Agency Costs of Overvalued Equity

Michael Jensen

Financial Management, 2005, vol. 34, issue 1

Abstract: I define and analyze the agency costs of overvalued equity. They explain the dramatic increase in corporate scandals and value destruction in the last five years; costs that have totaled hundreds of billions of dollars. When a firm’s equity becomes substantially overvalued it sets in motion a set of organizational forces that are extremely difficult to manage—forces that almost inevitably lead to destruction of part or all of the core value of the firm. WorldCom, Enron, Nortel, and eToys are only a few examples of what can happen when these forces go unmanaged. Because we currently have no simple solutions to the agency costs of overvalued equity this is a promising area for future research.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (224)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fma:fmanag:jensen05

Access Statistics for this article

Financial Management is currently edited by Bill Christie

More articles in Financial Management from Financial Management Association University of South Florida 4202 E. Fowler Ave. COBA #3331 Tampa, FL 33620. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Courtney Connors ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).