IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17330.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information Aggregation, Investment, and Managerial Incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Elias Albagli
  • Christian Hellwig
  • Aleh Tsyvinski

Abstract

We study the interplay of share prices and firm decisions when share prices aggregate and convey noisy information about fundamentals to investors and managers. First, we show that the informational feedback between the firm's share price and its investment decisions leads to a systematic premium in the firm's share price relative to expected dividends. Noisy information aggregation leads to excess price volatility, over-valuation of shares in response to good news, and undervaluation in response to bad news. By optimally increasing its exposure to fundamental risks when the market price conveys good news, the firm shifts its dividend risk to the upside, which amplifies the overvaluation and explains the premium. Second, we argue that explicitly linking managerial compensation to share prices gives managers an incentive to manipulate the firm's decisions to their own benefit. The managers take advantage of shareholders by taking excessive investment risks when the market is optimistic, and investing too little when the market is pessimistic. The amplified upside exposure is rewarded by the market through a higher share price, but is inefficient from the perspective of dividend value.

Suggested Citation

  • Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2011. "Information Aggregation, Investment, and Managerial Incentives," NBER Working Papers 17330, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17330
    Note: AP CF EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17330.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stein, Jeremy C, 1988. "Takeover Threats and Managerial Myopia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 61-80, February.
    2. Goldstein, Itay & Ozdenoren, Emre & Yuan, Kathy, 2013. "Trading frenzies and their impact on real investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 566-582.
    3. James Dow, 2003. "Informed Trading, Investment, and Welfare," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(3), pages 439-454, July.
    4. George-Marios Angeletos & Guido Lorenzoni & Alessandro Pavan, 2010. "Beauty Contests and Irrational Exuberance: A Neoclassical Approach," NBER Working Papers 15883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Itay Goldstein & Alexander Guembel, 2008. "Manipulation and the Allocational Role of Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(1), pages 133-164.
    6. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    7. Leland, Hayne E, 1992. "Insider Trading: Should It Be Prohibited?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 859-887, August.
    8. Rock, Kevin, 1986. "Why new issues are underpriced," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 187-212.
    9. Aleh Tsyvinski & Arijit Mukherji & Christian Hellwig, 2006. "Self-Fulfilling Currency Crises: The Role of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1769-1787, December.
    10. Miller, Merton H & Rock, Kevin, 1985. "Dividend Policy under Asymmetric Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1031-1051, September.
    11. Easley, David, et al, 1996. "Liquidity, Information, and Infrequently Traded Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1405-1436, September.
    12. Christopher Polk & Paola Sapienza, 2009. "The Stock Market and Corporate Investment: A Test of Catering Theory," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 187-217, January.
    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. Joel M. David & Hugo A. Hopenhayn & Venky Venkateswaran, 2016. "Information, Misallocation, and Aggregate Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 943-1005.
    2. Frank, Murray Z. & Shen, Tao, 2016. "Investment and the weighted average cost of capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 300-315.
    3. Baele, Lieven & De Bruyckere, Valerie & De Jonghe, Olivier & Vander Vennet, Rudi, 2014. "Do stock markets discipline US Bank Holding Companies: Just monitoring, or also influencing?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 124-145.
    4. Wagner, Rodrigo, 2018. "Can the market value state-owned enterprises without privatizing them? An application to natural resources companies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 282-290.
    5. Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2011. "A Theory of Asset Prices Based on Heterogeneous Information," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1827, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    6. Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2011. "A Theory of Asset Pricing Based on Heterogeneous Information," NBER Working Papers 17548, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski & Elias Albagli, 2010. "Information Aggregation and Investment Decisions," 2010 Meeting Papers 119, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Philip Bond & Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "The Real Effects of Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-360, October.
    3. Goldstein, Itay & Ozdenoren, Emre & Yuan, Kathy, 2013. "Trading frenzies and their impact on real investment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 566-582.
    4. Bai, Jennie & Philippon, Thomas & Savov, Alexi, 2016. "Have financial markets become more informative?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 625-654.
    5. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam & Sheridan Titman, 2013. "Financial Market Shocks and the Macroeconomy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(11), pages 2687-2717.
    6. Itay Goldstein, 2023. "Information in Financial Markets and Its Real Effects," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-32.
    7. Benhabib, Jess & Liu, Xuewen & Wang, Pengfei, 2016. "Sentiments, financial markets, and macroeconomic fluctuations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 420-443.
    8. Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2023. "Imperfect Financial Markets and Investment Inefficiencies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(9), pages 2323-2354, September.
    9. Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2017. "Imperfect Financial Markets and Shareholder Incentives in Partial and General Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 23419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Xuewen Liu, 2015. "Short-Selling Attacks and Creditor Runs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 814-830, April.
    11. Edmans, Alex & Jayaraman, Sudarshan & Schneemeier, Jan, 2017. "The source of information in prices and investment-price sensitivity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 74-96.
    12. Perotti, Enrico & Rossetto, Silvia, 2007. "Unlocking value: Equity carve outs as strategic real options," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 771-792, December.
    13. Yildiz, Serhat & Van Ness, Bonnie & Van Ness, Robert, 2020. "VPIN, liquidity, and return volatility in the U.S. equity markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    14. Francis, Bill B. & Samuel, Gilna & Wu, Qiang, 2023. "The impact of short selling on dividend smoothing," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    15. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    16. Dieler, T., 2014. "Essays on asset trading," Other publications TiSEM ea0c811e-e335-402f-a3e2-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Alex Edmans, 2014. "Blockholders and Corporate Governance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 23-50, December.
    18. Kathy Yuan & Emre Ozdenoren & Itay Goldstein, 2008. "Learning and Complementarities: Implications for Speculative Attacks," 2008 Meeting Papers 276, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Kerstin Awiszus & Agostino Capponi & Stefan Weber, 2020. "Market Efficient Portfolios in a Systemic Economy," Papers 2003.10121, arXiv.org, revised May 2021.
    20. Pedraza Morales, Alvaro, 2014. "Strategic information revelation and capital allocation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6995, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:17330. 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.