企业理论经理行为、代理成本与所有权结构.doc

资本结构之最佳资本结构（兰州商学院会计学院08会计五班张志华）一、资本结构的定义资本结构是企业各种资本的构成及其比例关系。

广义的资本结构是由负债资本和所有者权益资本两部分组成的，是企业筹资决策的核心问题，资本结构分析就是对两种资本的布局分析，运用适当的方法确定其最佳的资本结构，并在以后筹资中继续保持。

二、资本结构的基本理论资本结构理论，具体包括代理成本理论、信号传递理论、优序融资理论和控制权理论。

1、MM理论最初的ＭＭ理论，即由美国的Modigliani和Miller (简称ＭＭ )教授于1958年6月份发表于《美国经济评论》的“资本结构、公司财务与资本”一文中所阐述的基本思想，在该文中提出了企业的资本结构选择不影响企业的市场价值，即著名的MM理论，标志着现代企业融资结构理论的形成。

此后的许多资本结构理论都是从MM理论演变而来，是在放宽对MM理论假设条件下对MM理论的拓展，尝试在市场不完全的框架中通过对融资成本、信息不对称等问题的研究来解释资本结构的不同。

2、代理成本理论按照詹森和梅克林(Jensen and Meckling，1976)的定义，代理成本是指委托人为防止代理人损害自己的利益，需要通过严密的契约关系和对代理人的阿严格监督来限制代理人的行为，而这需要付出代价的。

代理成本理论是经过研究代理成本与资本结构的关系而形成的。

这种理论通过分析指出，公司债务的违约成本是财务杠杆系数的增函数；随着公司债务资本的增加，债券人的监督成本随着提升，债权人会要求更高的利率。

这种代理成本最终要由股东承担，公司资本结构中债务比率过高会导致股东价值的降低。

根据代理成本理论，债务资本适度的资本结构会增加股东的价值。

詹森和麦克林在其开创性的论文《企业理论：经理行为、代理成本和所有制结构》中所指出的：“债务之所以被使用是由于所有者为了获得因自身的资源限制无法得到的潜在有利可图的投资机会。

”三、资本结构的影响因素涉及宏观、微观等各个领域：(1)企业的经营状况和财务状况。

迈克尔·C.詹森威廉·H.麦克林本文综合了代理理论、产权理论和财务理论几方面的要素，在此基础上提出了一种公司所有权结构的理论。

本文定义了代理成本的概念，揭示了它和“所有权与控制权分离”问题的关系；研究了由于债务和外部股权存在而产生的代理成本的本质，论证了由谁承担和为什么要承担这些成本的问题，并研究了它们存在的帕累托最优条件。

本文也提出了对“公司”这个概念的一个新的定义，并且说明对债务产生和发行以及股权要求的各种影响因素的分析，是如何成为市场完整性问题中供给方的一种特殊情况的。

可是，那些股份公司的总经理们管理着他人的而不是自己的钱财，可以料想，他们不会像那些私有合伙入时刻警惕地关注着自己的福利一样，去关注公司的福利。

就好像一个富人的仆人那样，他们喜欢留心与主人无关的小东西，并放纵自己去获得。

因而在那样一个公司的事务管理中，疏忽和浪费现象必然多多少少地盛行起来。

(Adan2 Smith，The wealth of Nations,1776(Cannan Edition,MOdernLibrary，New Y_ork，1937，p.700.) 引言论文的动机本文运用了(1)产权理论、(2)代理理论和(3)财务理论的最新发展以构造出一种公司所有权结构[1]的理论。

而且除了综合以上三个领域的理论要素以外，我们的分析还重新阐明和涉及诸如公司的定义、“所有权与控制权分离”问题、企业的“社会责任”、“公司目标函数”的定义、最优资本结构的决定、信贷协议内容的具体化、组织理论、市场完整性问题的供给方等一系列问题。

