IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/finmgt/v50y2021i3p775-804.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Short selling, agency, and corporate investment

Author

Listed:
  • Mahdi Nezafat
  • Tao Shen
  • Qinghai Wang

Abstract

In this article, we examine corporate investment decisions in a model with short selling. We show that high short‐selling activities can cause firms to overinvest and that the agency problems between managers and shareholders drive this overinvestment. Empirically, we find that short interest is positively associated with subsequent corporate investment and that the effect of short‐selling activities on investment is stronger when the sensitivity of chief executive officer compensation to stock price performance is greater. The results are not explained by short‐sale constraints or firm overvaluation. Additionally, short‐selling‐induced corporate investments can partly explain the negative relation between both short interest and corporate investment with subsequent stock returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahdi Nezafat & Tao Shen & Qinghai Wang, 2021. "Short selling, agency, and corporate investment," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(3), pages 775-804, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:finmgt:v:50:y:2021:i:3:p:775-804
    DOI: 10.1111/fima.12343
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.12343
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/fima.12343?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher S. Armstrong & John E. Core & Daniel J. Taylor & Robert E. Verrecchia, 2011. "When Does Information Asymmetry Affect the Cost of Capital?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 1-40, March.
    2. Vasia Panousi & Dimitris Papanikolaou, 2012. "Investment, Idiosyncratic Risk, and Ownership," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 1113-1148, June.
    3. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Martin Oehmke, 2014. "Predatory Short Selling," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(6), pages 2153-2195.
    4. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December.
    5. Brennan, Michael J. & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 1995. "Investment analysis and price formation in securities markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 361-381, July.
    6. Vivian W. Fang & Allen H. Huang & Jonathan M. Karpoff, 2016. "Short Selling and Earnings Management: A Controlled Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1251-1294, June.
    7. Brian J. Hall & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 1998. "Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 653-691.
    8. Lu Zhang, 2005. "The Value Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 67-103, February.
    9. Hemang Desai & K. Ramesh & S. Ramu Thiagarajan & Bala V. Balachandran, 2002. "An Investigation of the Informational Role of Short Interest in the Nasdaq Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2263-2287, October.
    10. 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.
    11. Chang, Eric C. & Lin, Tse-Chun & Ma, Xiaorong, 2019. "Does short-selling threat discipline managers in mergers and acquisitions decisions?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1).
    12. Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, 2012. "The Real Effects of Financial Markets: The Impact of Prices on Takeovers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 933-971, June.
    13. Anat R. Admati & Paul Pfleiderer, 2009. "The "Wall Street Walk" and Shareholder Activism: Exit as a Form of Voice," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(7), pages 2445-2485, July.
    14. Almeida, Heitor & Fos, Vyacheslav & Kronlund, Mathias, 2016. "The real effects of share repurchases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 168-185.
    15. Eberly, Janice & Rebelo, Sergio & Vincent, Nicolas, 2012. "What explains the lagged-investment effect?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 370-380.
    16. David Aboody & John Hughes & Jing Liu, 2005. "Earnings Quality, Insider Trading, and Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 651-673, December.
    17. Asquith, Paul & Pathak, Parag A. & Ritter, Jay R., 2005. "Short interest, institutional ownership, and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 243-276, November.
    18. Henry, Tyler R. & Kisgen, Darren J. & Wu, Juan (Julie), 2015. "Equity short selling and bond rating downgrades," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 89-111.
    19. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2009. "A Multiplicative Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4881-4917, December.
    20. Yuhang Xing, 2008. "Interpreting the Value Effect Through the Q-Theory: An Empirical Investigation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1767-1795, July.
    21. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello, 2007. "Financial Constraints, Asset Tangibility, and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1429-1460, 2007 12.
    22. Titman, Sheridan & Wei, K. C. John & Xie, Feixue, 2004. "Capital Investments and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 677-700, December.
    23. Pontiff, Jeffrey, 2006. "Costly arbitrage and the myth of idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 35-52, October.
    24. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    25. 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.
    26. Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein & Wei Jiang, 2015. "Feedback Effects, Asymmetric Trading, and the Limits to Arbitrage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(12), pages 3766-3797, December.
    27. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:1:p:31-63 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Jeremy C. Stein, 1989. "Efficient Capital Markets, Inefficient Firms: A Model of Myopic Corporate Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(4), pages 655-669.
    29. 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.
    30. Liu, Harrison & Swanson, Edward P., 2016. "Is price support a motive for increasing share repurchases?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 77-91.
    31. McConnell, John J. & Muscarella, Chris J., 1985. "Corporate capital expenditure decisions and the market value of the firm," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 399-422, September.
    32. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Stole, Lars A, 1993. "Do Short-Term Objectives Lead to Under- or Overinvestment in Long-Term Projects?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 719-729, June.
    33. Mary E. Barth & Ron Kasznik & Maureen F. McNichols, 2001. "Analyst Coverage and Intangible Assets," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 1-34, June.
    34. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    35. John Core & Wayne Guay, 2002. "Estimating the Value of Employee Stock Option Portfolios and Their Sensitivities to Price and Volatility," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 613-630, June.
    36. Owen A. Lamont, 2012. "Go Down Fighting: Short Sellers vs. Firms," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30.
    37. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    38. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1845-1876 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Yun Ke & Kin Lo & Jinfei Sheng & Jenny Li Zhang, 2023. "Do investors affect financial analysts’ behavior? Evidence from short sellers," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 199-224, March.
    2. Peng, Juan & Huang, Wenli & Gao, Han & Wang, Hongli, 2022. "Modeling the unintended consequences of short selling for innovation investment," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Haochen Guo & Petr Polak, 2024. "Finance centralization—research on enterprise intelligence," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.

