We examine whether stock market-listed firms in the U.S. invest suboptimally due to agency costs resulting from separation of ownership and control. We derive testable predictions to distinguish between underinvestment due to rational “short-termism” and overinvestment due to “empire...

This paper extends the analysis of managerial share price concerns by allowing informed trading in the stock market. It is shown that because they decrease the manager's information advantage vis-à-vis the stock market, individual investors who trade on private information improve the...

It has recently been claimed that, contrary totraditional neoclassical theory, suitably chosenenvironmental regulation is often beneficial for theregulated firms because it induces cost-reducinginnovations. I analyze the extent to which thisposition is compatible with microeconomic analysis....

The purpose of this study is to verify the impact of CEO Age on real earnings management. Our empirical study is based on a sample of 7481 American firms from 2000 to 2009. Firstly we document a positive and significant relation between CEO Age and real earnings management and as a supplement...

Corporations have been criticized for providing executives with excessive incentives to focus on short-term performance. This paper shows that investment in short-term projects has beneficial effects in that it provides early feedback about Chief Executive Officer (CEO) talent, which leads to...

We examine the effects of financial analysts on the real economy in the case of innovation. Our baseline results show that firms covered by a larger number of analysts generate fewer patents and patents with lower impact. To establish causality, we use a difference-in-differences approach that...

We develop and test a simple asymmetric information model of CEO quality, in which CEOs know their quality and shareholders may only infer this from observations of corporate profits. CEOs signal their quality to shareholders by manipulating the time path of corporate profits. Though...

Literature regarding the impact of institutional investors on firm's research and development (R&D) expenses supports that institutional ownership facilitates managerial discretion on R&D expenses in the US. However, the scenario may change when considering institutional investment horizon. This...

This paper models the effect of disclosure on real investment. We show that, even if the act of disclosure is costless, a high-disclosure policy can be costly. Some information ("soft") cannot be disclosed. Increased disclosure of "hard" information augments absolute information and reduces the...

This paper links the CEO’s concerns for the current stock price to reductions in real investment. These concerns depend on the amount of equity he intends to sell in the short-term, but actual equity sales are an endogenous decision. We use the amount of stock and options scheduled to vest in...