Monitoring: Which Institutions Matter?

46 Pages Posted: 17 Sep 2006

See all articles by Kai Li

Kai Li

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Sauder School of Business; Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER); China Academy of Financial Research (CAFR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); Canadian Sustainable Finance Network (CSFN)

Jarrad Harford

University of Washington; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Xia Chen

Singapore Management University - School of Accountancy

Abstract

Within a cost-benefit framework, we hypothesize that independent institutions with long-term investments will specialize in monitoring and influencing efforts rather than trading. Other institutions will not monitor. Using acquisition decisions to reveal monitoring, we show that only concentrated holdings by independent long-term institutions are related to post-merger performance. Further, the presence of these institutions makes withdrawal of bad bids more likely. These institutions make long-term portfolio adjustments rather than trading for short-term gain and only sell in advance of very bad outcomes. We conclude that independent long-term institutions actively monitor and benefit from their efforts. This benefit has both private and shared components. Examining total institutional holdings or even concentrated holdings by other types of institutions masks important variation in the subset of monitoring institutions.

Keywords: corporate governance, institutional investors, mergers & acquisitions, monitoring, trading

JEL Classification: G34

Suggested Citation

Li, Kai and Harford, Jarrad and Chen, Xia, Monitoring: Which Institutions Matter?. Journal of Financial Economics, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=930185

Kai Li (Contact Author)

University of British Columbia (UBC) - Sauder School of Business ( email )

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Canadian Sustainable Finance Network (CSFN) ( email )

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Jarrad Harford

University of Washington ( email )

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European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

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Xia Chen

Singapore Management University - School of Accountancy ( email )

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Singapore 178900
Singapore

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