IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/priwpu/203.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is there Discretion in Wage Setting? A Test Using Takeover Legislation

Author

Listed:
  • Bertrand, M.
  • Mullainathan, S.

Abstract

In this paper, we use states' passage of anti-takeover legislation as a source of such independent variation. Passed in the 1980s, these laws serioulsy limited takeovers of firms incorporated in legislating states. Since many view hostile takeovers as an important disciplining device, these laws potentially raised managerial discretion in affected firms. If uncontrolled managers pay higher wages, we expect wages to rise following these laws.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertrand, M. & Mullainathan, S., 1998. "Is there Discretion in Wage Setting? A Test Using Takeover Legislation," Papers 203, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    • Handle: RePEc:fth:priwpu:203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 110-110.
    2. Timothy H. Hannan & Ferdinand Mavinga, 1980. "Expense Preference and Managerial Control: the Case of the Banking Firm," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(2), pages 671-682, Autumn.
    3. Rosett, Joshua G., 1990. "Do union wealth concessions explain takeover premiums? : The evidence on contract wages," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 263-282, September.
    4. Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "Breach of Trust in Hostile Takeovers," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences, pages 33-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Charles Brown & James L. Medoff, 1988. "The Impact of Firm Acquisitions on Labor," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences, pages 9-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    7. David Scharfstein, 1988. "Product-Market Competition and Managerial Slack," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 147-155, Spring.
    8. Szewczyk, Samuel H. & Tsetsekos, George P., 1992. "State intervention in the market for corporate control : The case of Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1310," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 3-23.
    9. Sendhil Mullainathan & Marianne Bertrand, 1998. "Executive Compensation and Incentives: The Impact of Takeover Legislation," Working papers 98-20, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    10. Brown, Charles & Medoff, James, 1989. "The Employer Size-Wage Effect," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1027-1059, October.
    11. Karpoff, Jonathan M. & Malatesta, Paul H., 1989. "The wealth effects of second-generation state takeover legislation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 291-322, December.
    12. Gokhale, Jagadeesh & Groshen, Erica L & Neumark, David, 1995. "Do Hostile Takeovers Reduce Extramarginal Wage Payments?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(3), pages 470-485, August.
    13. Alan J. Auerbach, 1988. "Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number auer88-1.
    14. Oliver D. Hart, 1983. "The Market Mechanism as an Incentive Scheme," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 366-382, Autumn.
    15. Krueger, Alan B & Summers, Lawrence H, 1988. "Efficiency Wages and the Inter-industry Wage Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 259-293, March.
    16. William T. Dickens & Lawrence F. Katz, 1987. "Inter-Industry Wage Differences and Theories of Wage Determination," NBER Working Papers 2271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 2000. "Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 672-694, November.
    18. Edwards, Franklin R, 1977. "Managerial Objectives in Regulated Industries: Expense-Preference Behavior in Banking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(1), pages 147-162, February.
    19. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(4), pages 351-351.
    20. Pound, John, 1987. "The Effects of Antitakeover Amendments on Takeover Activity: Some Direct Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 353-367, October.
    21. Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "Ownership, Agency, and Wages: An Examination of Franchising in the Fast Food Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 75-101.
    22. Jensen, Michael C, 1988. "Takeovers: Their Causes and Consequences," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 21-48, Winter.
    23. Richard A. Lester, 1952. "A Range Theory of Wage Differentials," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 5(4), pages 483-500, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Henrik Cronqvist & Fredrik Heyman & Mattias Nilsson & Helena Svaleryd & Jonas Vlachos, 2009. "Do Entrenched Managers Pay Their Workers More?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 309-339, February.
    2. David Margolis, 2006. "Should employment authorities worry about mergers and acquisitions?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 5(2), pages 167-194, August.
    3. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    4. 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.
    5. Peter M Clarkson & Shams Pathan & Andrew Tellam, 2016. "Do private equity target firms exhibit less effectual governance structures?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(2), pages 244-270, May.
    6. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2008. "One Share - One Vote: the Theory," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49.
    7. Moerland, Pieter W., 1995. "Alternative disciplinary mechanisms in different corporate systems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-34, January.
    8. Omer Unsal & Blake Rayfield, 2020. "Correction to: Corporate governance and employee treatment: Evidence from takeover defenses," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 44(2), pages 392-416, April.
    9. Sumit K. Majumdar & Rabih Moussawi & Ulku Yaylacicegi, 2019. "Mergers and Wages in Digital Networks: a Public Interest Perspective," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 583-615, December.
    10. Conyon, Martin J. & Girma, Sourafel & Thompson, Steve & Wright, Peter W., 2001. "Do hostile mergers destroy jobs?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 427-440, August.
    11. Bushman, Robert M. & Smith, Abbie J., 2001. "Financial accounting information and corporate governance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 237-333, December.
    12. Guernsey, Scott & Sepe, Simone M. & Serfling, Matthew, 2022. "Blood in the water: The value of antitakeover provisions during market shocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 1070-1096.
    13. Petri Böckerman & Eero Lehto, 2006. "Enemy of Labour? Analysing the Employment Effects of Mergers and Acquisitions," Working Papers 221, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    14. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 1995. "A welfare comparison of intermediaries and financial markets in Germany and the US," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 179-209, February.
    15. Hellwig, Martin, 1998. "On the economics and politics of corporate finance and corporate control," Papers 98-43, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    16. David Margolis, 2004. "Compensation Policy, Human Resource Management Practices and Takeovers," Post-Print halshs-00364913, HAL.
    17. Gokhale, Jagadeesh & Groshen, Erica L & Neumark, David, 1995. "Do Hostile Takeovers Reduce Extramarginal Wage Payments?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(3), pages 470-485, August.
    18. Aktas, Nihat & Petmezas, Dimitris & Servaes, Henri & Karampatsas, Nikolaos, 2021. "Credit ratings and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    19. Agrawal, Anup & Knoeber, Charles R., 1998. "Managerial compensation and the threat of takeover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 219-239, February.
    20. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WAGES ; MANAGEMENT ; BUSINESS FINANCING;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    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:fth:priwpu:203. 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wwprius.html .

    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.