Alexander White, K. Jain, Shota Ichihashi, Byung-Cheol Kim
{"title":"Double Marginalization and Misplacement in Online Advertising","authors":"Alexander White, K. Jain, Shota Ichihashi, Byung-Cheol Kim","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3926873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3926873","url":null,"abstract":"Internet users often visit multiple ad-financed websites as a bundle to fulfill their needs. We ask whether complementary websites have the right incentives to choose their advertising policies. We identify two forces that distort equilibrium away from the industry optimum and the efficient outcome. First, websites place more ads than the industry optimum (double marginalization). Second, given the total advertising volume at equilibrium, websites misallocate ads across websites (misplacement). Perfect competition in one market segment eliminates double marginalization but may exacerbate misplacement. The potential trade-off challenges conventional wisdom that competition would restore the industry optimum. Introducing micropayments removes misplacement, but the welfare consequences are ambiguous.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"21 8","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120984578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Compensating with Style? The Role of Compensation-Committee Experience on CEO Pay","authors":"Joonil Lee, S. Lee, Kevin J. Murphy, P. Oh","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3911947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3911947","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how the level and structure of CEO pay is influenced by the characteristics and past experience of the members of the compensation committee, and also how these characteristics and experiences affect the probability of committee appointment. Our main findings indicate that (1) CEO pay in the current firm is more likely to be above (or below) market if CEO pay in the committee-members’ prior-firm experience was also above (or below) market; (2) the influence of this past experience diminishes over time as current year’s pay decisions are more likely to be influenced by experience from recent past years than from experience further past; and (3) while new directors are more likely to be appointed to the compensation committee if they have prior compensation-committee experience, we find no evidence that new directors with experience with highly paid CEOs are more likely to be appointed to compensation committees, and also no evidence that that companies choose compensation committees with experiences matching the focal firm’s pay philosophy. Overall, our paper extends the literature on board of directors affecting CEO pay, and also contributes to the literature on managerial styles and contagion.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129702408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing the Value of Cooperative Membership: A Case of Dairy Marketing in the United States","authors":"Daniel M. Munch, T. Schmit, R. Severson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3722157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3722157","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The existence of cooperative organizations in today’s business environment, particularly in agriculture, signals their continued ability to provide value to their member owners. However, due largely to data limitations, we know very little about the monetary value of ownership held by members and how value changes across members of differing characteristics. Through a discrete choice experiment with more than 200 dairy farmers in the United States, we examine these issues explicitly for dairy marketing cooperatives that purchase their members’ milk and process it into finished dairy products. Results suggest that dairy farmers, on aggregate, are willing to accept lower per hundredweight compensation, 2.3% of the average milk price, to be cooperative members relative to selling to independent handlers. Results also suggest dairy farmers actively consider the industry wide impacts within pricing offers on preferences for other milk pricing attributes. The inclusion of demographic covariates highlights preferences important to understanding heterogeneous member interests and, thus, informing improved cooperative governance strategies and board decision making to address them.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129120807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vertical Integration and Bargaining: Linear vs Two-part tariffs","authors":"Frago Kourandi, Ioannis N. Pinopoulos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3851918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3851918","url":null,"abstract":"We examine the implications of different contractual forms for welfare as well as for firms’ profits in a framework in which a vertically integrated firm sells its good to an independent downstream firm. Under downstream Bertrand competition, the standard result of the desirability of two-part tariffs over linear contracts in terms of welfare may be reversed. We obtain that the linear contract can generate higher consumer surplus and welfare than the two-part tariff when the independent downstream firm is rather powerful in determining the contract terms. In that case, the fixed fee is negative and the integrated firm makes more profits under a linear contract than under a two-part tariff. These results do not remain robust under downstream Cournot competition. Irrespective of the mode of downstream competition, the preferred contract type of the integrated firm is always welfare superior.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121592844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Bourveau, Matthias Breuer, Jeroen Koenraadt, Robert C. Stoumbos
{"title":"Public Company Auditing Around the Securities Exchange Act","authors":"Thomas Bourveau, Matthias Breuer, Jeroen Koenraadt, Robert C. Stoumbos","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3837593","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3837593","url":null,"abstract":"We explore the landscape of public company auditing around the introduction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1934. Using a broad sample of historical annual reports spanning several decades, we document that most public companies obtained audits even before the SEC’s audit mandate, which limited the mandate’s impact on audit rates. We further document that these companies selected their auditors based on characteristics reflecting independence and competence, even before the SEC’s mandate. While changes in audit rates and auditor choices were limited, we observe significant changes in the content of audit statements around the introduction of the SEC. These changes, however, appear to reflect concurrent standardization efforts initiated and driven by private-sector actors rather than the SEC. Finally, we do not find any significant impact of the SEC’s audit mandate on capital-market outcomes. Collectively, our descriptive evidence suggests that the introduction of the SEC, while widely viewed as a sea-change in public company auditing, had a limited impact on companies’ reliance on audits and investors’ trust in companies’ reports, at least initially.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"88 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126442922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Baltrunaite, Mario Cannella, S. Mocetti, Giacomo Roma
