumption helps explain Puzzle II, because the pricing kernel in this case becomes unity under log utility ( γ = 1). If  equals one, however, it will weaken Puzzle I. A multiplicative external habit model using lagged consumption weakens Puzzle II substantially, while Puzzle I remains intact. Inherently, it has the effect of magnifying the utility discount factor, which reduces the risk-free rate. An additive external habit model using lagged consumption has a channel to resolve both puzzles simultaneously. A strong consumption habit increases the volatility of the pricing kernel, and also its mean, which raises the equity premium and lowers the risk-free rate. This model, however, has one shortcoming, in that the risk-free rate can easily be negative as the mean of the pricing kernel exceeds one if the consumption habit crosses a certain threshold. In sum, except for the time-additive expected utility, each utility function that we consider can be useful for at least a partial resolution of the two puzzles found in Korea. In particular, the non-expected utility with the CARA model, the ambiguity aversion model, and the additive external habit model have the potential to simultaneously alleviate both puzzles. Among these, the non-expected utility with the CARA model seems to be the most successful, as the explanatory power of the remaining models is rather limited.

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This study is the first to thoroughly investigate the effect of subordinated debt issuance on commercial banks’ profitability and insolvency risk as well as the effect of the Basel III capital framework on this relationship. This study empirically examines the subject of interest by using random-effects panel- data models after controlling for potential determinants of bank profitability and insolvency risk. The Basel III framework, established by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and first introduced in 2010, provides reinforced regulatory standards on capital requirements, leverage measurements, and liquidity measurements for the banking sector (BCBS, 2010; Eubanks, 2010; Financial Supervisory Service, 2012). Specifically, the capital framework includes increased minimum capital adequacy ratios, and owing to this, the effect and importance of subordinated debt, a type of debt capital recognized as Tier 2 capital, have changed. However, despite this change in the role of subordinated debt in the banking sector, academic and empirical investigations of this debt are lacking. Our study fills this gap. We analyze the relationship between subordinated debt and banks by using a random-effects panel-data analysis method. Our sample data, ranging from 2001 to 2018, are an annually collected dataset from the six commercial banks that currently operate in the Korean banking sector. We proxy bank profitability using the return on assets (ROA) and the return on equity (ROE), and insolvency risk using the distance-toinsolvency Z-score (Boyd and Graham, 1986; Hannan and Hanweck, 1988). We examine the effect of subordinated debt issuance after controlling for other potential determinants of bank profitability and insolvency risk, including banks’ financial ratios, industry- relevant variables, and macroeconomic factors (Athanasoglou et al., 2008). The results of the analyses suggest that subordinated bond issuance negatively affects bank profitability and insolvency risk. The profitability models use either ROA or ROE as the response variable and show that increases in the growth rate of subordinated debt reduce bank profitability. Furthermore, our study considers the interaction between the subordinated debt variable and a dummy variable for Basel III adoption that takes a value of one after 2013, and zero otherwise. We find that the coefficients of the interaction terms are positive for all estimated models, indicating that the negative effect of subordinated debt issuance on bank profitability was substantially mitigated after 2013, when the Basel III accord was first implemented. We also investigate whether the size of previously issued subordinated debt influences the relationship between bank profitability and the issuance of such debt. We measure the relative size of subordinated debt held by a bank as the ratio of subordinated debt to the total debt in period t-1 and sort it into four subgroups based on its quartiles. We find that issuing this debt negatively affects profitability for all subgroups except the subgroup with the largest relative size of subordinated debt, suggesting that banks are not significantly affected by the issuance of additional subordinated debt when they have already issued a sufficiently large amount of subordinated debt relative to their total debt. The Z-score models use the distance-to-insolvency Z-score as the response variable and show that an increase in the growth rate of subordinated debt decreases (increases) the Z-score (insolvency risk). We include the interaction term between subordinated debt issuance and the dummy variable for the adoption of the Basel III regulation in the models. We find that the negative effect of subordinated debt issuance on bank insolvency risk was mitigated after 2013. This finding can be interpreted as resulting from either the enhancement of the integrity of banks’ capital structures after the Basel III regulation or the fact that banks are encouraged to only issue subordinated debt that conforms to reinforced regulation. Finally, we analyze the specific mechanism for the relationship between subordinated debt issuance and bank performance. We find that the growth rate of subordinated debt positively affects banks’ interest costs, indicating that issuing subordinated debt increases banks’ interest costs. We also find that interest costs significantly decrease concurrent profitability and increase concurrent insolvency risk. These results empirically support the hypothesis that subordinated debt issuance incurs costs to banks owing to the relatively high interest rate and can negatively affect bank performance, as prior studies theoretically suggest (Blum, 2002; Kim, 2000). The empirical analyses in this study provide information not only for investors and decision-makers in banks but also for supervisory authorities and policymakers regarding the issuance of subordinated debt. Furthermore, the research methodology used in this study is convenient and practical in that the model uses the financial ratios of banks, industrial variables, and macroeconomic factors that are easily accessible and uses the Z-score as a proxy for bank insolvency risk. Thus, the Z-score can be utilized for insolvency risk analyses in research environments in which the conventional panel logit model is not applicable.

