Conglomerate Investment, Skewness, and the CEO Long Shot Bias

Schneider Christoph, Spalt Oliver

Zusammenfassung

Do behavioral biases of executives matter for corporate investment decisions? Using segment-level capital allocation in multisegment firms (“conglomerates”) as a laboratory, we show that capital expenditure is increasing in the expected skewness of segment returns. Conglomerates invest more in high-skewness segments than matched stand-alone firms, and trade at a discount, which indicates overinvestment that is detrimental to shareholder wealth. Using geographical variation in gambling norms, we find that the skewness-investment relation is particularly pronounced when CEOs are likely to find long shots attractive. Our findings suggest that CEOs allocate capital with a long-shot bias.

Schlüsselwörter

Behavioral Corporate Finance; Skewness; Investment

Zitieren als

Schneider, C., & Spalt, O. (2016). Conglomerate Investment, Skewness, and the CEO Long Shot Bias. Journal of Finance, 71(2), 635–672.

Details

Publikationstyp
Forschungsartikel (Zeitschrift)

Begutachtet
Ja

Publikationsstatus
Veröffentlicht

Jahr
2016

Fachzeitschrift
Journal of Finance

Band
71

Ausgabe
2

Erste Seite
635

Letzte Seite
672

Sprache
Englisch

ISSN
0022-1082

DOI

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