Hermalin, Benjamin E. (Benjamin Edward)

Overview

Works:	83 works in 262 publications in 3 languages and 1,950 library holdings
Genres:	Incidental music Drama Musicals Case studies
Roles:	Author, Editor, Other, Photographer, Honoree
Classifications:	HB1, 330

Publication Timeline

Most widely held works by Benjamin E Hermalin

Peter Pan by Leonard Bernstein( )

2 editions published in 2017 in English and held by 270 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The handbook of the economics of corporate governance by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

9 editions published in 2017 in English and held by 264 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Governance, Volume One, covers all issues important to economists. It is organized around fundamental principles, whereas multidisciplinary books on corporate governance often concentrate on specific topics. Specific topics include Relevant Theory and Methods, Organizational Economic Models as They Pertain to Governance, Managerial Career Concerns, Assessment & Monitoring, and Signal Jamming, The Institutions and Practice of Governance, The Law and Economics of Governance, Takeovers, Buyouts, and the Market for Control, Executive Compensation, Dominant Shareholders, and more. Providing excellent overviews and summaries of extant research, this book presents advanced students in graduate programs with details and perspectives that other books overlook

Risks to lenders and borrowers in international capital markets by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

20 editions published between 1998 and 1999 in English and Spanish and held by 144 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

This paper provides a framework for understanding the risks to borrowers and lenders in capital markets. We begin with a description of a capital markets in a domestic context. This allows us to focus on two key imperfections which lie at the heart of all financial systems: imperfect information, and the difficulty of making credible commitments for repayment. In the international context, these problems tend to be exacerbated. There are also two sources of risk in international borrowing that are absent in a purely domestic context: the risk that sovereign borrowers will default, and the risk of macroeconomic instability that stems from the impact of net capital flows on the monetary system

Contract renegotiation in agency problems by Aaron S Edlin( )

15 editions published between 1997 and 2010 in English and Undetermined and held by 129 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

This paper studies the ability of an agent and a principal to achieve the first-best outcome when the agent invests in an asset that has greater value if owned by the principal than by the agent. When contracts can be renegotiated, a well-known danger is that the principal can hold up the agent, undermining the agent's investment incentives. We begin by identifying a countervailing effect: Investment by the agent can increase his value for the asset, thus improving his bargaining position in renegotiation. We show that option contracts will achieve the first best whenever this threat-point effect dominates the holdup effect. Otherwise, achieving the first best is difficult and, in many cases, impossible. In such cases, we show that if parties have an appropriate signal available, then the first best is still attainable for a wide class of bargaining procedures. A noisy signal, however, means that the optimal contract will involve terms that courts might view as punitive and so refuse to enforce

Boards of directors as an endogenously determined institution : a survey of the economic literature by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

17 editions published between 2001 and 2005 in English and Undetermined and held by 122 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

This paper surveys the economic literature on boards of directors. Although a legal requirement for many organizations, boards are also an endogenously determined governance mechanism for addressing agency problems inherent to many organizations. Formal theory on boards of directors has been quite limited to this point. Most empirical work on boards has been aimed at answering one of three questions: 1) How are board characteristics such as composition or size related to profitability? 2) How do board characteristics affect the observable actions of the board? 3) What factors affect the makeup of boards and how they evolve over time? The primary findings from the empirical literature on boards are: Board composition is not related to corporate performance, while board size has a negative relation to corporate performance. Both board composition and size are correlated with the board's decisions regarding CEO replacement, acquisitions, poison pills, and executive compensation. Finally, boards appear to evolve over time as a function of the bargaining power of the CEO relative to the existing directors. Firm performance, CEO turnover, and changes in ownership structure appear to be important factors affecting changes to boards

A framework for assessing corporate governance reform by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

13 editions published in 2006 in English and Undetermined and held by 103 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

