IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/diw/diwvjh/70-20-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sunk Costs, Managerial Incentives and Firm Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandra Groß-Schuler
  • Jürgen Weigand

Abstract

In this paper, we use a production function approach to examine the impact of ownership concentration, product market competition and financial pressure on German firm productivity. Additionally, we are interested in the influence of ownership identity and changes in ownership structure. We also test whether the specificity of assets affects productivity performance. Based on a panel of 361 German manufacturing companies for the time period of 1991-1996 we find that supplier concentration has a positive influence on firm productivity. There is also some evidence for a discipline-of-debt effect. Interestingly, the presence of several strong shareholders affects productivity negatively. In high sunk costs industries an owner change is negatively correlated with firm productivity whereas in low sunk costs industries productivity increases after owners have changed.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandra Groß-Schuler & Jürgen Weigand, 2001. "Sunk Costs, Managerial Incentives and Firm Productivity," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(2), pages 275-287.
  • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwvjh:70-20-15
    DOI: 10.3790/vjh.70.2.275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3790/vjh.70.2.275
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3790/vjh.70.2.275?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. Diamond, Douglas W, 1991. "Monitoring and Reputation: The Choice between Bank Loans and Directly Placed Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 689-721, August.
    2. Fershtman, Chaim & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Equilibrium Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 927-940, December.
    3. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    4. 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.
    5. Nickell, Stephen J, 1996. "Competition and Corporate Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 724-746, August.
    6. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    7. Benjamin E. Hermalin, 1992. "The Effects of Competition on Executive Behavior," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(3), pages 350-365, Autumn.
    8. Klaus M. Schmidt, 1997. "Managerial Incentives and Product Market Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(2), pages 191-213.
    9. Marin, Pedro L., 1998. "Productivity differences in the airline industry: Partial deregulation versus short run protection," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 395-414, July.
    10. 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.
    11. Erik Lehmann & Jürgen Weigand, 2000. "Does the Governed Corporation Perform Better? Governance Structures and Corporate Performance in Germany," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 4(2), pages 157-195.
    12. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    13. Leech, Dennis & Leahy, John, 1991. "Ownership Structure, Control Type Classifications and the Performance of Large British Companies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(409), pages 1418-1437, November.
    14. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    15. Tirole, Jean, 2001. "Corporate Governance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 1-35, January.
    16. Green, Alison & Mayes, David, 1991. "Technical Inefficiency in Manufacturing Industries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(406), pages 523-538, May.
    17. 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.
    18. David Scharfstein, 1988. "Product-Market Competition and Managerial Slack," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 147-155, Spring.
    19. Gort, Michael & Sung, Nakil, 1999. "Competition and Productivity Growth: The Case of the U.S. Telephone Industry," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 678-691, October.
    20. Fluck, Zsuzsanna, 1999. "The Dynamics of the Management-Shareholder Conflict," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 379-404.
    21. Mogens Dilling-Hansen & Tor Eriksson & Erik Strøjer Madsen & Valdemar Smith, 1997. "Firm Productivity Growth and Competition," CIE Discussion Papers 1997-22, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Industrial Economics.
    22. Nickell, Stephen & Nicolitsas, Daphne & Dryden, Neil, 1997. "What makes firms perform well?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 783-796, April.
    23. Jean Tirole, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 741-782, July.
    24. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    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. Goergen, Marc & Manjon, Miguel C. & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "Recent developments in German corporate governance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 175-193, September.
    2. Januszewski, Silke I. & Koke, Jens & Winter, Joachim K., 2002. "Product market competition, corporate governance and firm performance: an empirical analysis for Germany," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 299-332, September.
    3. Erik Lehmann & Jürgen Weigand & Susanne Warning, 2004. "Governance Structures, Efficiency, and Firm Profitability," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2004-22, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    4. David B. Audretsch & Erik E. Lehmann, 2013. "Corporate governance in newly listed companies," Chapters, in: Mario Levis & Silvio Vismara (ed.), Handbook of Research on IPOs, chapter 9, pages 179-206, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Koeke, J. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2002. "Does Good Corporate Governance Lead to Stronger Productivity Growth?," Other publications TiSEM fd324cf7-56f6-45a2-a61e-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2014. "Contracts, Ownership, and Industrial Organization: Past and Future," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(suppl_1), pages 82-117.
    7. Koke, Jens & Renneboog, Luc, 2005. "Do Corporate Control and Product Market Competition Lead to Stronger Productivity Growth? Evidence from Market-Oriented and Blockholder-Based Governance Regimes," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 475-516, October.
    8. Axel Börsch‐Supan & Jens Köke, 2002. "An Applied Econometricians' View of Empirical Corporate Governance Studies," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(3), pages 295-326, August.
    9. Stefan Beiner & Markus M. Schmid & Gabrielle Wanzenried, 2011. "Product Market Competition, Managerial Incentives and Firm Valuation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(2), pages 331-366, March.
    10. Ugur, Mehmet & Solomon, Edna & Zeynalov, Ayaz, 2022. "Leverage, competition and financial distress hazard: Implications for capital structure in the presence of agency costs," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    11. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    12. Aghion, Philippe & Dewatripont, Mathias & Legros, Patrick & Zingales, Luigi (ed.), 2016. "The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199826216.
    13. Marcel Canoy & Machiel van Dijk & Jan Lemmen & Ruud de Mooij & Jürgen Weigand, 2001. "Competition and stability in banking," CPB Document 15.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    14. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.
    15. Vu Tuan Chu & Trang Hanh Lam Pham, 2021. "Zero leverage and product market competition," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 1-18, April.
    16. Lehmann, Erik, 2018. "Corporate governance," UO Working Papers 01-18, University of Augsburg, Chair of Management and Organization.
    17. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2008. "Competing for Ownership," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1279-1308, December.
    18. Ormazabal, Gaizka, 2018. "The Role of Stakeholders in Corporate Governance: A View from Accounting Research," CEPR Discussion Papers 12775, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Köke, Jens, 2000. "An applied econometricians' view of empirical corporate governance studies," ZEW Discussion Papers 00-17, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. Waisman, Maya, 2013. "Product market competition and the cost of bank loans: Evidence from state antitakeover laws," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 4721-4737.

    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:diw:diwvjh:70-20-15. 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.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.