I develop a stationary real options model with corporate restructuring costs that endogenously generates a diversification discount. This result requires that restructuring costs associated with spin-offs (refocusing moves) be significantly larger than those associated with acquisitions (diversifying moves). The discount is due to the fact that diversified firms performing poorly will still delay refocusing, given the high cost of implementing this strategy. The model delivers the counter-intuitive implication that the higher the (average) discount observed in the economy, the higher the (average) proportion of diversified firms.

Existing literature emphasizes skills-based explanations for executive-firm matching, namely in the context of financial expertise. In contrast, our paper argues that informational concerns may also be relevant. We model a public firm with a project opportunity of uncertain quality, where long-run shareholders choose between hiring an operational manager or a financial expert. These managers are equally myopic, however financial experts are also privy to stock-market beliefs. Financial experts invest sub-optimally due to catering incentives, while operational managers tend to engage in signaling-driven overinvestment. We show that operational managers are preferred for low-NPV projects or when stock markets are well informed.