Percentage point | EPFL Graph Search

A percentage point or percent point is the unit for the arithmetic difference between two percentages. For example, moving up from 40 percent to 44 percent is an increase of 4 percentage points (although it is a 10-percent increase in the quantity being measured, if the total amount remains the same). In written text, the unit (the percentage point) is usually either written out, or abbreviated as pp or p.p. to avoid confusion with percentage increase or decrease in the actual quantity. After the first occurrence, some writers abbreviate by using just "point" or "points". Differences between percentages and percentage points Consider the following hypothetical example: In 1980, 50 percent of the population smoked, and in 1990 only 40 percent of the population smoked. One can thus say that from 1980 to 1990, the prevalence of smoking decreased by 10 percentage points (or by 10 percent of the population) or by 20 percent when talking about smokers only – percentages indicate

Essays in Financial Economics

Kevin Marc Rageth

This thesis consists of two chapters that study separate subjects in the area of corporate finance.The first chapter, titled âEconomic Gains in Bank Mergers and Acquisitions â Evidence from Targetsâ, investigates economic gains in bank mergers and acquisitions (M&A) by focusing on bank targets. Demonstrating efficiency increases resulting from bank M&A has been elusive to the banking literature. Imake use of a novel hand-collected dataset, which allows to observe financial statements for transacted target banks both before and after the deal effective date. Addressing endogeneity concerns by constructing the counterfactual frommergers that fail for reasons exogenous to target performance, I show evidence that acquiring banks create economic value by pursuing M&A deals. Cost reductions and higher post-deal securities productivity constitute bankM&A related value sources. The results are consistent with banks pursuingM&A to realize economies of scale.The second chapter, which is co-authored work with RÃŒdiger Fahlenbrach and RenÃ© Stulz, is titled âHow Valuable Is Financial Flexibility when Revenue Stops? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisisâ. We use the COVID-19 shock as a laboratory to investigate the value of financial flexibility. Firms with greater financial flexibility should be better able to fund a revenue shortfall resulting from the COVID-19 shock and benefit less from policy responses. We find that firms with high financial flexibility within an industry experience a stock price drop that is 26%, or 9.7 percentage points, lower than those with low financial flexibility. This differential return persists as stock prices rebound. Firms more exposed to the COVID-19 shock benefit more from cash holdings. No evidence suggests that recent payouts worsened the average firmâs drop in stock price. Our results cannot be explained by a leverage effect.

EPFL2022

Essays in Financial Economics

Marc André Frattaroli

This thesis consists of three chapters that study separate subjects in the area of corporate governance and financial intermediation. In the first chapter, I study a protectionist anti-takeover law introduced in 2014 in France that covers a subset of all firms in the economy. The law decreased affected firms' likelihood of becoming the target of a merger or acquisition and had a negative impact on shareholder value. There is no evidence that management of those firms subsequently altered firm policies in its interest. Investment, employment, wages, profitability, and capital structure remain unchanged. The share of annual CEO compensation consisting of equity instruments increased by 8.4 percentage points, suggesting that boards reacted to the loss in monitoring by the takeover market by increasing the pay-for-performance sensitivity. In the second chapter, which is co-authored work with Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, we conduct a detailed analysis of investors in successful initial coin offerings (ICOs). The average ICO has 4,700 contributors. The median participant contributes small amounts and many investors sell their tokens before the underlying product is developed. Large presale investors obtain tokens at a discount and flip part of their allocation shortly after the ICO. ICO contributors lack the protections traditionally afforded to investors in early stage financing. Nevertheless, returns nine months after the ICO are positive on average, driven mostly by an increase in the value of the Ethereum cryptocurrency. In the third chapter, which is joint work with Christoph Herpfer, we investigate how bankers use information from lending relationships to help borrowers combine resources in strategic alliances. Firms that have borrowed from the same banker or share an indirect connection through a network of bankers are significantly more likely to enter an alliance. Consistent with bankers overcoming informational frictions, their ability to facilitate alliances decreases with network distance, and is stronger for opaque borrowers. Firms connected to more potential partners via banker networks enter more alliances. These alliances are associated with positive announcement returns and brokering banks are more likely to receive future underwriting mandates.

EPFL2020

Does protectionist anti-takeover legislation lead to managerial entrenchment?

Marc André Frattaroli

I study a protectionist anti takeover law introduced in 2014 that covers a subset of all firms in the economy. The law decreased affected firms' likelihood of becoming the target of a merger or acquisition and had a negative impact on shareholder value. There is no evidence that management of those firms subsequently altered firm policies in its interest. Investment, employment, wages, profitability, and capital structure remain unchanged. The share of annual CEO compensation consisting of equity instruments increased by 8.4 percentage points, suggesting that boards reacted to the loss in monitoring by the takeover market by increasing the pay-for-performance sensitivity. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2020

Essays in Financial Economics

Marc André Frattaroli

EPFL2020