The Real Costs of Financial Efficiency When Some Information Is Soft

Alex Edmans, Mirko S. Heinle and Chong Huang

Review of Finance, 2016, vol. 20, issue 6, 2151-2182

Abstract: This article shows that improving financial efficiency may reduce real efficiency. While the former depends on the total amount of information available, the latter depends on the relative amounts of hard and soft information. Disclosing more hard information (e.g., earnings) increases total information, raising financial efficiency and reducing the cost of capital. However, it induces the manager to prioritize hard information over soft by cutting intangible investment to boost earnings, lowering real efficiency. The optimal level of financial efficiency is non-monotonic in investment opportunities. Even if low financial efficiency is desirable to induce investment, the manager may be unable to commit to it. Optimal government policy may involve upper, not lower, bounds on financial efficiency.

Keywords: Financial efficiency; Real efficiency; Managerial myopia; Investment; Disclosure; Cost of capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 G14 G18 G31 G38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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