In light of recent corporate scandals, numerous proposals have been introduced for reforming corporate governance. This paper provides a theoretical framework through which to evaluate these reforms. Unlike various ad hoc arguments, this framework recognizes that governance structures arise endogenously in response to the constrained optimization problems faced by the relevant parties. Contract theory provides a set of necessary conditions under which governance reform can be welfare-improving: 1) There is asymmetric information at the time of contracting; or 2) Governance failures impose externalities on third parties; or 3) The state has access to remedies or punishments that are not available to third parties. We provide a series of models that illustrate the importance of these conditions and what can go wrong if they are not met

Transparency and corporate governance by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

12 editions published between 2007 and 2010 in English and Undetermined and held by 101 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

An objective of many proposed corporate governance reforms is increased transparency. This goal has been relatively uncontroversial, as most observers believe increased transparency to be unambiguously good. We argue that, from a corporate governance perspective, there are likely to be both costs and benefits to increased transparency, leading to an optimum level beyond which increasing transparency lowers profits. This result holds even when there is no direct cost of increasing transparency and no issue of revealing information to regulators or product-market rivals. We show that reforms that seek to increase transparency can reduce firm profits, raise executive compensation, and inefficiently increase the rate of CEO turnover. We further consider the possibility that executives will take actions to distort information. We show that executives could have incentives, due to career concerns, to increase transparency and that increases in penalties for distorting information can be profit reducing

Assessing Managerial Ability : Implications for Corporate Governance by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

7 editions published in 2017 in English and held by 96 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

A manager's current and potential future employers are continually assessing her or his ability. Such assessment is a crucial component of corporate governance and this chapter provides an overview of the research on that aspect of governance. In particular, we review how assessment generates incentives (both good and bad), generates risks that must be faced by both managers and firms, and affects the contractual relationships between those parties in important ways. Assessment (or learning) proves a key perspective from which to study, evaluate, and possibly even regulate corporate governance. Moreover, because learning is a behavior notoriously subject to systematic biases, this perspective is a natural avenue through which to introduce behavioral and psychological insights into the study of corporate governance

The role of boards of directors in corporate governance : a conceptual framework and survey by Renée Adams( )

12 editions published between 2008 and 2018 in English and Undetermined and held by 85 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

This paper is a survey of the literature on boards of directors, with an emphasis on research done subsequent to the Hermalin and Weisbach (2003) survey. The two questions most asked about boards are what determines their makeup and what determines their actions? These questions are fundamentally intertwined, which complicates the study of boards due to the joint endogeneity of makeup and actions. A focus of this survey is on how the literature, theoretical as well as empirically, deals - or on occasions fails to deal - with this complication. We suggest that many studies of boards can best be interpreted as joint statements about both the director-selection process and the effect of board composition on board actions and firm performance

Understanding corporate governance through learning models of managerial competence by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

8 editions published in 2014 in English and held by 80 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

A manager's shareholders, board of directors, and potential future employers are continually assessing his ability. A rich literature has documented that this insight has profound implications for corporate governance because assessment generates incentives (good and bad), introduces assorted risks, and affects the various battles that rage among the relevant actors for corporate control. Consequently, assessment (or learning) is a key perspective from which to study, evaluate, and possibly even regulate corporate governance. Moreover, because learning is a behavior notoriously subject to systematic biases, this perspective is a natural avenue through which to introduce behavioral and psychological insights into the study of corporate governance

Biased monitors : corporate governance when managerial ability is mis-assessed by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

7 editions published in 2017 in English and held by 78 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

An important aspect of corporate governance is the assessment of managers. When managers vary in ability, determining who is good and who is not is vital. Moreover, knowing they will be assessed can lead those being assessed to behave in ways that make them appear better. Such signal-jamming behavior can be beneficial (e.g., an executive works harder on behalf of shareholders) or harmful (e.g., the behavior is myopic, boosting short-term performance at the expense of long-term success). In standard models of assessment, it is assumed those doing the assessing behave according to Bayes Theorem. But what if the assessors suffer from one of many well-documented cognitive biases that makes them less-than-perfect Bayesians? This paper begins an exploration of that issue by considering the consequence of one such bias, the base-rate fallacy, for two of the canonical assessment models: career-concerns and optimal monitoring and replacement. Although firms can suffer due to the base-rate fallacy, they can also benefit from this bias

