Wolfgang Breuer

• RWTH Aachen University

This study examines how firms’ socially responsible behavior relates to the timing of their share repurchases, considering share mispricing and the resulting wealth transfer between sellers and ongoing shareholders. We hypothesize that firms with a stronger commitment to societal goals prioritize the interests of all stakeholders more equally than...

Against the backdrop of increasing regulatory and societal pressure on firms to transition their activities toward more ecological sustainability, our contribution examines the role of greenwashing in corporate communication. We introduce the reader to current regulations, developments, and practices in the area of sustainability reporting. We also...

The global environmental crisis, technological developments, the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing economic and political globalization are just a few of the developments that are massively increasing the pressure for transformation on regions, companies, and society as a whole. In addition, the digital age is accelerating transformation processes tha...

In the first part of this chapter, we introduce the reader to the concept of corporate social responsibility. We outline different underlying motivations of CSR for a firm. Furthermore, we elaborate on different channels through which CSR is linked to the maximization of firm value. Specifically, we examine the impact of CSR on firm valuation throu...

We present and expand existing theories about why individuals may assess positive outcomes differently from negative outcomes in intertemporal choices. All of our theories—based on utility or cost considerations – predict a conventional magnitude effect for positive outcomes, that is, a negative relation between outcome size and subjective discount...

Different industries exhibit significantly different leverage; companies in the real estate investment trust (REIT) and technology/hardware sectors are extreme examples. In the United States, the leverage ratio is twice as high for REITs (50%) as compared to non‐real‐estate firms (around 25%), and the technology/hardware sector has the lowest ratio...

This study investigates the perceived and actual trustworthiness of female managers when using rhetoric to advertise their trustworthiness in public disclosure documents. We find that the stock market reacts more favorably to trust rhetoric if the document has been prepared under the responsibility of a female CEO rather than a male CEO. We rule ou...

Data complexity, which is constantly increasing as part of digitalization, is also challenging the financial sector. So far, manual case processing and (simple) statistical models have quickly reached their limits, so the use of new technologies seems inevitable. In addition to the analysis of statistical relationships from key figures in order to...

Automatisierte Beratungen im Finanzdienstleistungssektor werden zunehmend unter dem Schlagwort „Robo-Advice“ oder „Robo-Beratung“ am Markt angeboten. Wir erläutern die grundsätzliche Sinnhaftigkeit von Finanzberatungen aus einer entscheidungsorientierten Perspektive und stellen Vor- und Nachteile „menschlicher“ und algorithmusbasierter Finanzberatu...

We investigate discounting behavior in situations where both intertemporal and social discounting occur simultaneously. Situations of intergenerational conflicts are characterized by both time delay and social distance and can be interpreted either as a combination of current donations with delegated investments for others or of current investments...

This paper delivers empirical evidence of how the informal authority of owner families determines the extent to which these can extract private benefits and secure preferential resource access. We argue that owner families in high power distance cultures enjoy increased informal authority. Consistent with our predictions, family firms in higher pow...

Seit einigen Jahren sind an den Kapitalmärkten negative Zinssätze beobachtbar. Als Gleichgewichtsphänomen ist dies denkbar, wenn zinslose Kassenhaltung Transaktionskosten verursacht. Auch wenn dies mit der Fisher-Separation und damit kapitalwertmaximierender Verhaltensweise vereinbar ist, ergeben sich aus der Voraussetzung negativer Zinssätze Beson...

Wechselkurse, Foreign currency, Cross-border valuation Mit der jüngsten Ergänzung der Fragen & Antworten zum Bewertungsstandard IDW S 1 i.d.F. 2008 äußert sich der Fachausschuss für Unternehmensbewertung und Betriebswirtschaft des IDW erstmals öffentlich zur theoretisch anspruchsvollen und zugleich sehr praxisrelevanten Thematik der Bewertung von C...

Die im Rahmen der fortlaufenden Digitalisierung steigende Datenkomplexität fordert auch die Finanzwirtschaft heraus. Bisherige manuelle Fallbearbeitungen und (simple) statistische Modelle stoßen hier schnell an ihre Grenzen, sodass der Einsatz neuer Technologien unumgänglich scheint. Neben der Analyse statistischer Zusammenhänge aus Kennzahlen zum...

We empirically compared the consistency among different kinds of measures for risk‐taking and patience in a survey and an experiment. We evaluated how these variables relate to financial decisions, using a novel set of easy‐to‐apply survey questions as proxy. The main finding is that our results based on the novel survey questions describing financ...

Based on a large international sample, we show how the decision‐making power of CEOs in conjunction with prevailing institutional discretion relates to corporate resources allocated toward CSR strategy. First, especially with greater institutional discretion, powerful CEOs pursue exaggerated CSR strategies aiming at reputational gains for their pri...

This paper investigates whether managerial rhetoric in the Management Discussion and Analysis section of 10-K filings can help gauge the level of managerial opportunism in a firm. We find that the use of trust-related words is connected to inefficient investment decisions and poor operating performance. Furthermore, firms making more frequent use o...

For varying borrowing and lending amounts, the corresponding subjective discount rates will also vary. A situation where high amounts correspond to lower discount rates is called a conventional magnitude effect, while the opposite is called a reverse magnitude effect. We present an overview of the theoretical arguments for both kinds of magnitude e...

Multinationale Konzerne verfügen über Standorte überall auf der Welt und realisieren (unsichere) Fremdwährungseinzahlungen in vielen Währungen gleichzeitig. Eine einfache Sicherungsheuristik wäre, in jeder Fremdwährung die erwarteten Einzahlungsüberschüsse per Termin zu verkaufen. Für µ-s-Präferenzen im Rahmen eines Zwei-Zeitpunkte-Ansatzes ist die...

