IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bon/boncrc/crctr224_2025_637.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capital (Mis)allocation, Incentives and Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Schymik
  • Matthias Meier
  • Alexander Schramm
  • Alexander Schwemmer

Abstract

This paper studies how managerial pay shapes the allocation of capital within firms. We leverage quasi-experimental variation in the composition of managerial pay between cash bonuses and equity compensation. We find that a relative increase in cash bonuses leads firms to reallocate capital toward less durable investment projects. To rationalize the empirical evidence, we develop a quantitative model with agency frictions. In the model, a relative increase in cash bonuses strengthens managerial short-termism, which shifts the investment composition toward less durable projects. The observed change in managerial pay exacerbates within-firm capital misallocation and leads to a sizeable contraction in output.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Schymik & Matthias Meier & Alexander Schramm & Alexander Schwemmer, 2025. "Capital (Mis)allocation, Incentives and Productivity," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_637, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_637
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp637
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith, Jr., 2003. "Consumption--Savings Decisions with Quasi--Geometric Discounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 365-375, January.
    2. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2016. "Bonus Culture: Competitive Pay, Screening, and Multitasking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 305-370.
    3. Simeon D. Alder, 2016. "In the Wrong Hands: Complementarities, Resource Allocation, and TFP," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 199-241, January.
    4. Alex Edmans & Vivian W. Fang & Allen H. Huang, 2022. "The Long‐Term Consequences of Short‐Term Incentives," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 1007-1046, June.
    5. Stephen J. Terry, 2023. "The Macro Impact of Short‐Termism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(5), pages 1881-1912, September.
    6. John Mullahy & Edward C. Norton, 2024. "Why Transform Y? The Pitfalls of Transformed Regressions with a Mass at Zero," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(2), pages 417-447, April.
    7. Alberto Abadie & Susan Athey & Guido W Imbens & Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2023. "When Should You Adjust Standard Errors for Clustering?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 1-35.
    8. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2009. "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1403-1448.
    9. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2006. "Managerial incentives and risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 431-468, February.
    10. Alex Edmans & Vivian W. Fang & Katharina A. Lewellen, 2017. "Equity Vesting and Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(7), pages 2229-2271.
    11. Lilia Maliar & Serguei Maliar, 2016. "Ruling Out Multiplicity of Smooth Equilibria in Dynamic Games: A Hyperbolic Discounting Example," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 243-261, June.
    12. Boris Nikolov & Toni M. Whited, 2014. "Agency Conflicts and Cash: Estimates from a Dynamic Model," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(5), pages 1883-1921, October.
    13. Carroll, Christopher D., 2006. "The method of endogenous gridpoints for solving dynamic stochastic optimization problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 312-320, June.
    14. Xavier Giroud, 2013. "Proximity and Investment: Evidence from Plant-Level Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 861-915.
    15. Luis Garicano & Luis Rayo, 2016. "Why Organizations Fail: Models and Cases," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 137-192, March.
    16. John Asker & Allan Collard-Wexler & Jan De Loecker, 2014. "Dynamic Inputs and Resource (Mis)Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(5), pages 1013-1063.
    17. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    18. Lilia Maliar & Serguei Maliar, 2005. "Solving the Neoclassical Growth Model with Quasi-Geometric Discounting: A Grid-Based Euler-Equation Method," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 163-172, October.
    19. Michael Peters, 2020. "Heterogeneous Markups, Growth, and Endogenous Misallocation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(5), pages 2037-2073, September.
    20. Virgiliu Midrigan & Daniel Yi Xu, 2014. "Finance and Misallocation: Evidence from Plant-Level Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 422-458, February.
    21. Hayes, Rachel M. & Lemmon, Michael & Qiu, Mingming, 2012. "Stock options and managerial incentives for risk taking: Evidence from FAS 123R," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 174-190.
    22. 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.
    23. Doerr, S. & Marin, D. & Suverato, D. & Verdier, T., 2025. "International trade and the allocation of capital within firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    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. Sylvain Catherine & Thomas Chaney & Zongbo Huang & David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2022. "Quantifying Reduced‐Form Evidence on Collateral Constraints," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 2143-2181, August.
    2. Matthias Kehrig & Nicolas Vincent, 2017. "Do Firms Mitigate or Magnify Capital Misallocation? Evidence from Planet-Level Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 6401, CESifo.
    3. Lilia Maliar & Serguei Maliar, 2016. "Ruling Out Multiplicity of Smooth Equilibria in Dynamic Games: A Hyperbolic Discounting Example," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 243-261, June.
    4. Murat Alp Celik & Xu Tian, 2023. "Agency Frictions, Managerial Compensation, and Disruptive Innovations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 16-38, December.
    5. Jeremy Bertomeu & Edwige Cheynel & Michelle Liu‐Watts, 2018. "Are the Fama French factors treated as risk? Evidence from CEO compensation," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(5), pages 728-774, November.
    6. David, Joel M. & Schmid, Lukas & Zeke, David, 2022. "Risk-adjusted capital allocation and misallocation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 684-705.
    7. 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.
    8. 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).
    9. Norbert Ernst & Nico Pintar & Richard Sellner, 2023. "Resource Misallocation and TFP Gap Development in Austria (Richard Sellner, Nico Pintar, Norbert Ernst)," Working Papers 246, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    10. Canil, Jean & Karpavičius, Sigitas, 2022. "Managerial risk-taking incentives and cash holding in U.S. firms: Evidence from FAS 123R," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 605-628.
    11. Bruno Morando & Carol Newman, 2021. "Capital Misallocation, Agricultural Subsidies and Productivity: A European Perspective," Trinity Economics Papers tep0221, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    12. Biggerstaff, Lee & Blank, Brian & Goldie, Brad, 2019. "Do incentives work? Option-based compensation and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 415-430.
    13. Hu, Weiwei & Li, Kai & Xu, Yiming, 2023. "Leasing and the allocation efficiency of finance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    14. Ongena, Steven & Savaşer, Tanseli & Şişli Ciamarra, Elif, 2022. "CEO incentives and bank risk over the business cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Alam, M. Jahangir, 2020. "Capital misallocation: Cyclicality and sources," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    16. Daniel A. Dias & Carlos Robalo Marques & Christine Richmond, 2020. "A Tale of Two Sectors: Why is Misallocation Higher in Services than in Manufacturing?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(2), pages 361-393, June.
    17. Jiyeon Yun & James M. Carson & David L. Eckles, 2023. "Executive compensation and corporate risk management," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(2), pages 521-557, June.
    18. Chakraborty, Atreya & Gao, Lucia Silva & Sheikh, Shahbaz, 2019. "Managerial risk taking incentives, corporate social responsibility and firm risk," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 58-72.
    19. Murat Celik & Xu Tian, 2018. "Corporate Governance, Managerial Compensation, and Disruptive Innovations," 2018 Meeting Papers 590, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Maurice J.G. Bun & Jasper Winter, 2022. "Capital and labor misallocation in the Netherlands," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 93-113, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Investment; Firms; Managerial Pay; Capital Misallocation.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D25 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies

    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:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_637. 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: CRC Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.crctr224.de .

    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.