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Looking at Brazilian privatisations between 1991 and 2018, we investigate how net privatisation prices react to restructuring policies that are implemented before the sale as well as to private ownership structures that emerge at the sale. We innovate by accounting for restructuring and ownership at the same time and also by exploring a unique dataset that covers 139 transactions, mainly built through fieldwork. The paper provides policymakers with a "do's and don'ts" checklist to extract higher value from the sale. The checklist can be used as a policy guideline for new privatisations in Brazil and potentially in other emerging economies. • An empirical study on net privatisation prices arising from auctions is conducted. • A unique dataset of Brazilian privatisations between 1991 and 2018 is explored. • Bidding strategies are sensitive to restructuring policies implemented before the sale. • Revenues react to private ownership structures that emerge at the sale. • Policy prescriptions for privatisations in emerging markets are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposes of this paper are to investigate the informational sophistication of foreign investors in the Brazilian stock market and to assess the price impact on local securities generated by the trading conducted by these agents. As a first finding, these agents exhibit positive and significant responses to past returns, supporting the trend-chasing hypothesis. Additionally, the results indicate a positive and significant influence of these investors on domestic price discovery, an effect that is amplified in magnitude by crisis scenarios. All these findings, combined with the fact that these agents sporadically herd, classify foreign investors as potential local price destabilizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper analyzes the exchange rate exposure of a sample of non-financial Brazilian companies from 1999 to 2009. The results confirm the importance of using nonlinear models to address companies'' exchange rate exposure. The results indicate that when compared to the linear model commonly used in literature, the nonlinear model leads to an increase in the number of firms exposed to exchange rate fluctuations, which allows a more accurate analysis of the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on the value of firms. In addition, the paper shows that exporters and companies that hold foreign currency denominated debt are more likely to be exposed to exchange rate fluctuations and that the nonlinearity of companies'' foreign exchange exposure is associated with the use of foreign currency derivatives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between companies'' financial policies and the exchange rate regime for a sample of non-financial Brazilian companies from 1996 to 2006. The adoption of a floating exchange rate regime is shown to improve the match between the currency composition of companies'' assets and liabilities. The paper also shows that this reduction in companies'' currency mismatches is more pronounced for companies in the highest quantile of foreign exposure; therefore the results confirm that the exchange rate regime plays an important role in the determination of companies'' foreign vulnerability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The impact of news releases related to the inflation targeting regime on the financial market is analyzed by estimating a bivariate VAR GARCH-BEKK-in-mean model. We use daily data, from January 2006 to May 2017, of stock prices index (IBOVESPA), exchange rate (BRL/USD) and interbank deposit rate (DI360). We developed a positive and negative news index to measure the impact of news releases based on Caporale et al. (2016) and Caporale et al. (2018). Although the literature on the subject is vast, this paper fills relevant gaps in three ways. First, we investigate the bidirectional relationship between monetary policy related news releases and the behavior of asset prices before and after the 2008 crisis in Brazil. Second, we consider the relationship between the second moments of the variables of interest, using the conditional volatility as a proxy for uncertainty. Third, we provide a time series approach to measure the effect of macroeconomic related news releases on financial asset returns. The results indicate there are mean spread effects from news for the exchange rate and the Brazilian stock index: (i) the GARCH-in-mean parameter is statistically significant for positive and the difference of news for the DI360; (ii) monetary policy and external shocks are statiscally significant as expected with exception of the external shocks for the Brazilian stock index; and (iii) there are volatility spillovers and changes of this volatility after the crisis for stock index and DI360. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of the roles financial institutions play within the Brazilian interbank market using a network-based approach. We present a novel methodology to assess how compliant networks are to being perfect core-periphery structures. The approach is flexible, allowing for the identification of multiple cores in networks. We verify that the interbank network presents a high disassortative mixing pattern, suggesting preferential attachment of highly connected financial institutions to others with few connections. We use the clustering coefficient to assess the substitutability of financial institutions. We find that large banking institutions are counterparties that are easily substitutable in normal times. We uncover that the rich-club effect is strongly present in the community comprising the large banking institutions, as they normally form near-clique structures. Since they play the role of liquidity providers in the interbank market, this interconnectedness