On the Social Optimality of the Value Maximization Criterion
论证了在完全竞争市场中，企业以市场价值最大化为目标能实现帕累托最优，因为该准则避免了构建股东偏好函数的模糊性，且每个股东都会选择相同的生产计划。
As an operational objective for firm management, the market value maximization criterion derives its theoretical validity from the Fisherian separation principle which states that production decisions for an economy can be made without regard to consumer-investors' preferences for consumption, given perfectly competitive markets. In other words, if the firm's activities do not affect the prices of consumptive goods, then maximizing the wealth of its shareholders will lead to a maximization of each shareholder's utility. Not only does this optimality criterion avoid the ambiguities and vagaries of constructing an aggregate shareholder preference function, but when implemented as a firm decision rule, should result in the same production plan that each investor would select himself, and thereby should represent a Pareto optimal allocation of resources: (Hirshleifer [5, Chapters 1, 9]; Fama and Miller [3, Chapters 2, 7]; and more recently, Ekern and Wilson [2], Merton-Subrahmanyam [7], LeRoy [6]).