产业经济学系列讲座第86期

Jiaren Pang (庞家任)

Assistant Professor of Finance, A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, U.S.　

2010年6月7日星期一下午1:30－3:00

地点：史带楼303

主持人：孙霈 副教授　

Abstract　

A potential benefit of corporate diversification is internal information sharing among related business units which may reduce information asymmetry and improve firm performance. We identify this positive effect by focusing on financial conglomerates and examining the effect of diversification on bank valuation across different credit reporting systems, which act as external providers of credit information. If diversification mitigates information frictions and enhances value through internal information sharing, the effect should be less positive in countries with more external information sharing, because banks can obtain credit information from external providers and diversified banks have no informational advantage. Using an international sample of banks, we find strong evidence that supports this hypothesis. The results are robust to various sensitivity checks. We also find that diversified banks with a large proportion of investment banking business drive the effect which suggests that information flows from commercial banking to investment banking. Lastly, as would be predicted in equilibrium, banks are less diversified in countries with more developed credit reporting agencies as information sharing is less valuable.

　Professor Jiaren Pang received his Ph.D. in Economics at Washington University, St Louis, and his B.A. in School of Economics, Peking University, China. His research outputs have appeared in Journal of Banking and Finance and Journal of Development Economics.