我们的理论有助于理解：(1)在一个混合财务结构(包括负债和外部股权两种要求权)的公司里，其企业家或经理为什么会采取一系列行动使该公司的总价值比他是惟一所有权人时的公司的价值低，而且为什么不论该公司是不是垄断性的，其产品是否有竞争对手，市场是不是要素市场，以上结论都一样；(2)为什么其行为不使公司价值最大化，但却完全与效率相一致；(3)为什么甚至在他没有使公司的价值最大化的情况下，普通股的出售仍是一种可行的资本来源；(4)在负债融资相对股票融资可提供税收优惠之前，为什么负债被当作一种可依赖的资本来源；(5)为什么要发行优先股；(6)为什么会计报告要自愿地提供给债权人和股票持有人，为什么要由管理部门安排独立的审计人员来检查报告的精确度和准确性；(7)为什么贷款人对他放贷的公司的行为经常加以限制，以及为什么公司自己会建议施加这些限制；(8)为什么一些行业以由其所有权人运营公司为特色，而这些公司的惟一外部资本来源是借贷；(9)为什么被高度管制的行业，比如公用事业或银行业，在风险水平相当时比一般非被管制公司具有更高的负债股权比：(10)即使证券分析并不能增加投资者的证券组合收益，为什么它是有社会化生产力的。

资本结构理论的发展大致可以分为三个阶段，即传统资本结构理论、现代资本结构理论和新资本结构理论（沈艺峰，1999）。

早期的资本结构理论可以追溯到1946年希克斯的《价值与资本》专著。

杜兰特（1952）曾总结出：传统资本结构理论一般采用企业净运营收入（NOI）或净收入（NI）或介于两者之间的折中方法来研究企业资本结构与企业价值之间的关系。

其中代表学者有威廉斯、高顿、布里汉等，他们对财务杠杠对企业价值的影响观点存在许多分歧，争论难以达成一致。

杜兰特是传统资本结构理论和现代资本结构理论的过渡者，在他的研究中，关键是提出了“资本化率”的概念。

在财务学中，资本化率用于收益的资本化，是收益转化为资本的比率。

他的NOI方法和后来的MM定理逻辑上是一致的，说明企业的净运营收益除以适当的资本化比率，可以得到企业债券和股票价值相符合的企业价值。

1952年，杜兰特和莫迪格利亚尼曾在一次财务学会议上讨论过此问题，这也为后者在八年之后提出重要的MM定理打下了基础。

1958年，莫迪格利亚尼和米勒发表了通称的“MM定理”，MM定理指出在一系列严格假设和完美世界的前提下，企业价值和企业资本结构无关。

它成为资本结构理论中的经典文献，其后众多学者的研究大部分是基于此开展的。

20世纪70年代，资本结构理论的研究以MM定理为中心，沿着两个主要分支发展，一个分支是探讨税收差异对资本结构的影响，被称为“税差学派”另一个分支研究破产成本与资本结构的关系，发展成为财务困境成本学派，形成“破产成本主义”和“财务困境主义”，这两个分支最后合并为权衡理论，也称为最优资本结构理论。

70年代后期，随着信息经济学和博弈论的发展并被引入资本结构研究的领域，资本结构理论的研究取得了巨大的进展，大量有重要贡献的文献和成果不断涌现，这一阶段的研究成果可以概括为新资本结构理论，主要理论分支有优序融资理论、代理成本学说、激励理论、信号理论、控制权理论（治理结构理论）等，使人们对资本结构和企业价值之间关系认识更加深入和清晰，并为进一步的探索打下了坚实的理论基础。

代理理论和公司治理结构理论1.代理理论（1）代理理论的起源及发展西方的现代企业理论有两个主要分支：交易成本理论和代理理论。

交易成本理论重点在于研究企业与市场的关系，代理理论则侧重于分析企业内部权力结构安排及企业成员之间的代理关系。

企业的交易成本理论之先河由科斯(Coase, 1937)开辟，之后又由阿尔钦和德姆塞茨(Alchina and Demsetz, 1972) 、威廉姆森(Wiliamson, 1975.1980) 、克莱因(Kleinetal，1978)、詹森和麦克林(Jensen and Meckling，1976. 1979) 、利兰和派尔(Leland and pyle，1977)，罗斯(Ross，1977)等其他学者加以扩展。

