Over-investment of free cash flow

This paper examines the extent of firm level over-investment of free cash flow. Using an accounting-based framework to measure over-investment and free cash flow, I find evidence that, consistent with agency cost explanations, over-investment is concentrated in firms with the highest levels of free cash flow. Further tests examine whether firms’ governance structures are associated with over-investment of free cash flow. The evidence suggests that certain governance structures, such as the presence of activist shareholders, appear to mitigate over-investment.     

Value creation and destruction in cross‐border acquisitions: an empirical analysis of foreign acquisitions of U.S. firms

We conduct an investigation of the sources of gains and losses in cross‐border acquisitions in light of different motives for undertaking these transactions: synergy‐seeking, managerialism and hubris. We find that the data are consistent with the expectation that multiple sources of value creation exist in synergistic cross‐border acquisitions: asset sharing, reverse internalization of valuable intangible assets, and financial diversification. Gains accrue to bidder firm shareholders only for the least fungible of these sources of gains, i.e., reverse internalization. For value‐destroying acquisitions that are expected to be driven by managerialism, we find that the data are consistent with only one of the sources of value destruction that we examine, i.e., risk reduction. In these acquisitions, the evidence also suggests that the relative size of the target to the bidder mitigates the negative effects of risk reduction. Our results underscore the importance of considering the implications of alternative behavioral assumptions in empirical strategy content research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bayesian regression analysis using poly-t densities

Poly-t densities are defined by the property that their kernel is a product, or ratio of products, of Student-t kernels. These multivariate densities arise as Bayesian posterior densities for regression coefficients, under a surprising variety of specifications for the prior density and the data generating process. Although no analytical expression exists for the integrating constant and moments of these densities, these parameters are obtained through numerical integration in a number of dimensions given by the number of Student-t kernels in the numerator, minus one. The paper reviews how poly-t densities arise in regression analysis, and summarizes the results obtained for a number of models.     

The firm's investment and employment policy through a business cycle

The paper studies with the help of a model the investment and employment policy through a business cycle for a firm which maximizes its discounted income and assumes that the forecasts are perfectly correct. In addition to investment and wages costs, the firm has to bear recruitment and firing costs; it has at its disposal four control variables: the selling price, the recruitment rate, the firing rate and the investment rate. The firm's strategy appears to be generally a sequence of elementary policies. This sequence highly depends on the relative values of parameters like the rate of depreciation of equipment, the natural rate of decrease of employment, the ratio of the unit recruitment and firing cost with respect to the wage rate, the rate of decrease of demand during recession. The results obtained are, on the whole, quite consistent with the behaviours which have been observed in the last years, and explain some of the features of recessions.     

THE STATISTICS OF LONG-HORIZON REGRESSIONS REVISITED1

This paper compares commonly used approaches for estimating the relation between long-horizon returns and a predetermined variable X₁, such as dividend yields. Specifically, we look at regression of (i) nonoverlapping multiperiod returns on X_t (ii) overlapping multiperiod returns on X_t, (iii) single-period returns on multiperiod X_t, and (iv) single-period returns on X_t and its implied long-horizon regression coefficient. We provide analytical formulae which quantify the efficiency of the estimators used in the various approaches. Using the formulae, as well as Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that the relative efficiency of the estimators used in the various approaches differs remarkably, depending on the dynamic structure of the regressor. of special interest for financial economists, when the regressors are highly autocorrelated, we find that the regressions (ii) (iii), and (iv) provide only marginal efficiency gains above and beyond the nonoverlapping long-horizon regression.     

On supply-constrained equilibria

The paper gives sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium with price rigidities and quantity rationing where: (i) demand is never rationed; (ii) net trades of an a priori chosen numeraire are never rationed; and (iii) supply is rationed only when relative prices are downward rigid.     

The zero-sum management disease and the von Thünen prescription

As early as the mid-nineteenth century, the German farmer and economic theorist, Johann von Thünen, knew that the economic pie could be made larger by the common man's ability to work more creatively and productively. Von Thünen's contributions to management thought may well be what we need today.