IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v122y2021ics0378426620302569.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of labor mobility restrictions on managerial actions: Evidence from the mutual fund industry

Author

Listed:
  • Cici, Gjergji
  • Hendriock, Mario
  • Kempf, Alexander

Abstract

We examine how labor mobility restrictions in the form of non-compete clauses in employment contracts affect employee behavior. Using the mutual fund industry as testing laboratory, we show that fund managers respond to higher job termination costs due to increased enforceability of non-compete clauses by increasing their contribution to their employer's revenue. They do so by improving their fund performance, while also increasing window dressing to attract new customers and increase fee revenue. Furthermore, the change in incentives disciplines managers’ risk taking, as shown by noticeable reductions in their portfolio risk, portfolio deviations from peers, and engagement in fund tournaments.

Suggested Citation

  • Cici, Gjergji & Hendriock, Mario & Kempf, Alexander, 2021. "The impact of labor mobility restrictions on managerial actions: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:122:y:2021:i:c:s0378426620302569
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2020.105994
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426620302569
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2020.105994?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2014. "Window dressing in mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 11-07 [rev.3], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    2. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1992. "The impact of institutional trading on stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 23-43, August.
    3. JONATHAN B. BERK & JULES H. van BINSBERGEN & BINYING LIU, 2017. "Matching Capital and Labor," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(6), pages 2467-2504, December.
    4. Chen, Tai-Yuan & Zhang, Guochang & Zhou, Yi, 2018. "Enforceability of non-compete covenants, discretionary investments, and financial reporting practices: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 41-60.
    5. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    6. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2009. "Information Immobility and the Home Bias Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1187-1215, June.
    7. Daniel Aobdia, 2018. "Employee mobility, noncompete agreements, product-market competition, and company disclosure," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 296-346, March.
    8. Unknown, 2014. "Media Coverage 2014," 2014: Ethics, Efficiency and Food Security: Feeding the 9 Billion, Well, 26-28 August 2014 225573, Crawford Fund.
    9. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    10. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1589-1622 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    12. Solomon, David H. & Soltes, Eugene & Sosyura, Denis, 2014. "Winners in the spotlight: Media coverage of fund holdings as a driver of flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 53-72.
    13. Mark J. Garmaise, 2011. "Ties that Truly Bind: Noncompetition Agreements, Executive Compensation, and Firm Investment," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 376-425.
    14. Pástor, Ľuboš & Stambaugh, Robert F. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2015. "Scale and skill in active management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 23-45.
    15. Vikas Agarwal & Kevin A. Mullally & Yuehua Tang & Baozhong Yang, 2015. "Mandatory Portfolio Disclosure, Stock Liquidity, and Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2733-2776, December.
    16. Michael Ewens & Matt Marx, 2018. "Founder Replacement and Startup Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1532-1565.
    17. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    18. He, Zhaozhao, 2018. "Money held for moving stars: Talent competition and corporate cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 210-234.
    19. Daniel, Kent & Titman, Sheridan, 1997. "Evidence on the Characteristics of Cross Sectional Variation in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 1-33, March.
    20. Bengt Holmström, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 169-182.
    21. Cremers, Martijn & Petajisto, Antti & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2013. "Should Benchmark Indices Have Alpha? Revisiting Performance Evaluation," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 1-48, July.
    22. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    23. Fredrik Andersson, 2002. "Career Concerns, Contracts, and Effort Distortions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 42-58, January.
    24. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "Are Some Mutual Fund Managers Better Than Others? Cross‐Sectional Patterns in Behavior and Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 875-899, June.
    25. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    26. Matt Marx & Deborah Strumsky & Lee Fleming, 2009. "Mobility, Skills, and the Michigan Non-Compete Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 875-889, June.
    27. Linlin Ma & Yuehua Tang & Juan‐Pedro Gómez, 2019. "Portfolio Manager Compensation in the U.S. Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(2), pages 587-638, April.
    28. Brown, Keith C & Harlow, W V & Starks, Laura T, 1996. "Of Tournaments and Temptations: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 85-110, March.
    29. Vikas Agarwal & Gerald D. Gay & Leng Ling, 2014. "Window Dressing in Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(11), pages 3133-3170.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cici, Gjergji & Kempf, Alexander & Peitzmeier, Claudia, 2022. "Knowledge spillovers in the mutual fund industry through labor mobility," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Al-Hadi, Ahmed & Habib, Ahsan, 2023. "Consequences of state-level regulations in accounting, finance, and corporate governance: A review," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cici, Gjergji & Hendriock, Mario & Kempf, Alexander, 2018. "The impact of labor mobility restrictions on managerial actions: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," CFR Working Papers 18-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    2. Qifei Zhu, 2020. "The Missing New Funds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1193-1204, March.
    3. Bai, John (Jianqiu) & Ma, Linlin & Mullally, Kevin A. & Solomon, David H., 2019. "What a difference a (birth) month makes: The relative age effect and fund manager performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 200-221.
    4. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    5. Linlin Ma & Yuehua Tang, 2019. "Portfolio Manager Ownership and Mutual Fund Risk Taking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5518-5534, December.
    6. Dayani, Arash & Jannati, Sima, 2022. "Running a mutual fund: Performance and trading behavior of runner managers," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-62.
    7. Elif Sisli Ciamarra & Abigail Hornstein, 2015. "Board Overlaps in Mutual Fund Families," Working Papers 92, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Business School.
    8. Ferson, Wayne & Mo, Haitao, 2016. "Performance measurement with selectivity, market and volatility timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 93-110.
    9. Hendriock, Mario, 2020. "Implied cost of capital and mutual fund performance," CFR Working Papers 20-11, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    10. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2014. "Window dressing in mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 11-07 [rev.3], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    11. Çolak, Gönül & Korkeamäki, Timo, 2021. "CEO mobility and corporate policy risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    12. DeVault, Luke & Turtle, H.J. & Wang, Kainan, 2021. "Blessing or curse? Institutional investment in leveraged ETFs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    13. Mason, Andrew & Agyei-Ampomah, Sam & Skinner, Frank, 2016. "Realism, skill, and incentives: Current and future trends in investment management and investment performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 31-40.
    14. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    15. Cuthbertson, Keith & Nitzsche, Dirk & O'Sullivan, Niall, 2016. "A review of behavioural and management effects in mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 162-176.
    16. Colak, Gonul & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Loukopoulos, Panagiotis & Loukopoulos, Georgios, 2021. "Tournament incentives and IPO failure risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    17. Hu, Gang & Jo, Koren M. & Wang, Yi Alex & Xie, Jing, 2018. "Institutional trading and Abel Noser data," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 143-167.
    18. Herrmann, Ulf & Rohleder, Martin & Scholz, Hendrik, 2016. "Does style-shifting activity predict performance? Evidence from equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 112-130.
    19. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "Career Concerns of Mutual Fund Managers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 389-432.
    20. Amil Dasgupta & Andrea Prat & Michela Verardo, 2011. "The Price Impact of Institutional Herding," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 892-925.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor mobility; Non-compete clauses; Mutual funds; Career concerns;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:122:y:2021:i:c:s0378426620302569. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.