有鑑於全球愈來愈重視企業營運對社區造成的社會、環境和經濟影響，企業的利害關係人除了重視企業的財務績效之外，也愈來愈關心企業是否有善盡其「社會公民」的責任與角色。企業責任報告之目的就是在傳統的財務報表之外，進一步揭露企業的營業活動對於社會及環境所造成的影響。為了使資本市場能更有效地運作，公司管理當局應該要揭露範圍更廣、透明度更高、並有助於投資決策的攸關性資訊，因此，發布社會責任報告的企業有日益增多的趨勢。本研究之目的即在探討三個與企業責任報告有關的議題：(1) 企業的公司治理結構之良窳與管理當局企業責任報告揭露決策的關係；(2) 企業揭露社會責任報告之決策是否會產生股價溢酬；(3)企業社會責任報告揭露決策對企業的事前權益資金成本的影響。在控制樣本的自我選擇偏誤之後，本研究的主要發現有二：第一、公司治理結構愈好的企業愈傾向於揭露企業責任報告，而且也愈可能以專節的形式在該報告中揭露公司治理資訊；第二、從有無揭露企業責任報告的角度來看，本研究發現有揭露的公司均有較高 (低) 的股價 (資金成本)。其次，從揭露的內容做進一步分析之後，本研究發現「環境績效」、「社會績效」與「公司治理」三大類內容的揭露決策均具有價格溢酬。至於「企業承諾」則對公司股價並無顯著影響。最後，企業責任報告揭露程度較高之企業會有較顯著的價格溢酬以及較低的資金成本。 / In light of the increasing emphasis on companies’ social, environmental and economic impacts on the communities, stakeholders are more concerned about whether firms appropriately assume their responsibility as a social citizen. To fulfill stakeholders’ demand of such non-financial information, many companies have recently begun to voluntarily issue the corporate responsibility reports (CRR) as a means to disclose their social, environmental and economic performance and their commitment to do business responsibly. This study intends to answer the following three key questions related to the CRR disclosure: (a) Will companies with stronger corporate governance be more willing to issue CRR? (b) Will the voluntary disclosure of CRR leads to stock price premium? (c) Will companies making voluntary disclosure of CRR have lower ex ante cost of capital? After controlling for the self-selection bias, the empirical results reveal several important findings. First, the stronger the companies’ coporate governance, the more likely the management will issue CRR. Particularly, these companies tend to disclose their comporate governance policy and procedures in a separate section in the CRR. Second, companies disclosing CRR experience significantly higher (lower) stock prices (cost of capital). A further examination shows that three out of four major components reported in the CRR (i.e., environmental performance, social performance, and corporate governance) give rise to significant price premium. The disclosure of business commitment, however, seems to bear little or no information content embedded in the stock price. Finally, companies disclosing more information in their CRR have higher price premium and lower cost of capital than those disclosing less information. The implications of these findings are discussed.

This thesis consists of four independent chapters on bank capital regulation and the issue of unsolicited ratings.<p><p>The first chapter is introductory and reviews the motivation for regulating banks and credit rating agencies while providing a detailed overview of the thesis.<p><p>The second chapter uses a simultaneous equations model to analyze how banks from six G10 countries adjusted their capital to assets ratios and risk-weighted assets to assets ratio between 1988 and 1995, i.e. just after passage of the 1988 Basel Accord. The results suggest that regulatory pressure brought about by the 1988 capital standards had little effect on both ratios for weakly capitalized banks, except in the US. In addition, the relation between the capital to assets ratios and the risk-weighted assets to assets ratio appears to depend not only on the level of capitalization of banks, but also on the countries or groups of countries considered.<p><p>The third chapter provides Monte Carlo estimates of the amount of regulatory capital that EMU banks must hold for their corporate, bank, and sovereign exposures both under Basel I and the standardized approach to credit risk in Basel II. In the latter case, Monte Carlo estimates are presented for different combinations of external credit assessment institutions (ECAIs) that banks may choose to risk weight their exposures. Three main results emerge from the analysis. First, although the use of different ECAIs leads to significant differences in minimum capital requirements, these differences never exceed, on average, 10% of EMU banks’ capital requirements for corporate, bank, and sovereign exposures. Second, the standardized approach to credit risk provides a small regulatory capital incentive for banks to use several ECAIs to risk weight their exposures. Third, the minimum capital requirements for the corporate, bank, and sovereign exposures of EMU banks will be higher in Basel II than in Basel I. I also show that the incentive for banks to engage in regulatory arbitrage in the standardized approach to credit risk is limited.<p><p>The fourth and final chapter analyses the effect of soliciting a rating on the rating outcome of banks. Using a sample of Asian banks rated by Fitch Ratings, I find evidence that unsolicited ratings tend to be lower than solicited ones, after accounting for differences in observed bank characteristics. This downward bias does not seem to be explained by the fact that better-quality banks self-select into the solicited group. Rather, unsolicited ratings appear to be lower because they are based on public information. As a result, they tend to be more conservative than solicited ratings, which incorporate both public and non-public information.<p> / Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished