IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/emetrp/v86y2018i4p1431-1463.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Activism, Strategic Trading, and Liquidity

Author

Listed:
  • Kerry Back
  • Pierre Collin‐Dufresne
  • Vyacheslav Fos
  • Tao Li
  • Alexander Ljungqvist

Abstract

We analyze dynamic trading by an activist investor who can expend costly effort to affect firm value. We obtain the equilibrium in closed form for a general activism technology, including both binary and continuous outcomes. Variation in parameters can produce either positive or negative relations between market liquidity and economic efficiency, depending on the activism technology and model parameters. Two results that contrast with the previous literature are that (a) the relationship between market liquidity and economic efficiency is independent of the activist's initial stake for a broad set of activism technologies, and (b) an increase in noise trading can reduce market liquidity because it increases uncertainty about the activist's trades (the activist trades in the opposite direction of noise traders) and thereby increases information asymmetry about the activist's intentions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kerry Back & Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Vyacheslav Fos & Tao Li & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2018. "Activism, Strategic Trading, and Liquidity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(4), pages 1431-1463, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:86:y:2018:i:4:p:1431-1463
    DOI: 10.3982/ECTA14917
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA14917
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3982/ECTA14917?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Vyacheslav Fos, 2015. "Do Prices Reveal the Presence of Informed Trading?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(4), pages 1555-1582, August.
    2. Ravid, S. Abraham & Spiegel, Matthew, 1999. "Toehold strategies, takeover laws and rival bidders," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(8), pages 1219-1242, August.
    3. Bris, Arturo, 2002. "Toeholds, takeover premium, and the probability of being acquired," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 227-253, July.
    4. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:99-129 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bhide, Amar, 1993. "The hidden costs of stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 31-51, August.
    6. Admati, Anat R & Pfleiderer, Paul & Zechner, Josef, 1994. "Large Shareholder Activism, Risk Sharing, and Financial Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1097-1130, December.
    7. Peter M. DeMarzo & Branko Uro, 2006. "Ownership Dynamics and Asset Pricing with a Large Shareholder," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(4), pages 774-815, August.
    8. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:1-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Alp E. Atakan & Mehmet Ekmekci, 2014. "Auctions, Actions, and the Failure of Information Aggregation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 2014-2048, July.
    10. Alex Edmans, 2009. "Blockholder Trading, Market Efficiency, and Managerial Myopia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2481-2513, December.
    11. Alex Edmans & Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Governance Through Trading and Intervention: A Theory of Multiple Blockholders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(7), pages 2395-2428.
    12. Thomas H. Noe, 2002. "Investor Activism and Financial Market Structure," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 289-318, March.
    13. Robert C. Merton, 2005. "Theory of rational option pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 8, pages 229-288, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Antoine Faure-Grimaud, 2004. "Public Trading and Private Incentives," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 985-1014.
    15. Albert S. Kyle & Jean-Luc Vila, 1991. "Noise Trading and Takeovers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(1), pages 54-71, Spring.
    16. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    17. Alex Edmans, 2014. "Blockholders and Corporate Governance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 23-50, December.
    18. Dasgupta, Amil & Piacentino, Giorgia, 2015. "The Wall Street walk when blockholders compete for flows," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63144, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Amil Dasgupta & Giorgia Piacentino, 2015. "The Wall Street Walk when Blockholders Compete for Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(6), pages 2853-2896, December.
    20. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:65-98 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    22. 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.
    23. Marzena Rostek & Marek Weretka, 2012. "Price Inference in Small Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 687-711, March.
    24. Michael J. Fishman & Kathleen M. Hagerty, 1992. "Insider Trading and the Efficiency of Stock Prices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(1), pages 106-122, Spring.
    25. Alon Brav & Wei Jiang & Frank Partnoy & Randall Thomas, 2008. "Hedge Fund Activism, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1729-1775, August.
    26. Back, Kerry, 1992. "Insider Trading in Continuous Time," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 387-409.
    27. Fishman, Michael J & Hagerty, Kathleen M, 1995. "The Mandatory Disclosure of Trades and Market Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(3), pages 637-676.
    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. Cookson, J. Anthony & Fos, Vyacheslav & Niessner, Marina, 2021. "Does Disagreement Facilitate Informed Trading? Evidence from Activist Investors," SocArXiv q8xvc, Center for Open Science.
    2. Huang, Sheng & Maharjan, Johan & Nanda, Vikram, 2024. "Liquid stock as an acquisition currency," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Gu, Lifeng & Wang, Yixin & Yao, Wentao & Zhang, Yilin, 2018. "Stock liquidity and corporate diversification: Evidence from China’s split share structure reform," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 57-80.
    4. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Alon Brav & Wei Jiang & Thomas Keusch, 2019. "Dancing With Activists," NBER Working Papers 26171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Corum, Adrian Aycan, 2021. "Fighting Fire with Fire: Optimality of Value Destruction to Mitigate Short-Termism," OSF Preprints xhwmg, Center for Open Science.
    6. Habibi Khalaj, Ali & Halgamuge, Saman K., 2017. "A Review on efficient thermal management of air- and liquid-cooled data centers: From chip to the cooling system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 1165-1188.
    7. Dasgupta, Amil & Fos, Vyacheslav & Sautner, Zacharias, 2021. "Institutional investors and corporate governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112114, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Meirowitz, Adam & Pi, Shaoting, 2022. "Voting and trading: The shareholder’s dilemma," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1073-1096.
    9. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2022. "Activism and Takeovers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1868-1896.
    10. Shreya Bose & Ibrahim Ekren, 2020. "Kyle-Back Models with risk aversion and non-Gaussian Beliefs," Papers 2008.06377, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    11. Johnson, Travis L. & Swem, Nathan, 2021. "Reputation and investor activism: A structural approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 29-56.
    12. Ordóñez-Calafi, Guillem & Bernhardt, Dan, 2022. "Blockholder Disclosure Thresholds and Hedge Fund Activism," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(7), pages 2834-2859, November.
    13. Han, Jinhui & Li, Xiaolong & Ma, Guiyuan & Kennedy, Adrian Patrick, 2023. "Strategic trading with information acquisition and long-memory stochastic liquidity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 480-495.
    14. Dumitrescu, Ariadna & Zakriya, Mohammed, 2022. "Governance, information flow, and stock returns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    15. Asadul Islam, 2017. "Cross-modal Computer Games as an Interactive Learning Medium," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 5007280, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    16. Jin Hyuk Choi & Heeyoung Kwon & Kasper Larsen, 2022. "Trading constraints in continuous-time Kyle models," Papers 2206.08117, arXiv.org.
    17. Wassim Daher & Harun Aydilek & Elias G. Saleeby, 2020. "Insider trading with different risk attitudes," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 123-147, October.
    18. Doruk Cetemen & Gonzalo Cisternas & Aaron Kolb & S Viswanathan, 2022. "Leader-Follower Dynamics in Shareholder Activism," Staff Reports 1030, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    19. Schroth, Enrique & Albuquerque, Rui & Fos, Vyacheslav, 2020. "Value creation in Shareholder Activism: A Structural Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 14995, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Li, Tao, 2022. "Comments on “Dynamic noisy rational expectations equilibrium with insider information: Welfare and regulation,” by Jerome Detemple, Marcel Rindisbacher and Scott Robertson," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    21. Fos, Vyacheslav & Kahn, Charles, 2019. "The Threat of Intervention," CEPR Discussion Papers 13654, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    22. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Brav, Alon & Jiang, Wei & Keusch, Thomas, 2020. "Dancing with activists," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 1-41.
    23. Albuquerque, Rui & Fos, Vyacheslav & Schroth, Enrique, 2022. "Value creation in shareholder activism," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 153-178.