    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. Chang, Eric C. & Lin, Tse-Chun & Ma, Xiaorong, 2019. "Does short-selling threat discipline managers in mergers and acquisitions decisions?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1).
    2. Haiyan Jiang & Ahsan Habib & Mostafa Monzur Hasan, 2022. "Short Selling: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Future Research," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-31, January.
    3. Chang, Eric C. & Lin, Tse-Chun & Ma, Xiaorong, 2020. "Governance through trading on acquisitions of public firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. Melissa Porras Prado & Pedro A. C. Saffi & Jason Sturgess, 2016. "Ownership Structure, Limits to Arbitrage, and Stock Returns: Evidence from Equity Lending Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(12), pages 3211-3244.
    5. repec:oup:revfin:v:29:y:2016:i:12:p:3211-3244. is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Tse-Chun Lin & Qi Liu & Bo Sun, 2015. "Contracting with Feedback," International Finance Discussion Papers 1143, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Jank, Stephan & Roling, Christoph & Smajlbegovic, Esad, 2021. "Flying under the radar: The effects of short-sale disclosure rules on investor behavior and stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 209-233.
    8. Haiyan Jiang & Gary Tian & Donghua Zhou, 2021. "The influence of the deregulation of short‐selling on related‐party transactions: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5-6), pages 1022-1056, May.
    9. Dutordoir, Marie & Strong, Norman C. & Sun, Ping, 2022. "Does short-selling potential influence merger and acquisition payment choice?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 761-779.
    10. Yangyang Chen & Rui Ge & Henock Louis & Leon Zolotoy, 2019. "Stock liquidity and corporate tax avoidance," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 309-340, March.
    11. Ni, Xiaoran & Xu, Hongmei, 2023. "Are short selling threats beneficial to creditors? Insights from corporate default risk," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Autore, Don M. & Hutton, Irena & Jiang, Danling & Outlaw, Dominque G., 2018. "Short interest as a signal to issue equity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 797-815.
    13. Dongmei Li & Lu Zhang, 2008. "Costly External Finance: Implications for Capital Markets Anomalies," NBER Working Papers 14342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Stephie Tsai, Hsin-Ju & Wu, Yuliang & Xu, Bin, 2021. "Does capital market drive corporate investment efficiency? Evidence from equity lending supply," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    15. Yuan, Li & Rao, Siqi & Yang, Shenggang & Dai, Pengyi, 2023. "Does equity market openness increase productivity? the dual effects of Shanghai-Hong Kong stock Connect program in China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    16. Keming Li, 2021. "The effect of option trading," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, December.
    17. Lipson, Marc L. & Mortal, Sandra & Schill, Michael J., 2011. "On the Scope and Drivers of the Asset Growth Effect," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(6), pages 1651-1682, December.
    18. Itay Goldstein, 2023. "Information in Financial Markets and Its Real Effects," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-32.
    19. Toni Ahnert & Caio Machado & Ana Elisa Pereira, 2020. "Trading for Bailouts," Staff Working Papers 20-23, Bank of Canada.
    20. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    21. Hau, Harald & Lai, Sandy, 2013. "Real effects of stock underpricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 392-408.

    More about this item

    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:bla:finmgt:v:50:y:2021:i:3:p:775-804. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fmaaaea.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.