Ben-David, Itzhak; Chinco, Alexander M. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2023
Textbook theory assumes that firm managers maximize the net present value of future cash flows. But when you ask them …, real-world firm managers consistently say that they are maximizing something else entirely: earnings per share (EPS …). Perhaps this is a mistake. No matter. We take firm managers at their word and show that EPS maximization provides a single …