这一派理论的共旨是，企业乃“一系列合约的联结”。

虽然每个作者的侧重点各不相同，但研究重点仅限于研究企业与市场的关系，其实质是企业要在纵向一体化和现货市场购买之间做出选择。

当企业决定扩大企业规模而非在市场上购买时，他不得不雇用一个负责该项生产的管理者。

这时企业业主面临如何监督激励管理者的问题。

代理理论的发展总共分为三个阶段：团队生产、代理成本、委托—代理理论。

第一，团队生产阿尔钦和德姆塞茨(Alchina and Demsetz, 1972)提出了团队生产理论。

他们认为企业是一种典型的团队生产，所谓团队生产是指：一种产品是由若干个集体内部成员协同生产出来的，任何一个成员的行为都将影响其他成员的生产率（中国的形象说法：一个和尚担水吃，两个和尚抬水吃，三个和尚没水吃）。

正由于最终产出物是一种共同努力的结果，而在企业具体生产过程中每个成员的个人贡献又不可能精确地进行分解和测量，因此也就不可能按照每个人的真实贡献去支付报酬。

这就引出一个偷懒问题：团队成员缺乏努力工作的积极性。

为了减少这种规避行为，就必须让部分成员专门从事监督其他成员的工作，因而监督者还必须是企业的所有者，否则监督成本过高。

关于资本结构的论文1.1 选题背景和意义自从1958年ModigHalli与Miller提出在完善的资本市场中，假如不存在税收、破产成本以及代理成本的阻碍，那么企业市场价值将与其资本结构无关的观点(即M—M 定理)以后，资本结构开始成为理论界和实务界烈火探讨的话题。

八十年代往常，学者们做的资本结构的研究差不多上基于传统公司财务理论的视角下进行的，即把产品市场上的产量、定价、行业特点等均视为外生变量，并假设这些变量是可不能对企业的资本结构产生任何阻碍的。

然而，在现实的不完善的资本市场中，企业资本结构与产品市场中的这些变量并不是相互分离的。

它们是有着不可分割的关系的。

但是，由于在20世纪八十年代往常，对企业资本结构的研究和企业产品市场上经营决策的研究一直在财务学和产业组织学两个不同的领域内分别展开，导致它们之间的关系呈割裂状态，长久以来得不到重视和进展。

直到1986年，B咖der和Lewis在‘美国经济评论》发表了‘寡占与财务结构：有限责任效应一文，文中分析了公司资本结构关于公司产品市场行为的阻碍，首次将产业组织理论和公司财务理论融合起来。

由此，资本结构和产品市场竞争之间的关系才引起金融经济学家和产业经济学家的广泛关注。

[1]资本结构是企业理财的关键环节，也是公司治理的关键。

资本结构是否合理将会直截了当阻碍到企业目前和今后的进展状况，资本结构是企业相关利益者权益义务的集中反映，阻碍并决定着公司治理，进而阻碍并决定企业行为特点和企业价值。

企业融资是现代企业经营决策的一项重要内容。

给定投资机会，企业可供选择的融资方式要紧有两个：股权融资及债权融资。

资本结构的不同安排对企业的市场价值有直截了当阻碍。

关于这方面的讨论，从早期的资本结构理论、Ｍ—Ｍ定理及修正理论、权衡理论，到梅耶斯的等级（优序）融资理论，都对此进行了多方面的探讨，形成了完整的企业优序融资理论。

但在我国，由于资本市场不发达、市场法律环境不完善、存在严峻的信息非均衡以及股东的监控比较薄弱，大多数企业的融资偏好是股权（股票）融资。

Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior,Agency Costs and Ownership StructureMichael C. JensenHarvard Business SchoolandWilliam H. MecklingUniversity of RochesterAbstractThis paper integrates elements from the theory of agency, the theory of property rights and the theory of finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm. We define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the ‘separation and control’issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt andoutside equity, demonstrate who bears costs and why, and investigate the Paretooptimality of their existence. We also provide a new definition of the firm, and showhow our analysis of the factors influencing the creation and issuance of debt and equity claims is a special case of the supply side of the completeness of markets problem.The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather ofother people’s money than of their own, it cannot well b e expected, that they shouldwatch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a privatecopartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not for thei r master’s honour, and very easilygive themselves a dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company.—Adam Smith (1776) Keywords: Agency costs and theory, itnernal control systems, conflicts of interest, capital structure, internal equity, outside equity, demand for security analysis, completeness of markets, supply of claims, limited liability©1976 Jensen and MecklingJournal of Financial Economics, October, 1976, V. 3, No. 4, pp. 305-360.Reprinted in Michael C. Jensen, A Theory of the Firm: Governance, Residual Claims and Organizational Forms (Harvard University Press, December 2000) available at /catalog/JENTHF.htmlAlso published in Foundations of Organizational Strategy,Michael C. Jensen, Harvard University Press, 1998.This document is available on theSocial Science Research Network (SSRN) Electronic Library at:/sol3/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_ID=94043Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior,Agency Costs and Ownership StructureMichael C. JensenHarvard Business SchoolandWilliam H. Meckling*University of Rochester1. Introduction1.1. Motivation of the PaperIn this paper we draw on recent progress in the theory of (1) property rights, (2) agency, and (3) finance to develop a theory of ownership structure1 for the firm. In addition to tyingtogether elements of the theory of each of these three areas, our analysis casts new light on andhas implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature including the definiti on of the firm, the “separation of ownership and control,” the “social responsibility” of business, the definition of a “corporate objective function,” the determination of an optimal capital structure, the specification of the content of credit agreements, the theory of organizations, and the supply side of the completeness of markets problems.1 We do not use the term ‘capital structure’ because that term usually denotes the relative quantities ofbonds, equity, warrants, trade credit, etc., which represent the liabilities of a firm. Our theory implies there isanother important dimension to this problem—namely the relative amount of ownership claims held byinsiders (management) and outsiders (investors with no direct role in the management of the firm).* Associate Professor and Dean, respectively, Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester. Anearlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Analysis and Ideology, Interlaken,Switzerland, June 1974, sponsored by the Center for Research in Government Policy and Business at theUniversity of Rochester, Graduate School of Management. We are indebted to F. Black, E. Fama, R.Ibbotson, W. Klein, M. Rozeff, R. Weil, O. Williamson, an anonymous referee, and to our colleagues andmembers of the Finance Workshop at the University of Rochester for their comments and criticisms, inparticular G. Benston, M. Canes, D. Henderson, K. Leffler, J. Long, C. Smith, R. Thompson, R. Watts, and J. Zimmerman.Our theory helps explain:1. why an entrepreneur or manager in a firm which has a mixed financial structure(containing both debt and outside equity claims) will choose a set of activities for thefirm such that the total value of the firm is less than it would be if he were the sole owner and why this result is independent of whether the firm operates in monopolisticor competitive product or factor markets;2. why his failure to maximize the value of the firm is perfectly consistent withefficiency;3. why the sale of common stock is a viable source of capital even though managers donot literally maximize the value of the firm;4. why debt was relied upon as a source of capital before debt financing offered any taxadvantage relative to equity;5. why preferred stock would be issued;6. why accounting reports would be provided voluntarily to creditors and stockholders,and why independent auditors would be engaged by management to testify to the accuracy and correctness of such reports;7. why lenders often place restrictions on the activities of firms to whom they lend, andwhy firms would themselves be led to suggest the imposition of such restrictions;8. why some industries are characterized by owner-operated firms whose sole outsidesource of capital is borrowing;9. why highly regulated industries such as public utilities or banks will have higher debtequity ratios for equivalent