Gegenstand der Unternehmensbewertung ist primär die Ermittlung von Zahlungsbereitschaften von Käufern und Zahlungsanforderungen von Verkäufern im Zusammenhang mit Zahlungsströmen. Auf dem unvollkommenen Kapitalmarkt unterscheiden sich diese beiden Arten von Werten voneinander und hängen ferner von Zeitpräferenzen und Anfangsvermögen der Entscheider...

We investigate investors' time preferences and takeover outcomes in a cross-disciplinary international study. We use a cultural measure on long-term orientation (LTO) to capture investors' time preferences. Additionally, we study how investor protection and the nature of the deal (cross-border vs domestic) in connection with investors' time prefere...

Equity rights offerings are the predominant SEO flotation method in many European and Asian countries. Several previous studies focus on rights offerings, but these studies often measure solely the announcement effects of these offerings and pay little attention to the discount. This study seeks to close this gap, explain the discounts on such righ...

Academic interest in cultural influences on financial decision-making has risen in the last decade leading to a considerable number of literature contributions in this field. However, the discipline of Cultural Finance is a very young and yet unstructured research niche with its added value being rather opaque than clearly defined. In this paper, w...

Der Klassiker der Wirtschaftsliteratur: Wie ehedem einzigartig - sowohl in der Tiefe seiner Begriffserklärungen als auch in der Breite der Darstellungen - informiert das Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon kompetent und zuverlässig über alle wichtigen Begriffe aus der Welt der Wirtschaft. Dafür sorgen die mehr als 200 renommierten Experten aus Wissenschaft u...

Based on a large international sample, we examine the effects of CSR on the cost of equity under different levels of investor protection. In countries where investor protection is strong (poor), our results show that the cost of equity falls (rises) when a firm invests in CSR. Our findings are robust to alternative variable definitions, sample sele...

The article proposes to apply the global CAPM instead of the traditional CAPM (local CAPM) used in the practice of enterprise valuation, because the increasing integration of capital markets requires a model with an international context and the local CAPM only assumes an exclusively national context. The global CAPM is presented as an alternative...

Using an event-study framework, we examine the stock market reaction to the announcement of firm withdrawal from countries designated as “State Sponsors of Terrorism” by the U.S. Department of State. We find that such announcements are, on average, linked to a statistically significant increase in firm value—an effect which already kicks in a few d...

We compare the estimator for discount rates according to Elsner and Krumholz (EK) (J Bus Econ 83:985–1014, 2013) to the approach propagated in Breuer et al. (BFM) (Eur J Financ 20:568–594, 2014). While the EK estimator is derived analytically and implies a correcting factor by which the original arithmetic mean estimator is adjusted, the BFM approa...

Using modified versions of the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking (DOSPERT) scale, we conducted surveys among German and Chinese university students. Our tests confirm previous findings that risk taking is indeed domain-specific. More importantly, our results show that differences in risk behavior are attributable more to perceived risk than to expected b...

Studying a binary-choice trust game, we find that trustors who consider trustees to be obligated to reciprocate are ceteris paribus less willing to trust. We argue that norm-orientated trustors anticipate that they will experience negative emotions should trustees violate the obligation to reciprocate. In order to avoid norm violation, trustors low...

Previous literature on cash management has revealed that firms hoard cash to protect themselves against external financing constraints that might limit future capital budgeting policies. In a theoretical model based on this finding, we analyze how investors’ attitude toward uncertain investment returns affects the valuation of cash and the amount o...

Vorausschauende Planung ist ein konstitutives Kennzeichen menschlichen Handelns. Der homo oeconomicus würde eine solche intertemporale Planung dadurch auf die Spitze treiben, dass er ab dem heutigen Zeitpunkt für die gesamte Restdauer seiner (unsicheren) Lebenserwartung eine Batterie flexibler (bedingter) Pläne aufstellen würde, die je nach der kün...

Based on a large international sample, we show how decision-making power of CEOs in conjunction with prevailing institutional discretion relates to corporate resources allocated towards CSR strategy. First, especially in environments with greater institutional discretion, powerful CEOs pursue exaggerated CSR strategies aiming at reputational gains...

Based on a large international sample, we examine the effects of CSR on cost of equity under different levels of investor protection. In countries where investor protection is strong, our results show that cost of equity falls when a firm invests in CSR. Conversely, executives are prone to overinvest in CSR in countries where investor protection is...

Unternehmerisches Währungsmanagement, verstanden als Optimierung unternehmerischer Fremdwährungspositionen unter Ertrags- und Risikogesichtspunkten, setzt eine solide Kenntnis der grundlegenden Begriffe und Zusammenhänge der internationalen Devisenmärkte voraus. Dementsprechend ist es Aufgabe dieses Kapitels, zunächst eine Reihe zentraler Begriffe...

In den ersten drei Kapiteln wurden die allgemeinen Grundlagen für die Behandlung unternehmerischer Sicherungsprobleme gelegt. Im nun folgenden Hauptkapitel dieses Buchs sollen hierauf aufbauend ausgewählte Fragen des unternehmerischen Währungsmanagements einer detaillierten Analyse unterzogen werden. Der Schwerpunkt liegt entsprechend den im Abschn...

Ein Entscheidungssubjekt ziehe Nutzen allein aus dem Konsum zweier fester Güterbündel, von denen eines aus Gütern mit Preisen in DM und das andere aus Gütern mit Preisen in US-$ bestehe. Mit τDM sei die konsumierte Menge des DM-Güterbündels bezeichnet, mit τUS die entsprechende Menge des US-$-Güter-bündels. Die zugehörigen Preise von jeweils einer...