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Using monthly firm-level data from the Korean stock market from January 1992 to June 2016, we examine the cross-sectional relation between expected returns and expected idiosyncratic volatility. Considering the time varying property of idiosyncratic volatility, we use EGARCH model to estimate the conditional out-of-sample expected idiosyncratic volatility to avoid the problem of look-ahead-bias. Our main results are as follows. Our equal-weighted portfolio analysis that exclude any control variables exhibits that as conditional out-of-sample expected idiosyncratic volatility increase, expected returns tend to decrease. According to the equal-weighted Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regression that includes systematic beta, size, book-to-market ratio factor, momentum, liquidity, return reversal and asset growth on the firm level, conditional out-of-sample expected idiosyncratic volatility consistently have a significantly negative relation with expected returns. This relation is also observed in the periods after the currency crisis and the global financial crisis, in the non-January sample, and in both up-phases and down-phases. Interestingly, we observe a spurious positive relation induced by look-ahead bias between contemporaneous conditional in-sample expected idiosyncratic volatility and expected returns. Our empirical findings suggest that the significantly negative relation between conditional out-of-sample expected idiosyncratic volatility and expected returns observed in the Korean stock market may be an idiosyncratic volatility anomaly.

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It is commonly known that investors in equity and bond markets are significantly different in terms of risk tolerance, information focus, and institutional composition. In the presence of such asset market segmentation, do better-integrated investors exhibit atypical investment decisions using equity and bond mutual funds within the same fund family (sister funds)? Auh and Bai (2019) document that investors’ holding decisions co-move on equity and bonds of the same issuer (cross-held asset), indicating that there is information spillover. They also show that fund families provide superior investment returns for cross-held assets. This result suggests that information content in the two asset markets is not redundant, and that combining information from both markets provides more complete information for firms. In this paper, we test whether the same phenomenon can be observed in Korea. In contrast to the strong co-movement reported in Auh and Bai (2019), we do not find any meaningful correlation in the holding decisions on cross-held assets. This insignificant correlation remains unaffected even after we consider several possibilities that may obscure the true nature of trading behavior. This stark contrast can be driven by several factors. First, asset market segmentation is particularly severe in Korea, as reported by Yang (2013) and Yoon and Ohk (2014), such that even investors in the same institution are not exposed to any information spillover. Second, the corporate bond market in Korea could be too illiquid for any subsequent holding changes to occur regardless of information spillover. To explore these two explanations, we exploit investment decisions on cross-held assets within a set of mixed funds whose asset class mandatorily covers both equity and bonds. It is reasonable to argue that information spillover is more feasible within an individual fund, and it is therefore a test of the degree of asset market segmentation. We find a strong positive correlation with cross-asset holding change from mixed funds. This result immediately rules out the illiquidity-based explanation because sister funds and a mixed fund face the same level of bond market illiquidity. We further examine whether bond sister funds and mixed funds hold bonds that are significantly different from each other in terms of liquidity-related characteristics (e.g., credit rating). However, we do not find any meaningful differences, and we thus confirm that the differences in the results cannot be attributed to heterogeneous bond holdings between the two types of funds. We further investigate the main driver of co-movement. If co-movement is mainly motivated by information spillover, then the investment performance of the cross-held asset must be at least similar to or better than the same asset holding of standalone funds (non-sister-funds). Surprisingly, our results show that cross-held assets are subject to inferior investment decisions from the perspective of ex-post performance evaluation. This finding suggests that the co-movement is not driven by price-relevant information sharing. In particular, the degree of co-movement is strongly affected by the fund flow: it is only significant when funds experience a large degree of fund flow (more than ±5% flow to the assets under management). The mixed funds therefore appear to scale the whole portfolio up or down in response to the fund flow, mechanically generating co-movement of the cross-held assets. As a final test, we examine the effect of mechanical adjustment of fund flow fluctuations on return predictability. The significance of inferior investment decisions disappears when the co-movement is not driven by scaling behavior (i.e., with a small degree of change in fund flow). However, the investment performance of the cross-held assets becomes worse when decisions are associated with a larger variation in fund flow. These results indicate that scaling adjustment is a dominant factor driving ex-post negative fund returns. Previous research on mutual funds in Korea has mainly focused on equity mutual funds. Our paper provides a natural expansion of the research domain given the recent study of cross-asset holding. In particular, we show that there is no meaningful interaction across different asset markets within a mutual fund family in Korea. Even within a mixed fund, it appears that information from both markets is not actively used beyond what is caused by a mechanical scaling adjustment. These findings provide strong support for substantial segmentation between the equity and bond markets in Korea. Finally, we demonstrate that such non-information-driven holding changes are, on average, associated with worse future returns.