{"title":"Board Composition and Performance of State-owned Enterprises: Quasi-experimental Evidence","authors":"A. Baltrunaite, Mario Cannella, S. Mocetti, Giacomo Roma","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3852382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3852382","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We analyze the impact of board composition on the performance of companies controlled by public entities in Italy, using a reform-induced change. The law’s provisions, aimed at increasing female representation and at reducing the revolving-door phenomenon, were binding for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), but not for companies with a minority share of public ownership, allowing to adopt a difference-in-differences estimation. Results show that female presence on the boards of directors of SOEs increased, while that of former politicians decreased. New directors replaced older and less talented men, thereby rejuvenating the boards and improving their quality. To assess the effects on firm performance, we analyze companies’ balance sheets and survey information on citizens’ satisfaction with the provision of local public services and on objective measures of their quality. While firm productivity remains unaffected, we find that profitability increases and leverage decreases, thereby lowering corporate credit risk, and that SOEs’ output quality improves (JEL G34, L32, H42).","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"125 10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124668029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Risk Concentration and Interconnectedness in OTC Markets","authors":"Briana Chang, Shengxing Zhang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3808072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3808072","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze the impact of a regulatory reform in a novel framework that jointly determines banks’ bilateral networks and platform access. In our model, banks use their bilateral connections to obtain indirect access to the platform, which saves direct entry costs but results in risk concentration. This trade-off leads to a unique market structure, which is generally asymmetric with multiple layers even if all banks are ex ante homogeneous. Policies that increase balance sheet costs relative to entry costs could result in a more symmetric market structure but have ambiguous effects on transaction costs. Our results underscore that policies aiming to achieve all-to-all trading, reduce risk concentration, or lower transaction costs can be counterproductive.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"79 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121673237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pattanaporn Chatjuthamard, P. Jiraporn, Sang Mook Lee, Ali Uyar, Merve Kılıç
{"title":"Does Board Gender Diversity Matter? Evidence From Hostile Takeover Vulnerability","authors":"Pattanaporn Chatjuthamard, P. Jiraporn, Sang Mook Lee, Ali Uyar, Merve Kılıç","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3770682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3770682","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Purpose\u0000Theory suggests that the market for corporate control, which constitutes an important external governance mechanism, may substitute for internal governance. Consistent with this notion, using a novel measure of takeover vulnerability primarily based on state legislation, this paper aims to investigate the effect of the takeover market on board characteristics with special emphasis on board gender diversity.\u0000\u0000\u0000Design/methodology/approach\u0000This paper exploits a novel measure of takeover vulnerability based on state legislation. This novel measure is likely exogenous as the legislation was imposed from outside the firm. By using an exogenous measure, the analysis is less vulnerable to endogeneity and is thus more likely to show a causal effect.\u0000\u0000\u0000Findings\u0000The results show that a more active takeover market leads to lower board gender diversity. Specifically, a rise in takeover vulnerability by one standard deviation results in a decline in board gender diversity by 10.01%. Moreover, stronger takeover market susceptibility also brings about larger board size and less board independence, corroborating the substitution effect. Additional analysis confirms the results, including propensity score matching, generalized method of moments dynamic panel data analysis and instrumental variable analysis.\u0000\u0000\u0000Originality/value\u0000The study is the first to explore the effect of the takeover market on board gender diversity. Unlike most of the previous research in this area, which suffers from endogeneity, this paper uses a novel measure of takeover vulnerability that is probably exogenous. The results are thus much more likely to demonstrate causality.\u0000","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125392193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Polarized Corporate Boards","authors":"T. Hoang, P. Ngo, Le Zhang","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3747607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3747607","url":null,"abstract":"We show that political polarization between directors and a CEO negatively impacts the effectiveness of corporate boards. At the director level, polarization increases directors’ incentive to monitor the CEO but creates a hostile board environment and discourages moderate directors’ board meeting attendance. This leads to compromised board capacity at the firm level and significantly reduces forced turnover-performance sensitivity. Our results are more pronounced in presidential election years and for firms with more monitoring and advising needs. Finally, we show that polarization in the boardroom lowers investment-Q sensitivity. Our findings highlight the real economic cost of political polarization.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"414 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116701772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing the Long Run Competitive Effects of Digital Ecosystem Mergers","authors":"Jasper van den Boom, Peerawat Samranchit","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3746343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3746343","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on the assessment of long run anti-competitive effects on direct entry following acquisitions by digital ecosystems. The paper develops a model to combine the effects of complementarity and economies of scope, which are the two main characteristics observed in digital ecosystems. We show that these two characteristics provide a sufficient condition for a higher entry barrier of competing ecosystem, since conglomerate mergers involving ecosystem can reduce entry by reducing the potential profitability of market entry. As such, some mergers that provide short run benefits for consumer have anti-competitive long run effects that ultimately hurt consumers. Then, we study five major cases before the European Commission involving one of the ecosystems of the Big Five (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft), to demonstrate how these long run effects was assessed in practice. The paper finds that the Commission should incorporate a novel test for long run effects of mergers to capture the ecosystem effect in mergers. The paper concludes by suggesting that the assessment of long run effects could happen under a reversed burden of proof, by tying it in with the undertakings claims for efficiency justifications.","PeriodicalId":416291,"journal":{"name":"IO: Firm Structure","volume":"107 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126707662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}