CEF.UP – FIN Seminar/Webinar

Thursday – November 17^th, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. |Room 305| Online

“Committing to Grow: Privatizations and Firm Dynamics in East Germany”

Nicolas Serrano-Velarde – Bocconi University (joint work U. Akcigit, H. Alp and A. Diegmann)

Abstract:

“We study the implications of employment targets on firm dynamics during the privatization of the East German economy. Exploiting novel contract-level data, we document three stylized facts. First, the policy distorted firm size choices and generated bunching of firms around their committed employment target. Second, exploiting heterogeneous labor preferences of privatizers, we show that assigning tight commitments to firms causes an increase in employment growth and leads to higher productivity growth. Finally, tighter commitments also result in significant costs by leading to increased firm exit. We interpret these results through the lens of a dynamic model with endogenous productivity growth at the firm level. The model highlights that while tight commitments distort the employment decision statically and lead to a higher exit probability, they also induce a “catch-up” increase in productivity growth. This is because although firm profits are lower under tight commitments, marginal profits with respect to productivity are higher. We calibrate the model to our data and find that the policy lead to a 3 percentage points higher aggregate TFP growth thanks to the productivity improvements of firms with tight contracts.”

CEF.UP – FIN Seminar/Webinar

Thursday – October 13^th, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. |Room 305| Online

“The Innovation Arms’ Race” – access the paper here

Farooq Ahmad – SKEMA Business School (joint work with Eric de Bodt and Jarrad Harford)

Abstract:

“Economists have long recognized that competition and innovation interact as key drivers of economic growth (Schumpeter, 1943; Arrow, 1962; Aghion and Howitt, 1992). Acknowledging this, regulators carefully scrutinize competitive behaviors that potentially affect innovation incentives, in particular in the field of M&A (Shapiro, 2012). Do acquisitions of innovative targets spur or stifle innovation? To address this question, we test the Innovation Arms Race hypothesis, providing a first large scale empirical investigation of M&A effects on acquirer rivals’ incentives to innovate and the equilibrium outcome resulting from this competitive process. Our results are consistent with the Innovation Arms Race hypothesis predictions: acquisitions of innovative targets push acquirer rivals to invest more in innovation, both internally through research and development (R&D) and externally through acquisition of innovative targets (the correlated investment prediction) and this increase in innovation investment under pressure of rivals leads to a decrease in firm market valuation (the value decrease prediction). These results are robust to endogeneity and are driven by High-Technology and (to some extent) Healthcare industries. This arms race process appears stronger for leaders and (to some extent) firms under strong competitive pressure (so-called neck-and-neck firms). Initial patents and patent citations based evidence shows no sign of innovation investment efficiency decline, suggesting that the Innovation Arms Race generates a transfer of economic rent favorable to consumers.”

CEF.UP – FIN Seminar/Webinar

Thursday – May 19^th, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. |Room 305| Online

“Negotiating Compensation“

Vladimir Vladimirov – University of Amsterdam (joint work with Florian Hoffmann)

Abstract:

“Workers can often negotiate their compensation. We develop a model showing that optimal negotiations and compensation design depend on whether capital and labor are substitutes or complements. This distinction — closely related to whether labor is low- or high-skilled — further affects whether workers can extract higher compensation by negotiating with fewer firms or by searching for additional job offers. It also affects whether cash constraints inflate or depress compensation when firms compete for workers. By solving for the optimal mechanism for workers to sell their labor, we further show how workers can compare different types of offers and negotiate with firms with different bargaining power.”

CEF.UP – FIN Seminar/Webinar

Thursday – May 5^th, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. |Room 305| Online

“The Correlation Risk Premium Term Structure “

Gonçalo Faria – Universidade Católica Portuguesa (joint work with Robert Kosowski)

Abstract:

“The aim of this paper is to study the term structure of correlation risk and exploit a unique dataset of correlation swap quotes. The main empirical findings are supported by a general equilibrium asset pricing model that endogenously generates a correlation risk term structure. We analyse two alternative measures of correlation risk and their term structure, based on S&P500 correlation swap quotes and the synthetic correlation swap rates estimated from option prices. Our main empirical findings are supported by a Lucas Orchard type model with heterogeneous agents that differ in their beliefs about the probability of a systemic rare disaster. When the latter occurs, there is an increase in the dispersion in beliefs about expected consumption growth rate and in the consumption share of the more pessimistic agent. This generates a flattening of the term structure for both the risk neutral expected correlation and the correlation risk premium during periods of enhanced uncertainty.”