IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mnh/spaper/2313.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Looking inside a conglomerate : efficiency of internal capital allocation and managerial power within a firm

Author

Listed:
  • Glaser, Markus
  • López de Silanes, Florencio
  • Sautner, Zacharias

Abstract

Does more bargaining power of managers inside a firm lead to larger allocations of capital? To tackle this question, we use unique and proprietary panel data on planned and realized capital allocations inside a very large conglomerate. The firm operates worldwide, is headquartered in Europe and has 5 divisions and 22 business units. We measure bargaining power by looking at the three complementary measures of power: (i) tenure of the division CEOs, (ii) whether they have the local nationality and (iii) whether they have an engineering degree (the firm has a very strong and very long engineering tradition). We find that (ex ante) planned allocations of capital are not distorted by bargaining power. Then we study how unexpected cash windfalls at the headquarter level are distributed inside the firm. The cash windfalls result from the sale of equity holdings in other firms and are exogenous to the divisions and business units. We find that managers with more bargaining power get a larger part of the cash windfalls for their own business units. Our results suggest that bargaining power does not matter in formalized allocation processes but rather when it comes to the ad hoc distribution of unexpected cash windfalls. We show that our power variables do not proxy for ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Glaser, Markus & López de Silanes, Florencio & Sautner, Zacharias, 2008. "Looking inside a conglomerate : efficiency of internal capital allocation and managerial power within a firm," Papers 08-24, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    • Handle: RePEc:mnh:spaper:2313
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/2313/1/dp08_24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Erickson & Toni M. Whited, 2000. "Measurement Error and the Relationship between Investment and q," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 1027-1057, October.
    2. Chris R. McNeil & Thomas I. Smythe, 2009. "Division Manager Lobbying Power and the Allocation of Capital," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 44(1), pages 59-85, February.
    3. Wagner, Alexander F. & Miller, Nolan H. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2006. "Screening budgets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 351-374, November.
    4. George Baker & Michael Gibbs & Bengt Holmstrom, 1994. "The Wage Policy of a Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 921-955.
    5. Ryan, Harley Jr. & Wiggins, Roy III, 2004. "Who is in whose pocket? Director compensation, board independence, and barriers to effective monitoring," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 497-524, September.
    6. Bartram, Söhnke M., 2008. "What lies beneath: Foreign exchange rate exposure, hedging and cash flows," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1508-1521, August.
    7. Sean Cleary, 1999. "The Relationship between Firm Investment and Financial Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 673-692, April.
    8. Meyer, Margaret & Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1992. "Organizational Prospects, Influence Costs, and Ownership Changes," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 9-35, Spring.
    9. Hovakimian, Gayane & Titman, Sheridan, 2006. "Corporate Investment with Financial Constraints: Sensitivity of Investment to Funds from Voluntary Asset Sales," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 357-374, March.
    10. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 1994. "What do firms do with cash windfalls?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 337-360, December.
    11. Raghuram Rajan & Henri Servaes & Luigi Zingales, 2000. "The Cost of Diversity: The Diversification Discount and Inefficient Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 35-80, February.
    12. Toni M. Whited & Guojun Wu, 2006. "Financial Constraints Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 531-559.
    13. Covaleski, Mark A. & Dirsmith, Mark W., 1986. "The budgetary process of power and politics," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 193-214, May.
    14. Toni M. Whited, 2001. "Is It Inefficient Investment that Causes the Diversification Discount?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(5), pages 1667-1691, October.
    15. David S. Scharfstein & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "The Dark Side of Internal Capital Markets: Divisional Rent‐Seeking and Inefficient Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2537-2564, December.
    16. Abernethy, Margaret A. & Vagnoni, Emidia, 2004. "Power, organization design and managerial behaviour," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(3-4), pages 207-225.
    17. Cleary, Sean, 2006. "International corporate investment and the relationships between financial constraint measures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1559-1580, May.
    18. Davila, Tony & Wouters, Marc, 2005. "Managing budget emphasis through the explicit design of conditional budgetary slack," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(7-8), pages 587-608.
