Symposium Article: The Myth of the Ideal Investor

Elisabeth de Fontenay
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引用次数: 4

Abstract

Critiques of specific investor behavior often assume an ideal investor against which all others should be compared. This ideal investor figures prominently in the heated debates over the impact of investor time horizons on firm value. In much of the commentary, the ideal is a long-term investor that actively monitors management, but the specifics are typically left vague. That is no coincidence. The various characteristics that we might wish for in such an investor cannot peacefully coexist in practice. If the ideal investor remains illusory, which of the real-world investor types should we champion instead? The answer, I argue, is none. The corporate finance ecosystem evolves at such a rapid pace that interventions specifically designed to encourage particular types of investors are increasingly likely to be ineffective or even counterproductive: we are destined to place our bets on the wrong horse, time and again. To illustrate the difficulty, this Article briefly sketches the evolution of three types of shareholders frequently advanced as exemplars based on their time horizons: major mutual fund groups, activist hedge funds, and private equity funds. Based on their behavior to date, there is little support for policies aimed either at favoring or penalizing such investors’ participation in the capital markets generally, and corporate governance specifically.
研讨会文章:理想投资者的神话
对特定投资者行为的批评通常会假设一个理想的投资者,所有其他投资者都应该与之比较。在关于投资者时间跨度对公司价值的影响的激烈辩论中,这种理想投资者占据了突出地位。在许多评论中,理想的情况是成为一名积极监督管理层的长期投资者,但具体细节通常都含糊其辞。这并非巧合。我们可能希望在这样一个投资者身上看到的各种特征,在实践中是无法和平共处的。如果理想的投资者仍然是虚幻的,那么我们应该转而支持现实世界中的哪一种投资者?我认为,答案是没有。企业融资生态系统的发展速度如此之快,以至于专门为鼓励特定类型的投资者而设计的干预措施越来越有可能无效,甚至适得其反:我们注定要一次又一次地押错赌注。为了说明这一困难,本文简要概述了三种类型股东的演变,这些股东经常根据其时间范围作为范例:主要共同基金集团、激进对冲基金和私募股权基金。根据他们迄今为止的行为,几乎没有人支持旨在支持或惩罚此类投资者参与资本市场,特别是公司治理的政策。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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