levels of risk than the average nonregulated firm;10. why security analysis can be socially productive even if it does not increase portfolioreturns to investors.1.2 Theory of the Firm: An Empty Box?While the literature of economics is replete with references to the “theory of the firm,”the material generally subsumed under that heading is not actually a theory of the firm but rather a theory of markets in which firms are important actors. The firm is a “black box” operated so as to meet the relevant marginal conditions with respect to inputs and outputs, thereby maximizing profits, or more accurately, present value. Except for a few recent and tentative steps, however,we have no theory which explains how the conflicting objectives of the individual participants are brought into equilibrium so as to yield this result. The limitations of this black box view of the firm have been cited by Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, among others. More recently, popular and professional debates over the “social responsibility” of corporations, the separation of ownershipand control, and the rash of reviews of the literature on the “theory of the firm” have evidenced continuing concern with these issues.2A number of major attempts have been made during recent years to construct a theory ofthe firm by substituting other models for profit or value maximization, with each attempt motivatedby a conviction that the latter is inadequate to explain managerial behavior in large corporations.3Some of these reformulation attempts have rejected the fundamental principle of maximizing2 Reviews of this literature are given by Peterson (1965), Alchian (1965, 1968), Machlup (1967), Shubik (1970), Cyert and Hedrick (1972), Branch (1973), Preston (1975).3 See Williamson (1964, 1970, 1975), Marris (1964), Baumol (1959), Penrose (1958), and Cyert and March (1963). Thorough reviews of these and other contributions are given by Machlup (1967) and Alchian (1965). Simon (1955) developed a model of human choice incorporating information (search) and computationalcosts which also has important implications for the behavior of managers. Unfortunately, Simon’s work hasoften been misinterpreted as a denial of maximizing behavior, and misused, especially in the marketing and behavioral science literature. His later use of the term “satisficing” (Simon, 1959) has undoubtedlycontributed to this confusion because it suggests rejection of maximizing behavior rather than maximization subject to costs of information and of decision making.behavior as well as rejecting the more specific profit-maximizing model. We retain the notion of maximizing behavior on the part of all individuals in the analysis that follows.41.3 Property RightsAn independent stream of research with important implications for the theory of the firmhas been stimulated by the pioneering work of Coase, and extended by Alchian, Demsetz, and others.5A comprehensive survey of this literature is given by Furubotn and Pejovich (1972). While the focus of this research has been “property rights”,6the subject matter encompassed is far broader than that term suggests. What is important for the problems addressed here is that specification of individual rights determines how costs and rewards will be allocated among the participants in any organization. Since the specification of rights is generally affected through contracting (implicit as well as explicit), individual behavior in organizations, including the behaviorof managers, will depend upon the nature of these contracts. We focus in this paper on the behavioral implications of the property rights specified in the contracts between the owners and managers of the firm.1.4 Agency CostsMany problems associated with the inadequacy of the current theory of the firm can alsobe viewed as special cases of the theory of agency relationships in which there is a growing4 See Meckling (1976) for a discussion of the fundamental importance of the assumption of resourceful, evaluative, maximizing behavior on the part of individuals in the development of theory. Klein (1976) takesan approach similar to the one we embark on in this paper in his review of the theory of the firm and the law.5 See Coase (1937, 1959, 1960), Alchian (1965, 1968), Alchian and Kessel (1962), Demsetz (1967), Alchian andDemsetz (1972), Monson and Downs (1965), Silver and Auster (1969), and McManus (1975).6 Property rights are of course human rights, i.e., rights which are possessed by human beings. The introduction of the wholly false distinction between property rights and human rights in many policy discussions is surely one of the all time great semantic flimflams.literature.7 This literature has developed independently of the property rights literature even though the problems with which it is concerned are similar; the approaches are in fact highly complementary to each other.We define an agency relationship as a contract under which one or more persons (the principal(s)) engage another person (the agent) to perform some service on their behalf whichinvolves delegating some decision making authority to the agent. If both parties to the relationshipare utility maximizers, there is good reason to believe that the agent will not always act in the best interests of the principal. The principal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the aberrant activities of the agent. In addition in some situations it will pay the agent to expend resources (bonding costs) to guarantee that he will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions. However, it is generally impossible for the principal or the agent at zero cost to ensure that the agent will make optimal decisions