We investigate the impact of severe snowfall induced operational disruptions on insider trading. Applying geospatial analytics to an extensive dataset of snow cover, we conduct granular analyses of snowstorms across firms at establishment level. When analyzing a sample of firms that operate in snowfall-impacted areas, we find that corporate insiders significantly adjust their trading behavior during these events. These insiders not only predict lower future returns but also increase the size of their sales in response to snowfall crises. Further, we explore the salience and operational insights channels through which snowfall triggers informed insider sales. Our findings show that insiders residing in impacted regions, as well as senior insiders with unique operational insights, effectively avoid losses during these periods. The snow intensity test reveals that these phenomena are more pronounced for snowstorms of greater severity. We also provide direct evidence that establishments under severe snow strikes experience lower total sales volumes. Our study highlights the capacity of insiders to anticipate and respond to weather-related business risks.

This paper explores the impact of political network on insider trading activities in China. We find that stronger political network discourages insider trading. Such effect is more pronounced among long-standing and high-level connections, and persists in the events of M&A and public policy announcement when insiders may make profitable informed trading. This finding points to new cost of being politically connected. In exploring the underlying mechanisms, we confirm that the muted insider trading is related to preferable financial and policy support, and are more pronounced for SOEs in provinces with stronger market force and legal enforcement.

Analyzing data from Chinese online interactive investor platforms, our study reveals that Minority Shareholder Activism (MSA) effectively curtails informed insider trading by voting with their hands or feet, particularly in firms with weaker external monitoring. MSA not only reduces the profitability of insider trading but also encourages firms and regulators to implement stricter ex-post disciplinary measures. Moreover, MSA alleviates the negative impact of insider trading on the stock market by enhancing stock liquidity, increasing stock price informativeness, and reducing crash risk.

本文首次对我国 2019 年新证券法生效前的内幕交易案件进行了一个全面和深入的实证研究，并与境外法域进行比较，揭示我国内幕交易法律的执行情况。我国对内幕交易的打击力度持续加大，案件数量显著增长，以行政处罚为主，但 2008 年后刑事处罚逐渐增加。内幕交易变得更为隐蔽，体现在非传统类型的内幕人增多、内幕信息主要与并购相关、选择只交易且利用他人账户交易等。我国的内幕交易处罚类型与境外法域基本接轨，处罚强度甚至居于前列，其主要的影响因素包括违法所得、社会影响、减轻处罚情节、是否使用他人账户等。基于这些发现，本文评价了 2019 年证券法相关修订，提出了相关完善建议，并指出了需要进一步研究的课题。

We analyze the relationship between insider trading density and the future stock returns in Chinese listed companies. We introduce a new aspect of the trading pattern, insider trading density, to investigate the information advantage held by insiders. Insiders who trade at a low density during their tenure are less likely to be expected to trade than high trading density insiders. The expectedness of trading patterns reflects insiders’ trading incentives and conveys valuable information to predict future stock prices. Controlling for company, deal, and insider-specific characteristics, we find that low trading density insiders earn higher excess returns than high trading density insiders in a portfolio mimicking long strong purchases and short strong sales. In addition, we show that the insider’s position is a source of information advantage: prominent officers such as CEOs and CFOs are more likely to be low trading density insiders, while non-executive directors and supervisors are more likely to be high trading density insiders.

Using cross-border holding data from all custodians in China’s Stock Connect, we provide evidence that Chinese mainland insiders tend to evade the see-through surveillance by round-tripping via the Stock Connect program. After the regulatory reform of Northbound Investor Identification in 2018, the correlation between insider trading and northbound flows decays, and so does the return predictability of northbound flows. The reduction of return predictability is especially pronounced among less prestigious foreign custodians and cross-operating mainland custodians, behind which mainland insiders are more likely to hide. Our analysis sheds light on the role of regulatory cooperation over capital market integration.

This study proposes an incentive alignment hypothesis of corporate spin-off activities, in which executive compensation contracts tie the interests of CEOs with those of shareholders and the reduction of agency problems enhances firm value through corporate spin-offs. Consistent with this hypothesis, CEOs with a high level of equitybased compensation are more likely to initiate a spin-off. The announcements of such corporate restructurings are reacted positively by the market. Firms engaging in spin-offs provide greater operating growth in the years following the restructurings compared with their size- and industry-matched control firms. Also consistent with this hypothesis, high incentive CEOs yield more personal gains by selling shares and exercising options following spin-offs.

In this study, we directly test for a positive association between priced asymmetric information risk as measured by earnings quality and abnormal profits to insider trading.

This paper examines both the time series and cross-country patterns in the development of stock markets around the world. It adopts a flexible modeling framework that allows for the breakdown of changes in equity market capitalization into changes in macroeconomic and financial fundamentals, shifts in valuation technology and market sentiment, and improvement in valuation efficiency. Using panel data on 32 countries, I show that for developed countries, the size of their equity markets is positively related to the correlation of these markets with the global portfolio, and is negatively related to government consumption. For developing countries, the level of financial intermediary development and openness to trade are found to be conducive to the development of local equity markets. For given levels of market fundamentals, developed countries with greater economic freedom and stronger shareholder protections are associated with more highly valued equity markets, while the French or German civil law countries and countries with insider trading legislation tend to have relatively poorly valued equity markets. For developing countries, ceteris paribus, high quality of accounting standards is found to be associated with higher valuation of their equity markets. I find that only equities in emerging markets become more highly valued, indicating an improvement in valuation efficiency over time. Australia, Canada, the United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore have the most highly valued equity markets in the developed world, while Malaysia has the mostly highly valued equity market in the developing world. It appears that favorable shifts in valuation technology and market sentiment contribute the lion’s share of the growth of global equity markets.

Guilin Jiqi is a pharmaceutical company listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 1997. Taking into account the special institutional background of China, we thoroughly analyze possible motives for her accounting fraud in 2000. Guilin Jiqi made up the accounting profit in the semi-annual report. Interestingly, the employee shares of Guilin Jiqi began to be tradable in the open market from June. After rejecting other possibilities, we find that the most probable motive for this earnings manipulation is to help her employees, except top managers, to sell their shares at a huge profit. Our case evidence tells an interesting story regarding another form of insider trading. The management might recognize the contribution of employees by helping them to take advantage of investors fooled by inflated accounting profit. The pressure from subordinates possibly played an important role in the decision making of the management.