Why Hang on to Losers? Divestitures and Takeovers
研究关注声誉的管理者为何不愿剥离亏损资产，这种低效为财富增值的收购创造了机会，并发现资产独特性是代理成本和收购活动的重要决定因素。
ABSTRACT We study the divestiture decisions of managers who care about their reputations. Managers' divestiture and investment decisions are publicly observable, but managers privately observe signals with respect to the future payoff distribution of investments they have initiated. We establish that in equilibrium there is too little divestiture. These inefficiencies create the opportunity for wealth‐enhancing divestiture‐motivated takeovers. A key result is that only managers of targets with “middle of the road” asset specificity should consider the takeover threat credible. These findings suggest that uniqueness of assets is an important determinant of both agency costs and takeover activity. Our analysis leads to several empirical predictions.