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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 29 No. 11 2016

CEO Investment Cycles

Yihui Pan; Tracy Yue Wang; Michael S. Weisbach

Abstract

This paper documents the existence of a CEO investment cycle, in which disinvestment decreases over a CEO's tenure, while investment increases, leading to “cyclical” firm growth in assets and employment. The estimated variation in investment rate over the CEO investment cycle is of the same order of magnitude as the differences caused by business cycles or financial constraints. Results from a number of tests generally support the view that the investment cycle is caused by agency problems, leading to increasing investment quantity and decreasing investment quality over time as the CEO gains more control over his board.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhw033
Volume
29
Issue
11
Pages
2955-2999
Language
en
Sources
crossref openalex

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