Bankers and the Performance of German Firms

In this paper we analyze the impact of banks on German non-financial companies through ownership stakes and board representation. We find that the correlation between firm value and bank representation is negative and highly significant. By exploring the time series dimension of our dataset, we show that bank presence causes lower performance while there is no evidence of causality in the opposite direction. Our results suggest that bankers are attracted to the boards of those companies where they can extract larger benefits of control: Banks are systematically more represented on the boards of companies that are larger, have more intangible assets and offer higher board remuneration. There is little evidence that banks facilitate lending or monitor existing debt contracts. Whereas block ownership by non-banks is associated with better performance, there is no such relationship for banks.

Bargaining under Large Risk - An Experimental Analysis -

We present an experimental study to learn about behavior in bargaining situations under large risks. In order to implement realistic risks involved in the field, we calibrate the experimental parameters from an environment involving substantial variation in profits, the motion picture industry. The leading example is the production of a movie that may give rise to a sequel, so actors and producers negotiate sequentially. We analyze the data in light of alternative behavioral approaches to understanding bargaining behavior under large risk.Bargaining, Large Risk, Equity, Experiments, Calibration

How do executives exercise their stock options?

We analyze a large data set of stock option exercises for a large data set of almost 200,000 option packages for more than 16,000 US top executives and analyze their motivations for the early exercise of their stock options. We estimate a hazard model to identify the main variables that influence executives´ timing decisions and find that behavioral factors (e.g. , trends in past stock prices), institutional factors (vesting dates, grant dates, blackout periods) an inside information strongly influence the timing of stock option exercises. By contrast, we find little support for the influence of variables proposed by utility-based models

Do shareholders vote strategically? Voting behavior, proposals screening, and majority rules

We study shareholder voting on management proposals. We build on a simple model of strategic voting, provide structural estimates of its parameters, and derive testable implications. The evidence suggests that voting is strategic in the sense that shareholders take into account the information of other shareholders when making their voting decisions. We conclude that strategic voting prevents incorrect rejections of management proposals

Why Votes Have a Value

We perform an experiment where subjects pay for the right to participate in a shareholder vote. We find that experimental subjects are willing to pay a significant premium for the voting right even though there should be no such premium in our setup under full rationality. Private benefits from controlling the firm are absent from our setup and overconfidence cannot explain the size of the observed voting premium. The premium disappears in treatments where voting has no material consequences for the subjects. We conclude that individuals enjoy being part of a group that exercises power and are therefore willing to pay for the right to vote even when the impact of their own vote on their payoffs is negligible.Smoking, Voting, dual-class shares, paradox of voting, experimental economics

Valuation biases, error measures, and the conglomerate discount

We investigate biases of valuation methods and document that these depend largely on the choice of error measure (percentage vs. logarithmic errors) used to compare valuation procedures. We analyze four multiple valuation methods (averaging with the arithmetic mean, harmonic mean, median, and the geometric mean) and three present value approaches (dividend discount model, discounted cash flow model, residual income model). Percentage errors generate a positive bias for most multiples, and they imply that setting company values equal to their book values often becomes the best valuation method. Logarithmic errors avoid unwanted consequences and imply that the median and the geometric mean are unbiased while the arithmetic mean is biased upward as much as the harmonic mean is biased downward. The dividend discount model dominates the DCF-model only for percentage errors, while the opposite is true for logarithmic errors. The residual income model is optimal for both error measures

Biases and Error Measures: How to Compare Valuation Methods

We investigate biases of valuation methods and document that these depend largely on the choice of error measure (percentage vs. logarithmic errors) used to compare valuation procedures. We analyze four multiple valuation methods (averaging with the arithmetic mean, harmonic mean, median, and the geometric mean) and three present value approaches (dividend discount model, discounted cash flow model, residual income model). Percentage errors generate a positive bias for most multiples, and they imply that setting company values equal to their book values dominates many established valuation methods. Logarithmic errors imply that the median and the geometric mean are unbiased while the arithmetic mean is biased upward as much as the harmonic mean is biased downward. The dividend discount model dominates the discounted cash flow model only for percentage errors, while the opposite is true for logarithmic errors. The residual income model is optimal for both error measures

Delegation chains

We ask why we observe multiple layers of decision-making in fund management with investors, sponsors, fund managers, and consultants, even if additional decision-makers are costly and do not contribute to superior performance. In our model, an investor hires a wealth manager ("sponsor"), who can delegate asset allocation decisions to a fund manager with investing abilities inferior to her own. Delegation results in lower performance but may be chosen because it reduces the sponsor's reputational risk: Offloading decisions to fund managers creates an additional decision-maker who may be responsible for inferior performance and garbles inferences about the sponsor's ability. We characterize when excessive delegation arises and the properties of delegation chains