Do Firms Gain From Managerial Overconfidence? Managerial Bargaining Power and the Role of Severance Pay

Clara Graziano and Annalisa Luporini

Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2025, vol. 34, issue 3, 632-656

Abstract: We analyze the effects of optimism and overconfidence when the manager has bargaining power and the compensation package includes severance pay. Optimism implies that the manager overestimates the probability of success, while overconfidence induces the manager to overestimate the increase in the probability of success due to her investment. If the manager can renegotiate the initial contract, the advantage of using severance pay to induce the manager to invest, commonly found in the literature, is reduced by the presence of the biases. Optimism increases severance pay and managerial entrenchement with a negative effect on expected profit. Overconfidence reduces incentive pay, as shown by the previous literature, but its effect on severance pay depends on the intensity of the bias. A moderate overconfidence reduces severance pay and increases expected profit. Conversely, extreme overconfidence increases severance pay and this may offset the beneficial effect on incentive pay. Thus, the attempt to exploit managerial overconfidence to reduce incentive pay may backfire if the manager is replaced. Our model suggests that the large severance payments documented by the empirical literature represent a form of efficient contracting when the optimistic and overconfident manager has bargaining power.

Date: 2025
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