A Critique of the Agency Theory Viewpoint of Stock Price Crash Risk: The Opacity and Overinvestment Channels
研究发现1950至2019年间美国上市公司股价崩盘风险从5.5%升至27%，但代理理论所强调的不透明和过度投资渠道与崩盘风险的关系并不显著，尤其在萨班斯-奥克斯利法案实施后。
Abstract This study documents a puzzling historical trend in crash risk for US‐listed firms: between 1950 and 2019, the firm‐year occurrences of idiosyncratic stock price crashes rose from 5.5% to an astonishing 27%. The vastness of the literature notoriously attributes crashes to agency reasons, i.e. self‐interested executives who strategically camouflage bad news via the financial reporting opacity and overinvestment channels. Nonetheless, we document that the opacity– and overinvestment–crash relations are non‐significant, especially in the period following the enforcement of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. The statistically non‐significant relations are also witnessed in tests that account for the effect of equity‐based compensation incentives and corporate governance functions. Overall, this study criticizes the efficacy of opacity and overinvestment as channels in explaining crash risk. Our conclusions offer avenues for future research to pursue in rationalizing the puzzling surge in stock price crashes.