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Agency cost

About: Agency cost is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3759 publications have been published within this topic receiving 178061 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the separation of decision and risk-bearing functions observed in large corporations is common to other organizations such as large professional partnerships, financial mutuals, and nonprofits. But they do not consider the role of decision agents in these organizations.
Abstract: ABSENT fiat, the form of organization that survives in an activity is the one that delivers the product demanded by customers at the lowest price while covering costs.1 Our goal is to explain the survival of organizations characterized by separation of "ownership" and "control"-a problem that has bothered students of corporations from Adam Smith to Berle and Means and Jensen and Meckling.2 In more precise language, we are concerned with the survival of organizations in which important decision agents do not bear a substantial share of the wealth effects of their decisions. We argue that the separation of decision and risk-bearing functions observed in large corporations is common to other organizations such as large professional partnerships, financial mutuals, and nonprofits. We contend that separation of decision and risk-bearing functions survives in these organizations in part because of the benefits of specialization of

14,045 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper found that the majority of managers would avoid initiating a positive NPV project if it meant falling short of the current quarter's consensus earnings, and more than three-fourths of the surveyed executives would give up economic value in exchange for smooth earnings.

4,341 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that while informed banks make flexible financial decisions which prevent a firm's projects from going awry, the cost of this credit is that banks have bargaining power over the firm's profits, once projects have begun.
Abstract: While the benefits of bank financing are relatively well understood, the costs are not. This paper argues that while informed banks make flexible financial decisions which prevent a firm's projects from going awry, the cost of this credit is that banks have bargaining power over the firm's profits, once projects have begun. The firm's portfolio choice of borrowing source and the choice of priority for its debt claims attempt to optimally circumscribe the powers of banks. ACCORDING TO RECEIVED THEORY, banks reduce the agency costs associated with lending to small and medium growth firms in various ways.' Yet in practice, many such firms diversify away from bank financing even if banks are willing to lend more.2 Why do these firms forsake informed and seemingly more efficient sources of debt finance to borrow from less informed arm's-length sources? While the benefits of bank financing are relatively well understood, the costs are not. This paper argues that while informed banks make flexible financial decision which prevent a firm's projects from going awry, the cost of this credit is that banks have bargaining power over the firm's profits, once projects have begun. The firm's choice of borrowing sources and the choice of priority for its debt claims attempt to optimally circumscribe the powers of banks.

3,864 citations

Posted ContentDOI
TL;DR: The authors developed a simple neoclassical model of the business cycle in which the condition of borrowers' balance sheets is a source of output dynamics, and the mechanism is that higher borrower net worth reduces the agency costs of financing real capital investments.
Abstract: This paper develops a simple neoclassical model of the business cycle in which the condition of borrowers' balance sheets is a source of output dynamics. The mechanism is that higher borrower net worth reduces the agency costs of financing real capital investments. Business upturns improve net worth, lower agency costs, and increase investment, which amplifies the upturn; vice versa, for downturns. Shocks that affect net worth (as in a debt-deflation) can initiate fluctuations. Copyright 1989 by American Economic Association.

3,795 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors integrate elements from the theory of agency, property rights and finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm and define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the separation and control issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt and outside equity, demonstrate who bears costs and why and investigate the Pareto optimality of their existence.
Abstract: This paper integrates elements from the theory of agency, the theory of property rights and the theory of finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm. We define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the ‘separation and control’ issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt and outside equity, demonstrate who bears costs and why, and investigate the Pareto optimality of their existence. We also provide a new definition of the firm, and show how our analysis of the factors influencing the creation and issuance of debt and equity claims is a special case of the supply side of the completeness of markets problem. The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not for their master’s honour, and very easily give themselves a dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company. — Adam Smith (1776)

3,246 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202395
2022184
2021149
2020161
2019152
2018146