Showing papers by "Andrei Shleifer published in 1992"

Growth in Cities

Abstract: Recent theories of economic growth, including those of Romer, Porter, and Jacobs, have stressed the role of technological spillovers in generating growth. Because such knowledge spillovers are particularly effective in cities, where communication between people is more extensive, data on the growth of industries in different cities allow us to test some of these theories. Using a new data set on the growth of large industries in 170 U.S. cities between 1956 and 1987, we find that local competition and urban variety, but not regional specialization, encourage employment growth in industries. The evidence suggests that important knowledge spillovers might occur between rather than within industries, consistent with the theories of Jacobs.

Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach

Abstract: We explore the determinants of liquidation values of assets, particularly focusing on the potential buyers of assets. WVhen a firm in financial distress needs to sell assets, its industry peers are likely to be experiencing problems themselves, leading to asset sales at prices below value in best use. Such illiquidity makes assets cheap in bad times, and so ex ante is a significant private cost of leverage. We use this focus on asset buyers to explain variation in debt capacity across industries and over the business cycle, as well as the rise in U.S. corporate leverage in the 1980s. How DO FIRMS CHOOSE debt levels, and why do firms or even whole industries sometimes change how much debt they have? Why, for example, have American firms increased their leverage in the 1980s (Bernanke and Campbell (1988), Warshawsky (1990)), and why has this debt increase been the greatest in some industries, such as food and timber? Despite substantial progress in research on leverage, these questions remain largely open. In this paper, we explore an approach to debt capacity based on the cost of asset sales. We argue that the focus on asset sales and liquidations helps clarify the crosssectional determinants of leverage, as well as why debt increased in the 1980s. Williamson (1988) stresses the link between debt capacity and the liquidation value of assets. He argues that assets which are redeployable-have alternative uses-also have high liquidation values. For example, commercial land can be used for many different purposes. Such assets are good candidates for debt finance because, if they are managed improperly, the manager will be unable to pay the debt, and then creditors will take the assets away from him and redeploy them. Williamson thus identifies one important determinant of liquidation value and debt capacity, namely, asset redeploya

The Structure and Performance of the Money Management Industry

Abstract: IN 1990 TOTAL FINANCIAL assets in U.S. capital markets amounted to $13.7 trillion, of which $3.4 trillion was equities, and the rest were bonds, government securities, tax-exempt securities, and mortgages. These financial assets were held by two principal types of investors: individuals and institutions. The New York Stock Exchange defines an institution as a firm that employs professionals to manage money for the benefit of others (firms or individuals). At the end of 1990, $6.1 trillion of the total U.S. financial assets was held by institutions. Both the amount of institutional assets and the fraction of the total they represent have increased sharply over the past 30 years. In 1950, for example, institutional assets comprised $107 billion out of a $500 billion total, or 21 percent compared with 45 percent in 1990.1 The growth of institutional ownership of equities has paralleled their growth in the ownership of other financial assets. In 1955 institutions owned 23 percent of equities compared with 77 percent owned by individuals; in

The Transition to a Market Economy: Pitfalls of Partial Reform

Abstract: We present a theory of a partial economic reform of a planned economy, similar to the one that took place in Russia since 1988 and in China earlier. In such a reform, some markets are liberalized in the sense that producers can sell output to whomever they want, including private firms, at free prices, but at the same time must sell to state firms at state prices. We show that such a reform can result in a substantial diversion of subsidized inputs away from state firms and toward private firms even when state firms value these inputs more. The result may be a reduction of total output. The simple analysis sheds light on many consequences of the Soviet reform, such as breakdown of coordination of production, increased state policing of delivery quotas, prohibitions of trading cooperatives, and opposition to privatization. The model also explains why partial reform failed in Russia but worked in China.

The Structure and Performance of the Money Management Industry

Abstract: IN 1990 TOTAL FINANCIAL assets in U.S. capital markets amounted to $13.7 trillion, of which $3.4 trillion was equities, and the rest were bonds, government securities, tax-exempt securities, and mortgages. These financial assets were held by two principal types of investors: individuals and institutions. The New York Stock Exchange defines an institution as a firm that employs professionals to manage money for the benefit of others (firms or individuals). At the end of 1990, $6.1 trillion of the total U.S. financial assets was held by institutions. Both the amount of institutional assets and the fraction of the total they represent have increased sharply over the past 30 years. In 1950, for example, institutional assets comprised $107 billion out of a $500 billion total, or 21 percent compared with 45 percent in 1990.1 The growth of institutional ownership of equities has paralleled their growth in the ownership of other financial assets. In 1955 institutions owned 23 percent of equities compared with 77 percent owned by individuals; in

Pervasive shortages under socialism

Abstract: We present a new theory of pervasive shortages under socialism, based on the assumption that the planners are self-interested. Because the planners-meaning bureaucrats in the ministries and managers offirms-cannot keep the official profits that firms earn, it is in their interest to create shortages of output and to collect bribes from consumers. The theory implies that (1) an increase in the official price of a good might reduce output, (2) market socialism is bound to fail even without computational complexities facing the planners, and (3) price liberalization will succeed only iffirms get to keep their profits.

The impact of institutional trading on stock prices

Abstract: This paper uses a new data set of quarterly portfolio holdings of 769 all-equity pension funds between 1985 and 1989 to evaluate the potential effect of their trading on stock prices. We address two aspects of trading by money managers: herding, which refers to buying (selling) the same stocks as other managers buy (sell) at the same time; and positive-feedback trading, which refers to buying winners and selling losers. These two aspects of trading are commonly a part of the argument that institutions destabilize stock prices. At the level of individual stocks at quarterly frequencies, we find no evidence of substantial herding or positive-feedback trading by pension fund managers, except in small stocks. Also, there is no strong cross-sectional correlation between changes in pension funds' holdings of a stock and its abnormal return.