Abstract for:

Innovation and Institutional Ownership

Philippe  Aghion,  John  Van Reenen,  Luigi  Zingales,  February 2009
Paper No' CEPDP0911: | Full paper

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Keywords: Innovation; institutional ownership, career concerns, R&D, productivity

JEL Classification: O31; O32; O33; G20; G32

Is hard copy/paper copy available? YES - Paper Copy Still In Print.

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This Paper is published under the following series: CEP Discussion Papers

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Abstract:

We find that institutional ownership in publicly traded companies is associated with more innovation (measured by cite-weighted patents). To explore the mechanism through which this link arises, we build a model that nests the lazy-manager hypothesis with career-concerns, where institutional owners increase managerial incentives to innovate by reducing the career risk of risky projects. The data supports the career concerns model. First, whereas the lazy manager hypothesis predicts a substitution effect between institutional ownership and product market competition (and managerial entrenchment generally), the career-concern model allows for complementarity. Empirically, we reject substitution effects. Second, CEOs are less likely to be fired in the face of profit downturns when institutional ownership is higher. Finally, using instrumental variables, policy changes and disaggregating by type of owner we find that the effect of institutions on innovation does not appear to be due to endogenous selection.



This paper has been published as:
American Economic Review 2013, 103(1): 277–304