The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Search results: 4.
Entrenchment and Severance Pay in Optimal Governance Structures
Published: 03/21/2003 | DOI: 10.1111/1540-6261.00536
Andres Almazan, Javier Suarez
This paper explores how motivating an incumbent CEO to undertake actions that improve the effectiveness of his management interacts with the firm's policy on CEO replacement. Such policy depends on the presence and the size of severance pay in the CEO's compensation package and on the CEO's influence on the board of directors regarding his own replacement (i.e., entrenchment). We explain when and why the combination of some degree of entrenchment and a sizeable severance package is desirable. The analysis offers predictions about the correlation between entrenchment, severance pay, and incentive compensation.
Firm Investment and Stakeholder Choices: A Top‐Down Theory of Capital Budgeting
Published: 06/01/2017 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12526
ANDRES ALMAZAN, ZHAOHUI CHEN, SHERIDAN TITMAN
This paper develops a top‐down model of capital budgeting in which privately informed executives make investment choices that convey information to the firm's stakeholders (e.g., employees). Favorable information in this setting encourages stakeholders to take actions that positively contribute to the firm's success (e.g., employees work harder). Within this framework we examine how firms may distort their investment choices to influence the information conveyed to stakeholders and show that investment rigidities and overinvestment can arise as optimal investment distortions. We also examine investment distortions in multi‐divisional firms and compare such distortions to those in single‐division firms.
Attracting Attention: Cheap Managerial Talk and Costly Market Monitoring
Published: 05/09/2008 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01361.x
ANDRES ALMAZAN, SANJAY BANERJI, ADOLFO DE MOTTA
We provide a theory of informal communication—cheap talk—between firms and capital markets that incorporates the role of agency conflicts between managers and shareholders. The analysis suggests that a policy of discretionary disclosure that encourages managers to attract the market's attention when the firm is substantially undervalued can create shareholder value. The theory also relates the credibility of managerial announcements to the use of stock‐based compensation, the presence of informed trading, and the liquidity of the stock. Our results are consistent with the existence of positive announcement effects produced by apparently innocuous corporate events (e.g., stock dividends, name changes).
Financial Structure, Acquisition Opportunities, and Firm Locations
Published: 03/19/2010 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01543.x
ANDRES ALMAZAN, ADOLFO DE MOTTA, SHERIDAN TITMAN, VAHAP UYSAL
This paper investigates the relation between firms' locations and their corporate finance decisions. We develop a model where being located within an industry cluster increases opportunities to make acquisitions, and to facilitate those acquisitions, firms within clusters maintain more financial slack. Consistent with our model we find that firms located within industry clusters make more acquisitions, and have lower debt ratios and larger cash balances than their industry peers located outside clusters. We also document that firms in high‐tech cities and growing cities maintain more financial slack. Overall, the evidence suggests that growth opportunities influence firms' financial decisions.