The Real Costs of Financial Efficiency When Some Information Is Soft
Review of Finance, Forthcoming
European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) - Finance Working Paper No. 380/2013
51 Pages Posted: 26 Aug 2013 Last revised: 20 Oct 2018
There are 3 versions of this paper
The Real Costs of Financial Efficiency When Some Information Is Soft
The Real Costs of Disclosure
The Real Costs of Disclosure
Date Written: May 3, 2016
Abstract
This paper 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
JEL Classification: G12, G14, G18, G31, G38
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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