from the principal’s viewpoint. In most agency relationships the principal and the agent will incur positive monitoring and bonding costs (non-pecuniary as well as pecuniary), and in addition there will be some divergence between the agent’s decisions8andthose decisions which would maximize the welfare of the principal. The dollar equivalent of the reduction in welfare experienced by the principal as a result of this divergence is also a cost of the agency relationship, and we refer to this latter cost as the “residual loss.”We define a gency costs as the sum of:7Cf. Berhold (1971), Ross (1973, 1974a), Wilson (1968, 1969), and Heckerman (1975).8 Given the optimal monitoring and bonding activities by the principal and agent.1. the monitoring expenditures by the principal,92. the bonding expenditures by the agent,3. the residual loss.Note also that agency costs arise in any situation involving cooperative effort (such as the co- authoring of this paper) by two or more people even though there is no clear-cut principal-agent relationship. Viewed in this light it is clear that our definition of agency costs and their importanceto the theory of the firm bears a close relationship to the problem of shirking and monitoring of team production which Alchian and Demsetz (1972) raise in their paper on the theory of the firm.Since the relationship between the stockholders and the managers of a corporation fits the definition of a pure agency relationship, it should come as no surprise to discover that the issuesassociated with the “separation of ownership and control” in the modern diffuse ownership corporation are intimately associated with the general problem of agency. We show below that an explanation of why and how the agency costs generated by the corporate form are born leads to atheory of the ownership (or capital) structure of the firm.Before moving on, however, it is worthwhile to point out the generality of the agency problem. The problem of inducing an “agent” to behave as if he were maximizing the “principal’s” welfare is quite general. It exists in all organizations and in all cooperative efforts—at every level of management in firms,10in universities, in mutual companies, in cooperatives, in9 As it is used in this paper the term monitoring includes more than just measuring or observing the behaviorof the agent. It includes efforts on the part of the principal to ‘control’ the behavior of the agent throughbudget restrictions, compensation policies, operating rules, etc.10 As we show below the existence of positive monitoring and bonding costs will result in the manager of acorporation possessing control over some resources which he can allocate (within certain constraints) tosatisfy his own preferences. However, to the extent that he must obtain the cooperation of others in orderto carry out his tasks (such as divisional vice presidents) and to the extent that he cannot control theirbehavior perfectly and costlessly they will be able to appropriate some of these resources for their ownends. In short, there are agency costs generated at every level of the organization. Unfortunately, theanalysis of these more general organizational issues is even more difficult than that of the ‘ownership andgovernmental authorities and bureaus, in unions, and in relationships normally classified as agency relationships such as those common in the performing arts and the market for real estate. The development of theories to explain the form which agency costs take in each of these situations (where the contractual relations differ significantly), and how and why they are born will lead to arich theory of organizations which is now lacking in economics and the social sciences generally.We confine our attention in this paper to only a small part of this general problem—the analysis of agency costs generated by the contractual arrangements between the owners and top management of the corporation.Our approach to the agency problem here differs fundamentally from most of the existing literature. That literature focuses almost exclusively on the normative aspects of the agency relationship; that is, how to structure the contractual relation (including compensation incentives) between the principal and agent to provide appropriate incentives for the agent to make choices which will maximize the principal’s welfare, given that uncertainty and imperfect monitoring exist. We focus almost entirely on the positive aspects of the theory. That is, we assume individuals solve these normative problems, and given that only stocks and bonds can be issued as claims, we investigate the incentives faced by each of the parties and the elements entering into the determination of the equilibrium contractual form characterizing the relationship between the manager (i.e., agent) of the firm and the outside equity and debt holders (i.e., principals).1.5 General Comments on the Definition of the firmRonald Coase in his seminal paper entitled “The Nature of the Firm” (1937) pointed out that economics had no positive theory to determine the bounds of the firm. He characterized thecontrol’ issue because the nature of the contractual obligations and rights of the parties are much morevaried and generally not as well specified in explicit contractual arrangements. Nevertheless, they exist andwe believe that extensions of our analysis in these directions show promise of producing insights into aviable theory of organization.bounds of the firm as that range of exchanges over which the market system was suppressed and where resource allocation was accomplished instead by authority and direction. He focused onthe cost of using markets to effect contracts and exchanges and argued