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What Is The Grossman-Stiglitz Paradox?

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In 1970’s a new approach emerged in the economics – the information economics. This assumes that the market actors (the internal and external stakeholders of the companies, i.e. the managers and the investors) are not equally informed, and not equal their chance to access information. This statement contradicts the theory of efficient market, by which the market prices reflect all available information. However, the full efficiency of the financial markets was not proved successfully, the financial markets are theoretically considered strongly efficient. How can be the market actors inequally informed, if the prices are available for the public? The Grossman-Stiglitz paradox gives a possible solution for this problem. Its core reason is if …show more content…

The aim of shareholders is to persuade the company management to make decisions, which maximise the value of the company. The problem is that the principals do not have accurate information about the investment opportunities of the firm, and the value of the company does not depend solely on the effort of the management. By the theory, if the management discloses some actions, it bears the total cost, but it shares in the profit only by its ownership share. (Mikolasek et al., 1996). Generally, the management strives to overinvest. Even the management is not willing to liquidate the company, if its net asset value is larger than the market price of the company. By the representatives of the theory, the increase of leverage is a good solution in these circumstances, since it decreases the free cash-flow spending on investments, and makes the liquidation easier to enforce (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). The conflicts during the company operation between the personal goals of the management and the wealth maximisation of the owners may relate the following fields: • management of assets/investment

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