Hospital governance, performance objectives, and organizational form by Leslie Eldenburg( )

9 editions published between 2000 and 2010 in English and Undetermined and held by 66 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

This paper studies the governance of a sample of California hospitals. We document a number of empirical relations about hospital governance: The composition of the board of directors varies systematically across ownership types; poor performance and low levels of uncompensated care increase board turnover, with this sensitivity varying by organizational type. Poor performance, high administrative costs, and high uncompensated care lead to higher CEO turnover, with these effects again varying across different organizational types. Overall, these results are consistent with the view that boards of directors of hospitals of different organizational forms are substantially different, and that these boards make decisions to maximize different objective functions

Corporate diversification and agency by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

7 editions published between 1994 and 2000 in English and Undetermined and held by 43 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Firms undertake a variety of actions to reduce risk through diversification, including entering diverse lines of business, taking on project partners, and maintaining portfolios of risky projects such as Ramp;D or natural resource exploration. By a well-known argument, securities holders do not directly benefit from risk-reducing corporate diversification when they can replicate this diversification on their own. Moreover, shareholders should be risk neutral with respect to the unsystematic risk that is associated with many research projects. Some have argued that corporate risk reduction may be of value, or can otherwise be explained by, the agency relationship between securities holders and managers. We argue that the value of diversification strategies in an agency relationship derives not from its effects on risk, but rather from its effects on the principal's information about the agent's actions. We demonstrate by example that diversification activities may increase or decrease the principal's information, depending on the particular structure of the activity

The use of an agent in a signalling model by Bernard Caillaud( )

8 editions published in 1991 in English and held by 29 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The handbook of the economics of corporate governance by Benjamin E Hermalin( Book )

9 editions published in 2017 in English and Italian and held by 23 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The Handbook of the Economics of Corporate Governance, Volume One, covers all issues important to economists. It is organized around fundamental principles, whereas multidisciplinary books on corporate governance often concentrate on specific topics. Specific topics include Relevant Theory and Methods, Organizational Economic Models as They Pertain to Governance, Managerial Career Concerns, Assessment & Monitoring, and Signal Jamming, The Institutions and Practice of Governance, The Law and Economics of Governance, Takeovers, Buyouts, and the Market for Control, Executive Compensation, Dominant Shareholders, and more. Providing excellent overviews and summaries of extant research, this book presents advanced students in graduate programs with details and perspectives that other books overlook. --

Name your Poisson : a case of fishy decision-making by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

2 editions published in 2017 in English and held by 22 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The case concerns a fictitious chain of restaurants, Poissons. Different outlets have different amounts of wastage or the amount of fish that has to be thrown away each day. The chains CEO, Christina Gauss, thinks the wastage figures represent a problem. To her, they indicate that too much fish is being thrown away. Using marginal analysis of the daily sales and wastage data available for a full-year that accompanies the case from two of Poissons restaurants one with low-wastage and the other with high-wastage students are asked to identify what the problem at Poissons is and what which of the possible causes are most likely given the data

Moral hazard and verifiability : the effects of renegotiation in agency by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

7 editions published between 1989 and 1990 in English and held by 20 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

The determinants of efficiency and solvency in savings and loans by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

3 editions published in 1992 in English and held by 20 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Heterogeneity in organizational form : why otherwise identical firms choose different incentives for their managers by Benjamin E Hermalin( )

3 editions published in 1992 in English and held by 19 WorldCat member libraries worldwide

Nonparametric methods to measure efficiency : a comparison of methods by Richard F Garbaccio( )

3 editions published in 1992 in English and held by 18 WorldCat member libraries worldwide