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A market making scheme can be a direct solution for the imbalance in domestic derivatives market liquidity. To achieve such a scheme, it is necessary to expand the sphere of activity of designated market makers, which is currently limited to the nearest expiration contract of low-liquidity products and Korea Exchange (KRX) members. Introducing a request for quote can replenish a liquidity trap in the market in which the provision of continuous quotes of the designated market maker has been occasionally interrupted. However, despite improvements, if market making schemes do not motivate designated market makers to improve liquidity and price efficiency, it may be difficult to materially improve the quality of a domestic derivatives market. Technological developments, which have made it possible to trade automatically using algorithms at ever-increasing speeds, have eroded the relative value of the privileges that designated market makers have traditionally enjoyed. Therefore, this study reconsiders the obligation of designated market makers in a high-frequency trading environment and examines the direction of improvements of detailed standards in market making schemes. The major conclusions drawn from the empirical results are summarized as follows. The behavior of designated market makers is more conservative than that of endogenous liquidity providers that supply liquidity as a profitable activity. Designated market makers may provide liquidity conservatively because current obligations and incentive schemes of market making motivate market makers to focus more on their quote obligation duty than on active trading profits. A detailed standard of contractual obligations can explain the specific passive behaviors of market makers for continuous quotes. Because committed quotation times are based on seconds for an average of 80 percent of the trading period, designated maker makers are hesitant to cancel orders after submitting them and tend to avoid submitting orders matched in less than 1 second. In contrast, high-frequency traders have a tendency to cancel many orders, and most of the trading volumes are matched in less than 1 second in high-frequency trading environments. Therefore, market makers’ potential responses to the increased challenges that they face are to ease their obligations in markets where high-frequency traders act as informed active traders or informal market makers, and to improve the benefits through market making compensation. This can be achieved by aligning and coordinating designated market makers’ obligations and benefits with the specific microstructural features of the market in which they operate. The incentives for the liquidity provider and the general requirements that need to be fulfilled to receive these incentives can be differentiated by a liquidity provider agreement. For example, market makers of the equity index options of Eurex can choose between three types of market making obligation schemes: regular market making, permanent market making and advanced market making. Regular market making focuses only on responses to quote requests by request for quote functionality, which allows market participants to request a one- or two-sided quote to the central order book of a specified instrument. Permanent market making consists of continuous quotation of a set of strikes for a predefined set of expirations and responses to quote requests for all strikes and expirations of a given product. The benefits and risks of implementing new fee structures in the presence of high frequency traders can be reviewed to attract higher frequency and other trading volume. The most common new fee structures use maker-taker fee models that charge asymmetric fees to participants who demand and supply liquidity. Markets offer a rebate to participants who supply liquidity and charge a fee to those who demand liquidity. However, these new fee structures have led to concerns that high-frequency traders are the prime beneficiaries of these fee rebates due to their ability to (almost) always place their orders at the top of the queue.

