Topic: Common Ownership, Competition, and Top Management Incentives

Speaker: Martin Schmalz, Professor of Finance and Economics, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Date: March 16, 2022 (Wednesday)

Time: 16:00-17:30

Location: 4-101

Language: English

 

Abstract:

We present a mechanism based on managerial incentives through which common ownership affects product market outcomes. Firm-level variation in common ownership causes variation in managerial incentives and productivity across firms, which leads to intra-industry and intra-firm cross-market variation in prices, output, markups, and market shares that is consistent with empirical evidence. The organizational structure of multiproduct firms and the passivity of common owners determine whether higher prices under common ownership result from higher costs or from higher markups. Using panel regressions and a difference-in-differences design we document that managerial incentives are less performance-sensitive in firms with more common ownership.

  

About the speaker:

Martin Schmalz is a financial economist, studying how finance interacts with including industrial organization, behavioral, monetary, and other sub-fields of economics.

He co-authored the book "The Business of Big Data" and developed several eponymous courses to make Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence accessible to business and law students and executives. He serves as the academic director of Oxford's Blockchain Strategy Programme and as director of the AI and Open Banking Programme. Outside, He consults with UHNWI and family offices on asset allocation and succession planning.