Do Agency Relations Mediate the Interaction between Firms’ Financial Policies and Business Cycles?

Charles Reuter ()
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Charles Reuter: CEREFIGE - Centre Européen de Recherche en Economie Financière et Gestion des Entreprises - UL - Université de Lorraine

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Abstract: We investigate the interactions between firms' financial policies and expected business cycles, in listed firms, in Europe, and over 20 years. We show that these interactions are mediated by ownership structures. Firms with strongly concentrated ownership, or under control, lead contra-cyclical policies, while firms with dispersed ownership lead somewhat pro-cyclical policies, supporting the traditional expectation, based on the dispersed ownership role model, that business cycles are of little direct relevance for financial policies. Our theoretical considerations unfold from the idea that ownership dispersion implies a different mix in agency relations in the firm. It entails specificities in agency costs, opportunity benefits of managerial discretion, and it fosters differing needs for disciplining through debt, for signaling, and potentially different market timing behaviors by managers and incumbent shareholders. Our contribution extends potentially to a number adjacent research questions including, among others, the analysis of performance effects of ownership concentration, the relative assessment of governance mechanisms, a focus on specific behaviors as part of capital structures research, or the mediating effect of agency relations for analyzing the effects of business cycles – and financial shocks - on firms' financial policies.

Keywords: Financial policy. Business cycles. Agency; International capital structure; Ownership dispersion; Entrenchment; Managerial discretion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05
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Published in AFFI, May 2011, Montpellier, France

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03550016

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