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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 137 No. 1 2020

Who's paying attention? Measuring common ownership and its impact on managerial incentives

Erik Gilje1,2; Todd A. Gormley3; Doron Levit1

1 University of Pennsylvania · 2 National Bureau of Economic Research · 3 Washington University in St. Louis

Abstract

We derive a measure that captures the extent to which common ownership shifts managers’ incentives to internalize externalities. A key feature of the measure is that it allows for the possibility that not all investors are attentive to whether a manager's actions benefit the investor's overall portfolio. Empirically, we show that potential drivers of common ownership, including mergers in the asset management industry and, under certain circumstances, even indexing, could diminish managerial motives to internalize externalities. Our findings illustrate the importance of accounting for investor inattention when analyzing whether the growth of common ownership affects managerial incentives.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2019.12.006
Volume
137
Issue
1
Pages
152-178
Language
en
Sources
crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex

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