Topic 1：Country and Industry Concentration and the Performance of International Mutual Funds
Time：March 29, 2013（Friday）3:00-4：30PM
Venue：Room 501, Jiageng Bld 2
Presenter：Xue Wang，Assistant Professor of Finance, Renmin University of China
Abstract：
International mutual funds diversify across countries and industries. In the meantime, fund managers may concentrate fund holdings on the countries or industries for which they have superior information. Using a hand-matched dataset on the holdings of the U.S. international equity mutual funds, we investigate the relationship between country vs. industry concentration and associated fund performance. We find that when sorted by country or industry concentration measures only, concentrated funds outperform their diversified counterparts, a result that is robust after controlling for various risk factors. This superior performance is twice as large in the industry dimension as it is in the country dimension. Moreover, the outperformance in the industry dimension is stronger for smaller funds than for larger funds, which is economically and statistically significant. However, this is not true with respect to the country dimension. Furthermore, we find that the superior performance stemming from country concentration can be explained by industry concentration. While our findings support the view that fund managers’ specialized industry knowledge, or private information (Kacperczyk, Sialm, and Zheng (2005)), can be extended to global markets (Albuquerque, Bauer, and Schneider (2009)), we find little evidence that country specific knowledge helps international equity fund managers improve their performance.
Presenter Introduction：
Dr. Wang got her Ph.D. of Finance and MBA from State University of New York at Binghamton, and Bachelor of Economics in International Finance from Qinghua University. Her research interest include investment, market effeciancy, and behavioral finance, etc. She has published a paper in Contemporary Accounting Research.
Topic 2：The Tradeoff between Tax Savings and Financial Reporting Costs: Public versus Private Firms in China
Time：March 29, 2013（Friday）4:30-6：00PM
Venue：Room 501, Jiageng Bld 2
Presenter：KennyLin， professor of Accounting, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Abstract：
This study examines how public and private firms responded to the 2008 tax rate reduction in China from 33% to 25%. We find that private firms report significantly more income-decreasing accruals than public firms in 2007, prior to the tax rate reduction. These negative accruals are substantial and material both compared to public firms and compared to 2008. By shifting taxable income from a high to a low tax year, private firms save about 8.6% of their total tax expenses in 2007. The results provide the first economy-wide estimates of the extent to which private firms respond materially to rate changes with inter-temporal income shifting.
Presenter Introduction：
Prof. Lin got his PhD in Accounting, MSc in Finance and BBA in Accounting from Glasgow Caledonian University (U.K.), Strathclyde University (U.K.) and Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics respectively. He has publications in top journals like Review of Accounting Studies.