Managerial Traits and Capital Structure Decisions

Dirk Hackbarth B

540 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

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Corporate Finance and Governance Financial Analysis and Corporate Governance Corporate Insolvency and Governance

Abstract

Abstract This article incorporates well-documented managerial traits into a tradeoff model of capital structure to study their impact on corporate financial policy and firm value. Optimistic and/or overconfident managers choose higher debt levels and issue new debt more often but need not follow a pecking order. The model also surprisingly uncovers that these managerial traits can play a positive role. Biased managers' higher debt levels restrain them from diverting funds, which increases firm value by reducing this manager-shareholder conflict. Although higher debt levels delay investment, mildly biased managers' investment decisions can increase firm value by reducing this bondholder-shareholder conflict.

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References

1976Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure 1975Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases 1984Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have 1986Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers 1958The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment 1977Determinants of corporate borrowing 1996Agency costs of free cash flow, corporate finance, and takeovers 2008The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment

Cited by

2011Overconfidence, Compensation Contracts, and Capital Budgeting 2013The mystery of zero-leverage firms 2005Trade-Off and Pecking Order Theories of Debt 2005Social Mood and Financial Economics 2011Behavioral Consistency in Corporate Finance: CEO Personal and Corporate Leverage 2008Trade-Off and Pecking Order Theories of Debt**We thank Long Chen, Sudipto Dasgupta, Espen Eckbo, Chris Hennessy, Jay Ritter, Michael Roberts, Tan Wang, and Jaime Zender for comments and helpful discussions. Murray Frank thanks Piper Jaffray for financial support. Vidhan Goyal thanks the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for financial support (Project No. 6489/06H). The literature on capital structure is vast, containing hundreds of papers, and so we cannot hope to cover it all. Inevitably, we have left out a great deal, much of it very important. As such, we apologize in advance for our inevitable oversights. Even more than usual, it must be stressed that this survey reflects only our views.

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