Size Matters – ‘Over’investments in a Relational Contracting Setting

Authors:

Englmaier, Florian (LMU Munich)
Fahn, Matthias (JKU Linz)

Abstract:

The corporate finance literature documents that managers tend to over-invest in their companies. A number of theoretical contributions have aimed at explaining this stylized fact, most of them focusing on a fundamental agency problem between shareholders and managers. The present paper shows that over-investments are not necessarily the (negative) consequence of agency problems between shareholders and managers, but instead might be a second-best optimal response to address problems of limited commitment and limited liquidity. If a firm has to rely on relational contracts to motivate its workforce, and if it faces a volatile environment, investments into general, non-relationship-specific, capital can increase the efficiency of a firm’s labor relations.

Keywords:

relational contracts; corporate finance; capital investments

JEL-Classification:

C73; D21; D86; G32

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Size Matters – ‘Over’investments in a Relational Contracting Setting
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