IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8763.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring Investment Distortions when Risk-Averse Managers Decide Whether to Undertake Risky Projects

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Parrino
  • Allen M. Poteshman
  • Michael S. Weisbach

Abstract

This paper examines distortions in corporate investment decisions when a new project changes firm risk. It presents a dynamic model in which a self-interested, risk-averse manager makes investment decisions at a levered firm. The model, calibrated using data from public firms, is used to estimate the magnitude of distortions in investment decisions. Despite potential wealth transfers from debtholders, managers compensated with equity prefer safe projects to risky ones. Important factors in this decision are the expected changes in the values of future tax shields and bankruptcy costs when firm risk changes. We also evaluate the extent to which this effect varies with firm leverage, managerial risk aversion, managerial non-firm wealth, project size, debt duration, and the structure of management compensation packages.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Parrino & Allen M. Poteshman & Michael S. Weisbach, 2002. "Measuring Investment Distortions when Risk-Averse Managers Decide Whether to Undertake Risky Projects," NBER Working Papers 8763, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8763
    Note: CF
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8763.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa Meulbroek, 2001. "The Efficiency of Equity-Linked Compensation: Understanding the Full Cost of Awarding Executive Stock Options," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 30(2), Summer.
    2. Hall, Brian J. & Murphy, Kevin J., 2002. "Stock options for undiversified executives," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-42, February.
    3. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    4. Hayne E. Leland, 1998. "Agency Costs, Risk Management, and Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1213-1243, August.
    5. Leland, Hayne E & Toft, Klaus Bjerre, 1996. "Optimal Capital Structure, Endogenous Bankruptcy, and the Term Structure of Credit Spreads," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(3), pages 987-1019, July.
    6. Amit Goyal & Pedro Santa-Clara, 2003. "Idiosyncratic Risk Matters!," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 975-1008, June.
    7. Barclay, Michael J & Smith, Clifford W, Jr, 1995. "The Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 609-631, June.
    8. Gregor Andrade & Steven N. Kaplan, 1998. "How Costly is Financial (Not Economic) Distress? Evidence from Highly Leveraged Transactions that Became Distressed," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1443-1493, October.
    9. Parrino, Robert & Weisbach, Michael S., 1999. "Measuring investment distortions arising from stockholder-bondholder conflicts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 3-42, July.
    10. Graham, John R., 1996. "Proxies for the corporate marginal tax rate," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 187-221, October.
    11. John R. Graham & Clifford W. Smith, 1999. "Tax Incentives to Hedge," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2241-2262, December.
    12. Bettis, J. Carr & Bizjak, John M. & Lemmon, Michael L., 2001. "Managerial Ownership, Incentive Contracting, and the Use of Zero-Cost Collars and Equity Swaps by Corporate Insiders," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 345-370, September.
    13. Jennifer N. Carpenter, 2000. "Does Option Compensation Increase Managerial Risk Appetite?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 2311-2331, October.
    14. Black, Fischer & Cox, John C, 1976. "Valuing Corporate Securities: Some Effects of Bond Indenture Provisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 351-367, May.
    15. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    16. Jennifer Carpenter, 1999. "Does Option Compensation Increase Managerial Risk Appetite?," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-076, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    17. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    18. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    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. Jianjun Miao, 2005. "Optimal Capital Structure and Industry Dynamics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2621-2659, December.
    2. Ju, Nengjiu & Leland, Hayne & Senbet, Lemma W., 2014. "Options, option repricing in managerial compensation: Their effects on corporate investment risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 628-643.
    3. Ming Fang & Rui Zhong, 2004. "Default Risk, Firm's Characteristics, and Risk Shifting," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2461, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Mar 2005.
    4. Murray Carlson & Ali Lazrak, 2006. "Leverage Choice and Credit Spread Dynamics when Managers Risk Shift," 2006 Meeting Papers 193, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Ming Fang & Rui Zhong, 2004. "Default Risk, Firm's Characteristics, and Risk Shifting," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2461, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Mar 2005.
    6. Nengjiu Ju & Robert Parrino & Allen M. Poteshman & Michael S. Weisbach, 2002. "Horses and Rabbits? Optimal Dynamic Capital Structure from Shareholder and Manager Perspectives," NBER Working Papers 9327, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Elkamhi, Redouane & Ericsson, Jan & Parsons, Christopher A., 2012. "The cost and timing of financial distress," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 62-81.
    8. Hong Liu & Jianjun Miao, 2006. "Managerial Preferences, Corporate Governance, and Financial Structure," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2006-020, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    9. Hackbarth, Dirk, 2009. "Determinants of corporate borrowing: A behavioral perspective," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 389-411, September.
    10. Agliardi, Elettra & Andergassen, Rainer, 2009. "Last resort gambles, risky debt and liquidation policy," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 142-155, August.
    11. Monda, Barbara & Giorgino, Marco & Modolin, Ileana, 2013. "Rationales for Corporate Risk Management - A Critical Literature Review," MPRA Paper 45420, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Decamps, Jean-Paul & Faure-Grimaud, Antoine, 2002. "Excessive continuation and dynamic agency costs of debt," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1623-1644, October.
    13. Reisz, Alexander S. & Perlich, Claudia, 2007. "A market-based framework for bankruptcy prediction," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 85-131, July.
    14. Zhiguo He & Wei Xiong, 2012. "Rollover Risk and Credit Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(2), pages 391-430, April.
    15. Kahl, Matthias & Liu, Jun & Longstaff, Francis A., 2003. "Paper millionaires: how valuable is stock to a stockholder who is restricted from selling it?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 385-410, March.
    16. Wolfgang Drobetz & Pascal Pensa & Markus M. Schmid, 2007. "Estimating the Cost of Executive Stock Options: evidence from Switzerland," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 798-815, September.
    17. Erik P. Gilje & Elena Loutskina & Daniel Murphy, 2020. "Drilling and Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1287-1325, June.
    18. Neyland, Jordan, 2020. "Love or money: The effect of CEO divorce on firm risk and compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. JULES H. Van BINSBERGEN & JOHN R. GRAHAM & JIE YANG, 2010. "The Cost of Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2089-2136, December.
    20. Hirth, Stefan & Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese, 2010. "Investment timing, liquidity, and agency costs of debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 243-258, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

    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:nbr:nberwo:8763. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.