Agency Problems and Endogenous Investment Fluctuations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Favara, Giovanni
• 署名单位: International Monetary Fund
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhs009
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 2301
• 关键词: capital-market imperfections; net worth; COSTS; COMPETITION; GROWTH; debt

摘要

This article proposes a theory of investment fluctuations in which the source of the oscillating dynamics is an agency problem between financiers and entrepreneurs. In the model, investment decisions depend on entrepreneurs' initiative to select investment projects ex ante, and financiers' incentive to control entrepreneurs ex post. Too much control discourages entrepreneurial incentive to initiate new investment, whereas too little control jeopardizes its productivity. This initiative-control trade-off is capable of generating endogenous reversal of investment booms, induced by an ongoing deterioration of project profitability. Investment fluctuations may arise even though no external shocks hit the economy and agents are perfectly rational.