Two Essays in Corporate Finance

This thesis consists of two essays. Both essays cover incentives of corporate trademarking activities but through two different perspectives. The first one, from the industry angle, studies how foreign competition affects firms' product creation. The second one, from the aspect of firms' CEOs, investigates whether and how an overconfident CEO benefits the firm's branding activities.In the first essay, we examine how firms adjust their product development strategy in response to intensified foreign competition. Using a novel dataset of U.S. firms' trademark registrations as a proxy for new product creation, we find a robust negative association between foreign competition and new product creation. Further analysis suggests that the negative association is due to enhanced managerial efficiency in allocating resources towards product development. Concerning product quality, we find that import competition enhances the quality and value of new products, further supporting the efficient resource allocation channel. In our final analysis, we show that foreign competition from low-wage countries has a more positive effect on product quality as opposed to the import competition from high-wage countries. Collectively, our findings suggest that foreign competition induces more efficient resource allocation by motivating firms to develop new products that are value-enhancing.In the second essay, I examine the relation between overconfident CEOs and firms' branding of innovations and find a significant positive association. Overconfident CEOs exert more branding innovation efforts, as evidenced by the number of trademarks. The positive effect is more pronounced for firms in more competitive industries, and for firms with more capable CEOs. Further analyses reveal that overconfident CEOs develop high-quality trademarks that enhance firm value. Overall, my findings provide an important channel through which firms benefit from overconfident CEOs.本論文包含兩篇文章，分別從不同角度探討公司進行商標活動的動因。第一篇文章從較為宏觀的角度，研究進口競爭對公司產品創新策略的影響。第二篇文章從相對微觀的角度出發，討論過度自信的CEO對公司商標策略的作用。在第一篇文章中，我們采用商標數據衡量公司的產品創新。我們發現進口競爭減少了公司的產品創新。來自各種截面檢驗的證據表明，公司在進口競爭加劇下減少產品創新的部分原因是競爭對公司管理層的約束作用，即進口競爭促進了公司管理層對資源分配的優化。進一步的研究表明，進口競爭提升了公司產品創新的質量，支持了進口競爭促進公司管理層優化資源配置的論述。我們還發現來自低收入國家的進口競爭對公司產品創新質量的促進作用。總體而言，我們的研究表明進口競爭對鼓勵公司進行更具價值的產品研發有積極影響。在第二篇文章中，我研究過度自信的CEO對公司商標策略的作用。過去的研究表明，過度自信的CEO對公司專利研發有積極影響。使用商標數據，我發現過度自信的CEO有助於公司商標數量及質量的提升，即過度自信的CEO對公司的產品創新以及市場營銷創新的數量起促進作用。同時，過度自信的CEO還有助於提升二者的質量，正面影響公司的價值。另外，來自截面的檢驗更顯示了過度自信的CEO對公司商標策略的積極影響：在行業競爭更為激烈時，在更為依賴廣告投入的行業中，以及當CEO能力更強時，過度自信的CEO在公司商標創新中扮演更為積極的角色。HUANG, Jian.Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2021.Includes bibliographical references (leaves )Abstracts in English and Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on ...