effectively endows the network with robustness, as participants that are with liquidity issues can easily substitute counterparties that are liquidity suppliers. This substitutability will likely vanish during periods of stress, increasing systemic risk and the likelihood of cascade failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research is not conclusive whether information asymmetries or managerial discretion are the cause of observed investment-cash flow sensitivity. This paper examines the effect of family firms' governance heterogeneity on firm's investment-cash flow sensitivity in Brazil. The Brazilian economic and corporate governance context present several idiosyncratic features, including weak minority shareholder protection, an underdeveloped capital market, macro-economic uncertainties, the presence of controlling shareholders (especially families), and the excessive use of control-enhancing mechanisms, allowing us to explore in greater detail the drivers of investment-cash flow sensitivity. We find that investment is more sensitive to cash flow for firms with a highly entrenched family presence (divergence between corporate control and voting rights coupled with family management) than in less entrenched family firms. This result emerges primarily due to financial constraints from asymmetric information, rather than agency problems of free cash flow from abuse of managerial discretion. Our findings shed new light on the role of excessive control rights in investment decisions, allowing family managers to reallocate capital to cope with financial constraints in times of economic uncertainties. • Family entrenched firms reduce the investment-cash flow sensitivity. • Entrenched owners are stewards in times of economic uncertainty. • Underinvestment due to information asymmetries seems to prevail. • There is no evidence of private benefits of control in family entrenched firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the financial performance of a mainstream socially responsible investment equity index in emerging markets: the Brazilian Corporate Sustainability Index. The results indicate that investors in emerging markets could accommodate their ethical values while at the same time not scarifying their overall portfolio performance in bullish market periods. However, the financial crisis led ethical investors to take a riskier and less profitable portfolio. These results seem to be due to socially responsible investment in Brazil that, as with other emerging markets, is highly influenced by social and institutional factors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The present paper investigates five episodes of currency collapse from the perspective of non-financial firms operating in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. We focus on two aspects: wealth and income transfers from borrowing firms to lenders and firm heterogeneity. At the firm level, we find that the currency collapses are preceded and associated with sharply rising financial transfers from firms to lenders. The debt and income structure is central in explaining the asymmetric firm dynamics. Most affected are firms with high levels of unhedged foreign-currency debt. At the country level, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico display three contrasting examples. Argentina has a large currency mismatch, Brazil balances the currency denomination of debt and income (natural hedge), and Mexico occupies an intermediate position. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we study the interaction between macroeconomic environment and firms’ balance sheet effects in Brazil during the 1990''s. We start by assessing the influence of macroeconomic conditions on firms’ debt composition in Brazil. We found that larger firms tend to change debt currency composition more in response to a change in the exchange rate risk. We then proceed to investigate if and how exchange rate balance sheet effects affected the firms’ investment decisions. We test directly the exchange rate balance sheet effect on investment, but the results were not statistically significant. We then pursue an alternative investigation strategy, inspired by the credit channel literature. According to this perspective, Tobin''s q can provide an adequate control for the competitiveness effect on investment. Our results provide supporting evidence for imperfect capital markets, but not for a balance sheet effect in Brazil. The main effect we found is that firms in industries with higher proportion of imported inputs tend to invest less when the exchange rate is depreciated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Cash flow hedge accounting is an accounting choice and may avoid reported losses due to deferrals in other comprehensive income (OCI), promoting better earnings disclosure. Provided that managers have incentives to avoid losses, we investigate whether firms' high financial exposure to currency risk, the high exchange rate depreciation derived from the financial crisis verified in Brazil, and the option to defer taxes on exchange earnings affected hedge accounting choice for 379 Brazilian listed firms from 2010–2017. Our results provide compelling evidence of loss avoidance and tax-aggressiveness through cash flow hedge accounting choice, primarily designed by standards to reduce volatility instead. • The paper studies the cash flow hedge accounting choice under financial crisis. • The exposition to currency risk and the exchange rate depreciation promote reported losses. • Cash flow hedge accounting may avoid reported losses due to deferrals on OCI. • Thus, managers have incentives to choose hedge accounting as loss avoidance under crisis. • Tax-aggressiveness is also an important determinant for cash flow hedge accounting choice in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]