Discussion paper

DP9000 Stock Market Tournaments

We propose a new theory of suboptimal risk-taking based on contractual externalities. We examine an industry with a continuum of firms. Each firm's manager exerts costly hidden effort The productivity of e ffort is subject to systematic shocks. Firms' stock prices reflect their performance relative to the industry average. In this setting, stock-based incentives cause complementarities in managerial effort choices. Externalities arise because shareholders do not internalize the impact of their incentive provision on the average effort. During booms, they over-incentivise managers, triggering a rat-race in effort exertion, resulting in excessive risk relative to the second-best. The opposite occurs during busts.

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Citation

Yuan, K and E Ozdenoren (2012), ‘DP9000 Stock Market Tournaments‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 9000. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp9000