    19. George Baker & Michael Gibbs & Bengt Holmstrom, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919.
    20. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    21. Baker, George & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1995. "Internal Labor Markets: Too Many Theories, Too Few Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 255-259, May.
    22. 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.
    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. Joseph P. H. Fan & Li Jin & Guojian Zheng, 2016. "Revisiting the Bright and Dark Sides of Capital Flows in Business Groups," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(4), pages 509-528, April.
    2. Cremers, M. & Huang, R. & Sautner, Z., 2009. "Understanding Internal Capital Markets and Corporate Policies," Discussion Paper 2009-47 S, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Cremers, M. & Huang, R. & Sautner, Z., 2009. "Understanding Internal Capital Markets and Corporate Policies," Other publications TiSEM 7580e234-c4c4-464a-ac25-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    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. Markus Glaser & Florencio Lopez-De-Silanes & Zacharias Sautner, 2013. "Opening the Black Box: Internal Capital Markets and Managerial Power," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(4), pages 1577-1631, August.
    2. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    3. Gugler, Klaus & Peev, Evgeni & Segalla, Esther, 2013. "The internal workings of internal capital markets: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 59-73.
    4. Franzoni, Francesco, 2009. "Underinvestment vs. overinvestment: Evidence from price reactions to pension contributions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 491-518, June.
    5. Benz, Andreas & Demerjian, Peter R. & Hoang, Daniel & Ruckes, Martin E., 2024. "Picking winners: Managerial ability and capital allocation," Working Paper Series in Economics 163, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    6. Evangelina Dardati & Julio Riutort, 2013. "Financial Constraints and Investment: A Quasi-Experiment in the Electricity Sector," ILADES-UAH Working Papers inv293, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business.
    7. Aydin Ozkan & Roberto J. Santillán‐Salgado & Yilmaz Yildiz & María del Rocío Vega Zavala, 2020. "What Happened To The Willingness Of Companies To Invest After The Financial Crisis? Evidence From Latin American Countries," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 43(2), pages 231-262, May.
    8. Philip G. Berger & Rebecca Hann, 2003. "The Impact of SFAS No. 131 on Information and Monitoring," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 163-223, May.
    9. Wang, Yolanda Yulong, 2023. "Corporate diversification, investment efficiency and the business cycle11This work is supported by Shenzhen Humanities & Social Sciences Key Research Bases," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    10. Bastian von Beschwitz, 2016. "Cash Windfalls and Acquisitions," International Finance Discussion Papers 1159, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Geoffrey Tate & Liu Yang, 2013. "The Bright Side Of Corporate Diversification: Evidence From Internal Labor Markets," Working Papers 13-40, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    12. Luo, Mi (Meg), 2011. "A bright side of financial constraints in cash management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1430-1444.
    13. José Manuel Mansilla-Fernández & Juliette Milgram-Baleix, 2023. "Working capital management, financial constraints and exports: evidence from European and US manufacturers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(4), pages 1769-1810, April.
    14. von Beschwitz, Bastian, 2018. "Cash windfalls and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(2), pages 287-319.
    15. Moshirian, Fariborz & Nanda, Vikram & Vadilyev, Alexander & Zhang, Bohui, 2017. "What drives investment–cash flow sensitivity around the World? An asset tangibility Perspective," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-17.
    16. Shin, Hyun-Han & Kim, Yong H., 2002. "Agency costs and efficiency of business capital investment: evidence from quarterly capital expenditures," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 139-158, March.
    17. Yolanda Yulong Wang, 2023. "Corporate diversification, investment efficiency and the business cycle," Post-Print hal-04005692, HAL.
    18. Wulf, Julie, 2009. "Influence and inefficiency in the internal capital market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 305-321, October.
    19. Fatematuz Tamanna Ahamed & Muhammad Nurul Houqe & Tony van Zijl, 2023. "Meta‐analysis of the impact of financial constraints on firm performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 1671-1707, June.
    20. Evangelina Dardati & Julio Riutort, 2016. "Cap-and-Trade and Financial Constraints: Is Investment Independent of Permit Holdings?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(4), pages 841-864, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Internal Capital Allocation ; Internal Capital Markets ; Power Inside the Firm ; Capital Budgeting ; Planning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General

    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:mnh:spaper:2313. 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: Katharina Rautenberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfmande.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.