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Moral Hazard, Informed Trading, and Stock Prices

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  • Pierre Collin-Dufresne
  • Vyacheslav Fos

Abstract

We analyze a model of informed trading where an activist shareholder accumulates shares in an anonymous market and then expends costly effort to increase the firm value. We find that equilibrium prices are affected by the position accumulated by the activist, because the level of effort undertaken is increasing in the size of his acquired position. In equilibrium, price impact has two components: one due to asymmetric information (as in the seminal Kyle (1985) model) and one due to moral hazard (a new source of illiquidity). Price impact is higher the more severe the moral hazard problem, which corresponds to a more productive activist. We thus obtain a trade-off: with more noise trading (less `price efficiency') the activist can build up a larger stake, which leads to more effort expenditure and higher firm value (more `economic efficiency').

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  • Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Vyacheslav Fos, 2013. "Moral Hazard, Informed Trading, and Stock Prices," NBER Working Papers 19619, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19619
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    Cited by:

    1. Ljungqvist, Alexander & Back, Kerry E. & Li, Tao, 2013. "Liquidity and Governance," CEPR Discussion Papers 9739, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Hu, May & Narayan, Paresh & Park, Jason & Verhoeven, Peter, 2022. "Informed trading in the CDS and OTM put option markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 353-367.
    3. Bart Taub, 2018. "Inconspicuousness and obfuscation: how large shareholders dynamically manipulate output and information for trading purposes," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 429-464, November.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

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