Optimal Short-Termism
构建了一个杠杆企业的动态多任务契约模型，研究股东如何选择最优的短期主义程度，发现增长前景悲观和股东不耐烦会提高短期主义水平，并量化了过度短期主义的代理成本。
This paper develops a dynamic contracting (multitasking) model of a levered firm. In particular, the manager selects long-term and short-term efforts, and shareholders choose optimal debt and default policies. Excessive short-termism ex post is optimal for shareholders because debt has an asymmetric effect: shareholders receive all gains from short-term effort but share gains from long-term effort. We find that grim growth prospects and shareholder impatience imply higher optimal levels of short-termism. Also, an incentive cost effect and a real option effect create nontrivial patterns for the endogenous default threshold. Finally, we quantify agency costs of excessive short-termism, which underscore the economic significance of our results. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.