    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. Edmans, Alex & Holderness, Clifford, 2016. "Blockholders: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 11442, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Kerry Back & Tao Li & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2013. "Liquidity and Governance," NBER Working Papers 19669, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Craig W. Holden & Stacey Jacobsen & Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, 2014. "The Empirical Analysis of Liquidity," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 8(4), pages 263-365, December.
    4. Fos, Vyacheslav & Kahn, Charles, 2019. "The Threat of Intervention," CEPR Discussion Papers 13654, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2022. "Activism and Takeovers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 1868-1896.
    6. Dasgupta, Amil & Fos, Vyacheslav & Sautner, Zacharias, 2021. "Institutional investors and corporate governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112114, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Jing Huang & Steven R. Matsunaga & Z. Jay Wang, 2020. "The Role of Pension Business Benefits in Institutional Block Ownership and Corporate Governance," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 1959-1989, December.
    8. Schmidt, Cornelius & Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger, 2017. "Do exogenous changes in passive institutional ownership affect corporate governance and firm value?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 285-306.
    9. Cvijanović, Dragana & Dasgupta, Amil & Zachariadis, Konstantinos E., 2022. "The Wall Street stampede: Exit as governance with interacting blockholders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 433-455.
    10. Wang, Xiaoqiong & Zhen, Hongxian & Zhu, Feifei, 2023. "Voting with their feet: Controlling shareholders' share pledging and other major shareholders' strategic response," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    11. Alex Edmans & Vivian W. Fang & Emanuel Zur, 2013. "The Effect of Liquidity on Governance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1443-1482.
    12. Dasgupta, Amil & Brav, Alon & Mathews, Richmond, 2016. "Wolf Pack Activism," CEPR Discussion Papers 11507, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Simon Döring & Wolfgang Drobetz & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Henning Schröder, 2021. "Institutional investment horizons and firm valuation around the world," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(2), pages 212-244, March.
    14. Dong, Liping & Uchida, Konari & Hou, Xiaohong, 2020. "Are future capital gain opportunities important in the market for corporate control? Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Vyacheslav Fos, 2013. "Moral Hazard, Informed Trading, and Stock Prices," NBER Working Papers 19619, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Dasgupta, Amil & Piacentino, Giorgia, 2015. "The Wall Street walk when blockholders compete for flows," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63144, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. 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.
    18. Meirowitz, Adam & Pi, Shaoting, 2022. "Voting and trading: The shareholder’s dilemma," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1073-1096.
    19. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Ehlert, Sebastian & Schröder, Henning, 2021. "Institutional ownership and firm performance in the global shipping industry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    20. Fan, Yunqi & Fu, Hui, 2020. "Institutional investors, selling pressure and crash risk: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    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:wly:emetrp:v:86:y:2018:i:4:p:1431-1463. 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/essssea.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.