IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i7p1938-70.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investment Banks as Corporate Monitors in the Early Twentieth Century United States

Author

Listed:
  • Carola Frydman
  • Eric Hilt

Abstract

We study the effect of financial relationships on firms' investment decisions and access to external finance. In the early twentieth century, securities underwriters commonly held directorships with American corporations. Section 10 of the Clayton Antitrust Act prohibited bankers from serving on the boards of railroads for which they underwrote securities. We find that following the implementation of Section 10, railroads with strong preexisting relationships with underwriters saw declines in their investment rates, valuations, and leverage, and increases in their costs of external funds. Reassuringly, we do not observe similar effects among industrials and utilities, which were not subject to Section 10. Our results are consistent with underwriters on corporate boards acting as delegated monitors, and highlight the potential for regulations intended to address conflicts of interest to disrupt valuable information flows.

Suggested Citation

  • Carola Frydman & Eric Hilt, 2017. "Investment Banks as Corporate Monitors in the Early Twentieth Century United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 1938-1970, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:7:p:1938-70
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20150143
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=7IjdqbchQaFjSH9RIhIGps94-1KVocg4
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=A8VY9jpESXwiEKPEv34kMLxSkUVVSaEG
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=mXvZsGWR8aX0LwTqdZbFvVyP594W9SvF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Nikita Lychakov, 2021. "The Value of Banks’ Political and Business Connections in the Russian Industrialization of the 1890s and the Crisis of 1899–1902 [Значение Политических И Деловых Связей Банков В Индустриализации Ро," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 2, pages 136-161, April.
    2. Aldunate, Felipe & Gonzalez, Felipe & Prem, Mounu, 2021. "Make the Economy Scream? U.S. Banks and Foreign Firms During the Cold War," SocArXiv bhwk7, Center for Open Science.
    3. Jagannathan, Murali & Jiao, Wei & Krishnamurthy, Srinivasan, 2020. "Missing them yet? Investment banker directors in the 21st century," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    4. Guinnane, Timothy W. & Schneebacher, Jakob, 2020. "Enterprise form: Theory and history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    5. Gilbert Mbaraa & Ryszard Kokoszczyński, 2018. "Corporate governance, tax evasion and business cycles," Working Papers 2018-10, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    6. Aldunate, Felipe & González, Felipe & Prem, Mounu, 2024. "The limits of hegemony: U.S. banks and Chilean firms in the Cold War," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    7. Bao, Jack & O’Hara, Maureen & (Alex) Zhou, Xing, 2018. "The Volcker Rule and corporate bond market making in times of stress," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 95-113.
    8. HANNAH, Leslie, 2018. "Corporate Governance, Accounting Transparency and Stock Exchange Sizes in Germany, Japan and “Anglo-Saxon” Economies, 1870-1950," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-77, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    9. Grant Fleming & Frank Liu & David Merrett & Simon Ville, 2021. "The Australian corporate bond market before credit ratings, 1915-83," CEH Discussion Papers 03, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    10. Mary T. Rodgers & James E. Payne, 2020. "Post‐financial crisis changes in financial system structure: An examination of the J.P. Morgan & Co. Syndicates after the 1907 Panic," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(S1), pages 226-241, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N22 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    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:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:7:p:1938-70. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.