that activities would be included within the firm whenever the costs of using markets were greater than the costs of usingdirect authority. Alchian and Demsetz (1972) object to the notion that activities within the firm aregoverned by authority, and correctly emphasize the role of contracts as a vehicle for voluntary exchange. They emphasize the role of monitoring in situations in which there is joint input or team production.11 We are sympathetic to with the importance they attach to monitoring, but we believethe emphasis that Alchian and Demsetz place on joint input production is too narrow and therefore misleading. Contractual relations are the essence of the firm, not only with employees but with suppliers, customers, creditors, and so on. The problem of agency costs and monitoring exists forall of these contracts, independent of whether there is joint production in their sense; i.e., joint production can explain only a small fraction of the behavior of individuals associated with a firm.It is important to recognize that most organizations are simply legal fictions12which serveas a nexus for a set of contracting relationships among individuals.This includes firms, non-profit institutions such as universities, hospitals, and foundations, mutual organizations such as mutual savings banks and insurance companies and co-operatives, some private clubs, and even governmental bodies such as cities, states, and the federal government, government enterprises such as TVA, the Post Office, transit systems, and so forth.11 They define the classical capitalist firm as a contractual organization of inputs in which there is ‘(a) jointinput production, (b) several input owners, (c) one party who is common to all the contracts of the jointinputs, (d) who has rights to renegotiate any input’s contract independently of contracts with other input owners, (e) who holds the residual claim, and (f) who has the right to sell his contractual residual status.’12 By legal fiction we mean the artificial construct under the law which allows certain organizations to betreated as individuals.The private corporation or firm is simply one form of legal fiction which serves as a nexusfor contracting relationships and which is also characterized by the existence of divisible residualclaims on the assets and cash flows of the organization which can generally be sold without permission of the other contracting individuals. Although this definition of the firm has little substantive content, emphasizing the essential contractual nature of firms and other organizations focuses attention on a crucial set of questions—why particular sets of contractual relations arise for various types of organizations, what the consequences of these contractual relations are, and how they are affected by changes exogenous to the organization. Viewed this way, it makes littleor no sense to try to distinguish those things that are “inside” the firm (or any other organization)from those things that are “outside” of it. There is in a very real sense only a multitude of complex relationships (i.e., contracts) between the legal fiction (the firm) and the owners of labor, material and capital inputs and the consumers of output.13Viewing the firm as the nexus of a set of contracting relationships among individuals alsoserves to make it clear that the personalization of the firm implied by asking questions such as “what should be the objective function of the firm?” or “does the firm have a social responsibility?” is seriously misleading. The firm is not an individual. It is a legal fiction which serves as a focus for a complex process in which the conflicting objectives of individuals (some ofwhom may “represent” other organizations) are brought into equilibrium within a framework of contractual relations. In this sense the “behavior” of the firm is like the behavior of a market, thatis, the outcome of a complex equilibrium process. We seldom fall into the trap of characterizing13 For example, we ordinarily think of a product as leaving the firm at the time it is sold, but implicitly or explicitly such sales generally carry with them continuing contracts between the firm and the buyer. If theproduct does not perform as expected the buyer often can and does have a right to satisfaction. Explicitevidence that such implicit contracts do exist is the practice we occasionally observe of specific provisionthat ‘all sales are final.’the wheat or stock market as an individual, but we often make this error by thinking about organizations as if they were persons with motivations and intentions.141.6 Overview of the PaperWe develop our theory in stages. Sections 2 and 4 provide analyses of the agency costsof equity and debt respectively. These form the major foundation of the theory. In Section 3, wepose some questions regarding the existence of the corporate form of organization and examinesthe role of limited liability. Section 5 provides a synthesis of the basic concepts derived in sections2-4 into a theory of the corporate ownership structure which takes account of the trade-offs available to the entrepreneur-manager between inside and outside equity and debt. Some qualifications and extensions of the analysis are discussed in section 6, and section 7 contains a brief summary and conclusions.2. The Agency Costs of Outside Equity2.1 OverviewIn this section we analyze the effect of outside equity on agency costs by comparing the behavior of a manager when he owns 100 percent of the residual claims on a firm with his behavior when he sells off a portion of those claims to outsiders. If a wholly-owned firm is managed by the owner, he will make operating decisions that maximize his utility. These