Search results for "Agency cost"

Unveiling the Antecedents of International Diversification: An Agency Theory Approach

2014

While various studies have developed hypotheses about the antecedents of international diversification drawing mainly on the resource-based view, the behavioral theory of the firm, and the transaction costs literature, we advance our understanding by investigating the explanatory power of agency costs of free cash flow arguments. Using a sample panel of 167 Italian firms longitudinally evaluated during the 1980-2010 period, this study tests whether the firm’s choice to spread operations in multiple foreign countries is conditioned by excess of free cash flow and debt, especially in firm-contexts where agency problems are exacerbated by managers or large shareholders’ opportunism. We find th…

Public-Private Partnerships: Agency Costs in the Privatization of Social Infrastructure Financing

2019

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been subjected to considerable public debate. In particular, this debate has concerned PPP financing and its implications. Using insights from agency theory, this study aims to develop a theoretical understanding of PPP financing. The following research question is investigated: How does the privatization of financing decrease or increase agency costs in social infrastructure PPPs? A comparative case study consisting of four Norwegian PPP projects with different financial configurations is undertaken. The findings suggest that the private sector is risk averse, increasing the cost of capital. In addition, private financing does not seem to have the i…

On the Relevance of Agency Conflicts in SME Debt Maturity Structure

2015

Previous theoretical research asserts that an optimal policy of debt maturity structure mitigates the various agency conflicts that arise through debt contracts. We test this hypothesis on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), which are very sensitive to agency problems. Such problems mainly arise between owners and debt providers, due to SMEs recording high growth and having few fixed assets and informational asymmetry. We provide evidence on the relevant effect of underinvestment, asset substitution, and overinvestment problems on SME debt structure. Results appear to be robust to both the endogeneity problem of explanatory variables and the censored dependent variable.

Conservatism and Accounting Earnings

2015

The article refers to accounting conservatism and its relation with accounting earnings. After providing the conceptual background of the prudence concept, which is the basis of accounting conservatism, the paper introduces some more empirically testable concepts, known as conditional and unconditional conservatism. It also explains the economics behind this accounting practice, mainly associated to contracting due to the asymmetric information between managers and external stakeholders, but also linked to litigation risks, taxation, political and regulatory processes. After providing a brief explanation of the empirical measures of conservatism, it gives a summary of the vast empirical res…

Influence of Ownership Type and CEO Power on Residual Loss: Evidence From the Global Microfinance Industry

2019

This study examines whether the agency cost component referred to as “residual loss” differs between nonprofit and shareholder-owned microfinance organizations and whether such costs are further influenced by CEO power. We use operating expenses, asset utilization, liquidity, and tangible asset intensity to proxy for residual loss. Using 374 microfinance organizations located in 76 countries, we find evidence that the residual loss is higher in microfinance organizations incorporated as nonprofits, but only if the CEO is powerful. Our empirical evidence illustrates the importance of installing proper governance mechanisms to minimize costs caused by high managerial power in the nonprofit s…

Where Did the Money Go? Endogenous Money Creation for International Fraudulent Purposes - The Case of the 2015 Moldovan Banking Scandal

2015

On Monday 4 May 2015, the speaker of Parliament of the Republic of Moldova published the Kroll report on his Internet blog after thousands of people rallied on Sunday 3 May in the capital, Chisinau, to protest against endemic corruption in the country, and demand recovery of the missing billions in the Ilan Shor group scandal. The Kroll report aims at investigating the apparent theft of nearly one-fifth of the country's annual GDP. In a spectacular lender-of-last resort move, the Moldovan central bank was forced to issue some 16 billion lei ($870 million) in emergency loans to keep the economy afloat. The Kroll report focuses on three commercial banks that account for a third of the country…

An agency approach to debt maturity of unlisted and listed firms in the European setting

2019

Abstract This study analyses the debt maturity of two groups of companies – unlisted and listed – throughout the period 2005–2013. The research takes an agency costs approach to explore the determinants of firms' debt maturity structure for a set of five countries, chosen for being representative of the European Union (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom). Agency costs, as well as institutional and macroeconomic factors, turn out to be decisive in explaining firms’ financial policies regarding debt maturity, during the economic crisis that started in 2007–2008. Our findings indicate that contracting costs had a greater impact on unlisted firms during the post-crisis subperi…

Economic Value Added (EVA), Agency Costs and Firm Performance : Theoretical Insights through the Value Based Management (VBM) Framework

2015

Behind the curtain of international diversification: An agency theory perspective

2018

This paper dissects the antecedents of international diversification through the lens of the agency cost of free cash flow arguments. It explores whether the partial convergence of interests among managers, majority shareholders, and minority shareholders affects a firm's choice to diversify internationally. Using a sample panel of 60 Italian firms evaluated longitudinally from 2004 to 2014, the study tests whether a firm's international diversification is affected by its free cash flow (as the ultimate source of managerial discretion) and debt (as the main constraint to managerial discretion), especially in firm contexts that exacerbate agency problems. We find that the effects on internat…