IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10999.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growth vs. Margins: Destabilizing Consequences of Giving the Stock Market What it Wants

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Aghion
  • Jeremy C. Stein

Abstract

We develop a multi-tasking model in which a firm can devote its efforts either to increasing sales growth, or to improving per-unit profit margins by, e.g., cutting costs. If the firm's manager is concerned with the current stock price, she will tend to favor the growth strategy at those times when the stock market is paying more attention to performance on the growth dimension. Conversely, it can be rational for the stock market to weight observed growth measures more heavily when it is known that the firm is following a growth strategy. This two-way feedback between firms' business strategies and the market's pricing rule can lead to purely intrinsic fluctuations in sales and output, creating excess volatility in these real variables even in the absence of any external source of shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Aghion & Jeremy C. Stein, 2004. "Growth vs. Margins: Destabilizing Consequences of Giving the Stock Market What it Wants," NBER Working Papers 10999, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10999
    Note: CF EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10999.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malcolm Baker & Jeremy C. Stein & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2003. "When Does the Market Matter? Stock Prices and the Investment of Equity-Dependent Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 969-1005.
    2. Barry Bosworth, 1975. "The Stock Market and the Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 6(2), pages 257-300.
    3. Harrison Hong & Jeremy C. Stein & Jialin Yu, 2007. "Simple Forecasts and Paradigm Shifts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1207-1242, June.
    4. Robert S. Chirinko & Huntley Schaller, 2001. "Business Fixed Investment and "Bubbles": The Japanese Case," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 663-680, June.
    5. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.
    6. Stein, Jeremy C, 1996. "Rational Capital Budgeting in an Irrational World," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(4), pages 429-455, October.
    7. Fischer, Stanley & Merton, Robert C., 1984. "Macroeconomics and finance: The role of the stock market," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 57-108, January.
    8. Grandmont, Jean-Michel, 1985. "On Endogenous Competitive Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(5), pages 995-1045, September.
    9. Jeremy C. Stein, 1989. "Efficient Capital Markets, Inefficient Firms: A Model of Myopic Corporate Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(4), pages 655-669.
    10. Philippe Aghion & Abhijit Banerjee & Thomas Piketty, 1999. "Dualism and Macroeconomic Volatility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1359-1397.
    11. Gilchrist, Simon & Himmelberg, Charles P. & Huberman, Gur, 2005. "Do stock price bubbles influence corporate investment?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 805-827, May.
    12. Raghuram G. Rajan, 1994. "Why Bank Credit Policies Fluctuate: A Theory and Some Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 399-441.
    13. Francois, P. & Lloyd-Ellis, H., 2001. "Animal Spirits Meets Creative Destruction," Other publications TiSEM d583b352-a7f4-434f-8731-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Shleifer, Andrei, 1986. "Implementation Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(6), pages 1163-1190, December.
    15. Narayanan, M P, 1985. "Managerial Incentives for Short-term Results," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(5), pages 1469-1484, December.
    16. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Learning to Believe in Sunspots," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 277-307, March.
    17. Sapienza, Paola & Polk, Christopher, 2003. "The Real Effects of Investor Sentiment," CEPR Discussion Papers 3826, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Baker, Malcolm & Wurgler, Jeffrey, 2004. "Appearing and disappearing dividends: The link to catering incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 271-288, August.
    19. Mathias Dewatripont & Ian Jewitt & Jean Tirole, 1999. "The Economics of Career Concerns, Part I: Comparing Information Structures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 183-198.
    20. Olivier Blanchard & Changyong Rhee & Lawrence Summers, 1993. "The Stock Market, Profit, and Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 115-136.
    21. Bengt Holmström, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 169-182.
    22. Randall Morck & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1990. "The Stock Market and Investment: Is the Market a Sideshow?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(2), pages 157-216.
    23. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    24. Tobin, James, 1969. "A General Equilibrium Approach to Monetary Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 15-29, February.
    25. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    26. Patrick Francois & Huw Lloyd-Ellis, 2003. "Animal Spirits Through Creative Destruction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 530-550, June.
    27. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1125-1165 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Style investing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 161-199, May.
    29. Holmstrom, Bengt & Tirole, Jean, 1993. "Market Liquidity and Performance Monitoring," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 678-709, August.
    30. Howitt, Peter & McAfee, R Preston, 1992. "Animal Spirits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 493-507, June.
    31. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Stole, Lars A, 1993. "Do Short-Term Objectives Lead to Under- or Overinvestment in Long-Term Projects?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 719-729, June.
    32. Day, Richard H, 1982. "Irregular Growth Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 406-414, June.
    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. Malcolm Baker & Richard S. Ruback & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Philippe Aghion & Jeremy C. Stein, 2008. "Growth versus Margins: Destabilizing Consequences of Giving the Stock Market What It Wants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1025-1058, June.
    2. Antonio E. Bernardo & Hongbin Cai & Jiang Luo, 2016. "Earnings vs. stock-price based incentives in managerial compensation contracts," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 316-348, March.
    3. Malcolm Baker & Richard S. Ruback & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Robert S. Chirinko & Huntley Schaller, 2011. "Fundamentals, Misvaluation, and Business Investment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(7), pages 1423-1442, October.
    5. Malcolm Baker & C. Fritz Foley & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "The Stock Market and Investment: Evidence from FDI Flows," NBER Working Papers 10559, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Malcolm Baker & Jeremy C. Stein & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2003. "When Does the Market Matter? Stock Prices and the Investment of Equity-Dependent Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 969-1005.
    7. Gilchrist, Simon & Himmelberg, Charles P. & Huberman, Gur, 2005. "Do stock price bubbles influence corporate investment?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 805-827, May.
    8. Murillo Campello & John Graham, 2007. "Do Stock Prices Influence Corporate Decisions? Evidence from the Technology Bubble," NBER Working Papers 13640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. 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.
    10. Fernando Alexandre & Pedro Bação, 2005. "Monetary policy and asset prices: the investment channel," NIPE Working Papers 3/2005, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    11. Shawn X. Huang & Sami Keskek & Juan Manuel Sanchez, 2022. "Investor Sentiment and Stock Option Vesting Terms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 773-795, January.
    12. Chang, Xin & Tam, Lewis H.K. & Tan, Tek Jun & Wong, George, 2007. "The real impact of stock market mispricing -- Evidence from Australia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 388-408, September.
    13. Grundy, Bruce D. & Li, Hui, 2010. "Investor sentiment, executive compensation, and corporate investment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2439-2449, October.
    14. Gregory R. Duffee & Stephen D. Prowse, "undated". "What's Good for GM...? Using Auto Industry Stock Returns to Forecast Business Cycles and Test the Q-Theory of Investment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1996-38, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 04 Dec 2019.
    15. Fernando Alexandre, 2002. "Monetary Policy, Investment and Non-Fundamental Shocks," NIPE Working Papers 6/2002, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    16. Hau, Harald & Lai, Sandy, 2013. "Real effects of stock underpricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 392-408.
    17. Dong, Ming & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2021. "Misvaluation and Corporate Inventiveness," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(8), pages 2605-2633, December.
    18. Kusnadi, Yuanto & Wei, K.C. John, 2017. "The equity-financing channel, the catering channel, and corporate investment: International evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 236-252.
    19. Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2023. "Imperfect Financial Markets and Investment Inefficiencies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(9), pages 2323-2354, September.
    20. Elias Albagli & Christian Hellwig & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2017. "Imperfect Financial Markets and Shareholder Incentives in Partial and General Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 23419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    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:nbr:nberwo:10999. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.