decisions14 This view of the firm points up the important role which the legal system and the law play in social organizations, especially, the organization of economic activity. Statutory laws sets bounds on the kinds of contracts into which individuals and organizations may enter without risking criminal prosecution. Thepolice powers of the state are available and used to enforce performance of contracts or to enforce thecollection of damages for non-performance. The courts adjudicate conflicts between contracting parties and establish precedents which form the body of common law. All of these government activities affect both the kinds of contracts executed and the extent to which contracting is relied upon. This in turn determines the usefulness, productivity, profitability and viability of various forms of organization. Moreover, new laws as well as court decisions often can and do change the rights of contracting parties ex post, and they can anddo serve as a vehicle for redistribution of wealth. An analysis of some of the implications of these facts is contained in Jensen and Meckling (1978) and we shall not pursue them here.will involve not only the benefits he derives from pecuniary returns but also the utility generated by various non-pecuniary aspects of his entrepreneurial activities such as the physical appointmentsof the office, the attractiveness of the office staff, the level of employee discipline, the kind andamount of charitable contributions, personal relations (“friendship,”“respect,” and so on) with employees, a larger than optimal computer to play with, or purchase of production inputs from friends. The optimum mix (in the absence of taxes) of the various pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits is achieved when the marginal utility derived from an additional dollar of expenditure (measured net of any productive effects) is equal for each non-pecuniary item and equal to the marginal utility derived from an additional dollar of after-tax purchasing power (wealth).If the owner-manager sells equity claims on the corporation which are identical to his own(i.e., which share proportionately in the profits of the firm and have limited liability), agency costswill be generated by the divergence between his interest and those of the outside shareholders,since he will then bear only a fraction of the costs of any non-pecuniary benefits he takes out in maximizing his own utility. If the manager owns only 95 percent of the stock, he will expend resources to the point where the marginal utility derived from a dollar’s expenditure of the firm’s resources on such items equals the marginal utility of an additional 95 cents in general purchasing power (i.e., his share of the wealth reduction) and not one dollar. Such activities, on his part, canbe limited (but probably not eliminated) by the expenditure of resources on monitoring activities bythe outside stockholders. But as we show below, the owner will bear the entire wealth effects ofthese expected costs so long as the equity market anticipates these effects. Prospective minority shareholders will realize that the owner-manager’s interests will diverge somewhat from theirs; hence the price which they will pay for shares will reflect the monitoring costs and the effect of the divergence between the manager’s interest and theirs. Nevertheless, ignoring for the momentthe possibility of borrowing against his wealth, the owner will find it desirable to bear these costsas long as the welfare increment he experiences from converting his claims on the firm into general purchasing power15 is large enough to offset them.As the owner-manager’s fraction of the equity falls, his fractional claim on the outcomesfalls and this will tend to encourage him to appropriate larger amounts of the corporate resourcesin the form of perquisites. This also makes it desirable for the minority shareholders to expendmore resources in monitoring his behavior. Thus, the wealth costs to the owner of obtaining additional cash in the equity markets rise as his fractional ownership falls.We shall continue to characterize the agency conflict between the owner-manager and outside shareholders as deriving from the manager’s tendency to appropriate perquisites out of the firm’s resources for his own consumption. However, we do not mean to leave the impression that this is the only or even the most important source of conflict. Indeed, it is likely that the most important conflict arises from the fact that as the manager’s ownership claim falls, his incentive to devote significant effort to creative activities such as searching out new profitable ventures falls.He may in fact avoid such ventures simply because it requires too much trouble or effort on his part to manage or to learn about new technologies. Avoidance of these personal costs and the anxieties that go with them also represent a source of on-the-job utility to him and it can result inthe value of the firm being substantially lower than it otherwise could be.2.2 A Simple Formal Analysis of the Sources of Agency Costs of Equity and Who Bears ThemIn order to develop some structure for the analysis to follow we make two sets of assumptions. The first set (permanent assumptions) are those which will carry through almost allof the analysis in sections 2-5. The effects of relaxing some of these are discussed in section 6.15 For use in consumption, for the diversification of his wealth, or more importantly, for the financing of ‘profitable’ projects which he could not otherwise finance out of his personal wealth. We deal with these issues below after having developed some of the elementary analytical tools necessary to their solution.。