IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aah/aarhec/2020-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Managerial Overconfidence and Self-Reported Success

Author

Listed:
  • Nikolaj Kirkeby Niebuhr

    (Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University)

Abstract

I consider the optimal contract for an overconfident manager in a principal-agent model with moral hazard where the contract is written on the earnings of the firm. Overconfidence causes the manager to overestimate his ability to affect the outcome of the firm. Overconfidence first reduces cost of agency, and if the level of overconfidence is significant enough, it causes the manager to wager on his wrong beliefs. The accounting system obscures the outcome of the manager's effort, which attenuates the effect of significant overconfidence and decreases the principal's profit. Inducing the manager to truthfully communicate his self-observed success allows the principal to directly contract on the cause of disagreement, the manager's effect on firm outcome. This reduces the risk premium for a slightly overconfident manager and emphasizes the wager effect for a significantly overconfident manager. The value of communication is first decreasing in overconfidence for a slightly overconfident manager and then increasing in overconfidence for a significantly overconfident manager.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikolaj Kirkeby Niebuhr, 2020. "Managerial Overconfidence and Self-Reported Success," Economics Working Papers 2020-01, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    • Handle: RePEc:aah:aarhec:2020-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.econ.au.dk/repec/afn/wp/20/wp20_01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Libby & Kristina Rennekamp, 2012. "Self‐Serving Attribution Bias, Overconfidence, and the Issuance of Management Forecasts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 197-231, March.
    2. Schrand, Catherine M. & Zechman, Sarah L.C., 2012. "Executive overconfidence and the slippery slope to financial misreporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 311-329.
    3. Puri, Manju & Robinson, David T., 2007. "Optimism and economic choice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 71-99, October.
    4. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2661-2700, December.
    5. de la Rosa, Leonidas Enrique, 2011. "Overconfidence and moral hazard," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 429-451.
    6. Paul Hribar & Holly Yang, 2016. "CEO Overconfidence and Management Forecasting," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 204-227, March.
    7. Bouwman, Christa H.S., 2014. "Managerial optimism and earnings smoothing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 283-303.
    8. Dye, Ra, 1983. "Communication And Post-Decision Information," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 514-533.
    9. Pavlo Blavatskyy, 2009. "Betting on own knowledge: Experimental test of overconfidence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 39-49, February.
    10. Anand M. Goel & Anjan V. Thakor, 2008. "Overconfidence, CEO Selection, and Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2737-2784, December.
    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. Sanaz Aghazadeh & Lili Sun & Qian Wang & Rong Yang, 2018. "Investors’ perception of CEO overconfidence: evidence from the cost of equity capital," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1129-1150, November.
    2. Fang, Yiwei & Hasan, Iftekhar & Lin, Chih-Yung & Sun, Jiong, 2022. "The impact of overconfident customers on supplier firm risks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 115-133.
    3. Aghazadeh, Sanaz & Joe, Jennifer R., 2022. "Auditors' response to management confidence and misstatement risk," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. Bharati, Rakesh & Doellman, Thomas & Fu, Xudong, 2016. "CEO confidence and stock returns," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 89-110.
    5. Marc Kowalzick & Jan‐Philipp Ahrens & Jochim G. Lauterbach & Yi Tang, 2024. "Overconfident CEOs in Dire Straits: How Incumbent and Successor CEOs’ Overconfidence Affects Firm Turnaround Performance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(5), pages 1985-2032, July.
    6. Bassem Salhi, 2021. "RETRACTED: The Relationship between CEO Psychological Biases, Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, July.
    7. Charles Ham & Nicholas Seybert & Sean Wang, 2018. "Narcissism is a bad sign: CEO signature size, investment, and performance," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 234-264, March.
    8. Kouaib, Amel & Jarboui, Anis, 2017. "The mediating effect of REM on the relationship between CEO overconfidence and subsequent firm performance moderated by IFRS adoption: A moderated-mediation analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 338-352.
    9. Theophilus Lartey & Albert Danso, 2022. "CEO overconfidence and debt covenant violations," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 162-199, March.
    10. Liu, Xin & Yin, Chengxi & Zheng, Weinan, 2021. "The invisible burden," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    11. Damiano Bruno Silipo & Giovanni Verga & Sviatlana Hlebik, 2017. "Confidence And Overconfidence In Banking," Working Papers 201703, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    12. Tseng, Chih-Yang & Demirkan, Sebahattin, 2021. "Joint effect of CEO overconfidence and corporate social responsibility discretion on cost of equity capital," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    13. Kuo, Ya-Fen & Lin, Yi-Mien & Chien, Hsiu-Fang, 2021. "Corporate social responsibility, enterprise risk management, and real earnings management: Evidence from managerial confidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    14. Jennifer Kunz & Lara Sonnenholzner, 2023. "Managerial overconfidence: promoter of or obstacle to organizational resilience?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 67-128, January.
    15. Ali Ataullah & Andrew Vivian & Bin Xu, 2018. "Optimistic Disclosure Tone and Conservative Debt Policy," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 54(4), pages 445-484, December.
    16. Athanasakou, Vasiliki & Ferreira, Daniel & Goh, Lisa, 2022. "Changes in CEO stock option grants: a look at the numbers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115609, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Gurdgiev, Constantin & Ni, Qiuxin, 2023. "Board diversity: Moderating effects of CEO overconfidence on firm financing decisions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    18. Athanasakou, Vasiliki & Ferreira, Daniel & Goh, Lisa, 2022. "Changes in CEO stock option grants: A look at the numbers," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    19. Mei-Chen Lin & Po-Hsin Ho & Hsiang-Lin Chih, 2019. "Effects of managerial overconfidence on analyst recommendations," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 73-99, July.
    20. Kim, Mindy (Hyo Jung), 2021. "Effects of managerial overconfidence and ability on going-concern decisions and auditor turnover," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overconfidence; Moral hazard; Communication; Disclosure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    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:aah:aarhec:2020-01. 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: http://www.econ.au.dk/afn/ .

    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.