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This study verifies the short-term informativeness of the National Pension Fund transaction. It also tests whether the National Pension Fund is an informed trader with meaningful private information. There may be contradictory views on this. The National Pension Fund has specialized management personnel with analytical and investment skills that go beyond ordinary people in stock investment in connection with stock management. In addition, the National Pension Fund has a special status with companies in the Korean stock market, which makes it easier for the fund to access insider information than it is for other investors. Because of this, transactions in the National Pension Fund can have information power. However, the National Pension Fund is constrained by various regulations governing active investment in risky assets and is exposed to political influences that may hinder investment efficiency. These factors may make the trading of the National Pension Fund less informative. This problem is examined through empirical analysis. We calculate the daily net purchase of the National Pension Fund using the transaction data provided by the Korea Exchange (KRX). Empirical analysis of stock price predictability is based on the portfolio approach and regression analysis, which are traditionally used in finance. The empirical analysis uses the daily net purchase amount of the National Pension Fund scaled by daily trading volume 1 to 5 days after the trading day. The results of monthly observations are also analyzed through the robustness analysis. The main results of the study are as follows. First, the stock price predictability of National Pension Fund transactions is verified using the portfolio sorting method. When one day’s holdings of returns are calculated, portfolios with a higher net purchase of the National Pension Fund have higher returns than those with a lower portfolio [Check whether this should be “lower net purchase.”]. The return on hedged portfolios, which buy the portfolio with the highest net buying value and sell the lowest portfolio, is 1.24% per day with statistical significance. The same results are obtained when we examine the returns after adjusting the risk using the CAPM (capital asset pricing model) and the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993). When the holding period is increased, the statistical significance disappears after 3 days, and the return becomes negative after 4 days. Second, we examine the short-term informativeness of the National Pension Fund transaction according to the characteristics of firms. Empirical results show that stock price predictability is more concentrated on small stocks. A robustness test using regression analysis shows the same results. The regression coefficient is significant when regression analysis is performed using the stock returns as a dependent variable and the net purchase of National Pension Fund as an independent variable. The significance is maintained when other control variables are added. The above results show that National Pension Fund transactions are informative but short-term. The results can be interpreted in two ways. First, the stock price prediction power may be due to short-term (about 1–2 days) private information of the National Pension Fund. There are two ways the National Pension Fund can acquire information. First, it is possible that the National Pension Fund will acquire the inside information of the company using its dominant position as a major shareholder and then deal with it one to two days before the public announcement. However, it is difficult to accept that the National Pension Fund is continuously carrying out such risky illegal insider trading. Another possibility is that the National Pension Fund has an excellent ability to interpret short-term stock price trends. Previous studies report that the National Pension Fund takes a contrarian strategy for the market and individual stock conditions. When the stock price is excessively lower than its fundamental value, the National Pension Fund can buy stocks, and the price may rise afterward. In the same way, when the stock price has risen excessively, the National Pension Fund can sell stocks and make a profit. However, the National Pension Fund has introduced a long-term method of allocating assets rather than investing in a daily portfolio adjustment scheme. In light of these points, the explanation based on short-term private information of the National Pension Fund is not appropriate. The second interpretation is that the predictive power of stock prices is due to the temporary increase in price due to National Pension Fund transactions. There may be price pressures if other traders follow the transactions of the National Pension Fund. Woo and Kim (2018) analyze the possibility that the National Pension Fund transaction could indirectly affect the market by influencing other investors. They find that institutional investors, especially investment trusts and other financial institutions, trade in line with the net buying of the National Pension Fund. Based on these results, it seems reasonable to interpret the empirical findings in this paper as a result of temporary price pressure.

