A Survey of Managerial Incentives and Investment Bias — Common Structure but Differing Assumptions

Recent models within the agency framework concerning investment bias are reviewed, based upon a simplified structure of the pertinent information asymmetry. Tabulated overviews of contractual structures, critical assumptions, main and ancillary results, implications for future research and management are provided. As a general conclusion, the theoretical case of investment bias is rich and wide-ranging. It is now of interest to develop models and perspectives that focus more on economic fundamentals rather than pursuing additional variations of particular assumptions. Moreover, further research is needed in empirical testing and case studies. In particular, the framework promises to bring new perspectives and managerial implications on the administrative use of capital budgeting methods.     

A model of liability dollarization and myopic governments

Abstract

Liability dollarization of the domestic banking system represents a source of vulnerability for emerging market countries. The root cause is a lack of faith in the domestic currency, which ultimately stems from the belief that the government will not follow policies that promote long-run currency stability. This paper presents a model in which government myopia determines the unofficial dollarization of bank credit. Specifically, myopic politicians will choose low interest rates to expand short-run output in order to get re-elected, but this choice has the long-run consequence of increasing dollar lending. Increased liability dollarization is shown to force the hand of future decision-makers into choosing fixed exchange rates because of the fear that large depreciations will destroy balance sheets. The results imply that institutional reforms are necessary to reverse liability dollarization.     

Stock Characteristics,Investor Type,and Market Myopia

This paper investigates the role of stock characteristics and investor type in market myopia. Using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to control for endogeneity, we obtain evidence indicating that market myopia is greater among stocks that are relatively hard-to-value and hard-to-arbitrage, and find this conclusion to be robust to the choice of proxy for these characteristics. We also obtain a significantly negative relationship between institutional ownership and market myopia, due to the former acting as informed traders who exploit mispricing created by individual traders. It is important to note that the impact of their role becomes significant only when they have a sizeable share in firm ownership, as is the case of UK mutual funds and pension funds and Spanish banks.     

Managerial myopia and the unintended real consequences of conditional conservatism

We examine whether the demand for conditional conservatism produces unintended real consequences that are exacerbated by managerial incentives to report higher earnings. We document a robust positive association between conditional conservatism and real earnings management (REM), particularly for firms whose CEOs face greater compensation incentives and capital market incentives to report higher earnings. Using mediation analyses, we find that conservatism has a negative indirect relation with future returns via REM over the next 1–3 years. In additional tests, we find that the relation between conservatism and REM is attenuated for firms with higher debt-to-equity, which suggests that debtholders moderate the negative relation between conditional conservative reporting and REM. Our findings suggest that, in contrast to its monitoring benefit, conditional conservatism can exacerbate managerial myopia, resulting in negative consequences for future firm value.     

Managerial Myopia,Earnings Guidance,and Investment*

This study investigates the real effects of management communication, specifically of forecasts or earnings guidance, on investment. Managers can signal the strength of their projects through accuracy in their earnings guidance. This leads less accurate managers to distort their investments; the equilibrium investment strategy involves over-investment when earnings exceed the forecast and under-investment when earnings fall short. Moreover, we find that managers are pessimistic in their forecasts, which helps to explain the corresponding well-documented empirical regularity. This downward bias increases the likelihood of investment manipulation but decreases the real loss from distortion. Interestingly, the over-investment induced by earnings guidance helps to mitigate the classic under-investment problem for a myopic manager with unobservable investment. Earnings guidance can therefore be value-increasing when managerial myopia is severe.     

The dark side of strengthened minority voting power: An innovation perspective

Based on the 2014 regulatory reforms aimed at strengthening the protection of legitimate rights and interests of minority investors in China, we investigate minority shareholders’ short-termism and how minority voting impacts firm innovation. We find that the 2014 reforms effectively motivate minority shareholders to attend shareholder meetings and greatly enhance their voting influence. We also find that enhanced minority voting power after the reforms lowers the number of firms’ patent applications, and this effect is more pronounced for the firms that see the greatest increase in shareholder attendance at shareholder meetings. Moreover, enhanced minority voting power boosts executive turnover-performance sensitivity, thereby undermining firm innovation. Finally, we show that different types of minority shareholders have distinct impacts on firm innovation, depending on their investment horizons. The negative effect of minority voting power is more pronounced for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than for non-SOEs.     

ESG表现与企业韧性

利用2019—2022年我国A股上市公司数据，探讨ESG表现对企业韧性的影响及作用机制。研究结果表明，ESG表现显著提升了企业韧性，使得企业在危机期间表现出更强的抵抗力和恢复力。细化ESG不同维度发现，相较于环境，社会责任和公司治理对企业韧性的提升作用更显著。作用机制研究发现，ESG表现通过增加产品的市场竞争优势、降低融资成本、提高企业声誉和抗风险能力四条路径提升企业的危机应对能力，进而增强企业韧性。异质性检验发现，ESG表现对企业韧性的增强作用在管理层决策视域较短、财务状况和内部控制较差的企业中更显著，说明ESG有助于解决管理者短视、财务状况和内部控制较差给企业带来的“生存性”难题，是企业于逆境中转“危”为“机”的重要驱动力。     

Can upgrading information infrastructure improve the innovation ability of companies? Empirical evidence from China

The development of information technology has become a new driving force for companies' innovation. Upgrading the information infrastructure lays a foundation for companies to use information technology to innovate; therefore, this study examines the impact of information infrastructure upgrading on companies' innovation ability and the intermediate mechanism. Using a sample of China's listed companies of A-share from 2011 to 2018, this study used the staggered difference-in-difference method to investigate the impact of information infrastructure upgrading on innovation input, innovation output and quality. The results show that upgrading information infrastructure has a ‘double-edged sword’ effect on the innovation ability of companies. Companies' innovation input and output significantly increase, but innovation quality decreases. Additionally, further analysis indicates that financial constraints and managerial myopia are intermediary mechanisms for this effect. Our research results provide theoretical and empirical evidence for companies to enhance their innovation ability.