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The literature presents evidence that bidding firms acquiring privately held targets earn positive and higher abnormal returns on M&A announcements than those acquiring publicly traded firms (Chang, 1998; Hansen and Lott, 1996; Fuller, Netter, and Stegemoller, 2002; Moeller, Schlingemann, and Stulz, 2004; Faccio, McConnell, and Stolin, 2006). Faccio et al. (2006) refer to this phenomenon as the “listing effect” in acquirers’ announcement period stock returns. Some literature on the Korean data claims that the listing effect on acquirers’ returns is also found in the Korean stock market (Kim and Seo, 2000; Oh and Song, 2008; Jung, 2010). For example, using the sample of merger announcements in the Korean stock market over the 1980 to 2007 period, Jung (2010) examines the cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) of acquirers’ stocks for 10 days from -5 to 5 surrounding announcements of merger deals and finds that bidders acquiring a publicly traded company have an average CAR of 0.13%, which is not statistically different from zero, whereas bidders acquiring a privately held company have an average CAR of 3.71%, which is significantly different from zero. Jung (2010) also shows that the average CARs of the two groups are significantly different from each other at the 1% level. Chang (1998) provides three explanations for the listing effect on acquirers’ returns: the limited competition hypothesis, the monitoring hypothesis, and the information hypothesis. The limited competition hypothesis states that if the competition for private firms in the takeover market is limited, bidders can experience positive abnormal stock returns because the likelihood of underpayment is high. The monitoring hypothesis is related to the concentrated ownership of private firms. Private firms are typically held by a small number of shareholders. Therefore, when a bidder acquires a private firm through common stock exchange, the shareholders of the private target firm can become outside blockholders after the merger and may then become active monitors who contribute positively to firm value. Lastly, the information hypothesis explains the listing effect on acquirers’ returns through the mitigation of information asymmetry. The relatively few shareholders of a private target firm have incentives to actively assess the prospect of a bidding company, and their willingness to hold the shares of the bidder conveys favorable information about the bidder to the market. The main purpose of this paper is to revisit the listing effect on acquirers’ returns in the Korean stock market because prior studies on this issue do not explicitly separate the effect of backdoor listing (reverse takeover) from the listing effect on acquirers’ returns. Backdoor listing means that a private firm merges with a listed firm and becomes public without going through an official IPO process. Many papers report that listed firms engaging in backdoor listing experience positive abnormal returns upon the announcement of the deal (Gleason, Rosenthal, and Wiggins, 2005: Park, Park and Bae, 2009; Kang, 2009; Kang and Kim, 2009). We refer to this phenomenon as the backdoor listing effect. In addition, Gleason et al. (2005) and Park et al. (2009) find that listed firms in backdoor listing are typically small and poor performers. Even though a private firm essentially acquires a listed firm in the backdoor listing process, on the surface, the listed firm survives and maintains its listing status throughout the merger process. When Korean listed firms file disclosure documents regarding backdoor listings with the Korean financial supervisory [Please check whether this should be “Korean financial supervisory.”], they classify themselves as acquirers and the essentially acquiring private firms as targets. Therefore, unless researchers pay particular attention, it is likely that backdoor listings are mistakenly treated as the mergers of private firms with public firms. If the sample of mergers of private firms includes backdoor listings, the results on the listing effect on acquirers’ returns can be misleading. To address this concern, our study manually identifies backdoor listings among merger announcements and investigates the listing effect on acquirers’ returns with and without the backdoor listing effect. We find that the cumulative abnormal returns are higher for acquirers of private targets than for acquirers of public targets only when we include backdoor listings in the sample of mergers of private firms. Excluding backdoor listings, we do not find that the listing status of target firms plays a significant role in acquirers’ returns in merger announcements. Using multivariate tests to control various firm and deal characteristics, we also find that a target firm’s listing status does not affect acquirers’ returns, whereas backdoor listing has a significant impact on acquirers’ returns. We perform robustness tests, considering the change in the regulation on the disclosure of backdoor listing and the monitoring effect of new blockholders, and find that the result of the non-existence of the listing effect remains the same. Therefore, the findings of our study suggest that the backdoor listing effect may have resulted in the erroneous conclusion by prior studies that a listing effect on acquirers’ returns exists in the Korean stock market.

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This paper studies the benefit of business group affiliation using the unique dataset of firms that are acquired by Korean chaebols in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. To establish the causality that group affiliation causes changes in performance of affiliated firms, the study employs firms that were once nonchaebol, but later acquired by chaebols and became newly affiliated to chaebols. The analyses focuses on the Asian financial crisis that represents high external capital market frictions to bolster the argument for the group affiliation benefit. Panel regressions show that the acquired firms improve performance after acquisitions. Moreover, to address a potential concern that firm-specific characteristics may explain post-acquisition performance of the acquired firms, I match the acquired firms with nonchaebol firms with respect to pre-acquisition characteristics. The matching estimator shows that the new chaebol firms outperform the control firms after chaebol acquisitions. Cross-sectional tests reveal that the affiliation benefit is more pronounced within larger firms and firms with higher ultimate ownership of the controlling families. Finally, the new firms expand market shares and gain stronger pricing power after being group-affiliated, which sheds light on the bright side of group affiliation such as sharing group reputation and internal capital markets.

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