The Economics of Conflicts of Interest in Financial Institutions
The Economics of Conflicts of Interest in Financial Institutions
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DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.943447
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发表时间：
2006-11
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Hamid Mehran;René M. Stulz
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hamid Mehran;René M. Stulz
当交易一方可能通过采取不利于交易另一方的行动来获取利益时，就存在利益冲突。本文研究了金融机构利益冲突的经济学，并回顾了越来越多的关于这些冲突的经济影响的实证文献（主要集中于分析师）。经济分析表明，尽管当合同成本高昂且各方信息不完全时，利益冲突无处不在，但有一些重要因素可以减轻其影响，而且引人注目的是，金融机构的客户有可能从此类冲突的存在中受益。实证文献得出的结论因利益冲突的类型而异，但总体而言，这些结论更加矛盾，而且肯定比记者和政客根据大多数轶事证据得出的结论更加温和。尽管人们对投资银行活动引起的利益冲突进行了很多研究，但实证文献中并没有达成共识，支持这些活动引起的利益冲突对金融机构的客户产生系统性不利影响的观点。
A conflict of interest exists when a party to a transaction could potentially make a gain from taking actions that are detrimental to the other party in the transaction. This paper examines the economics of conflicts of interest in financial institutions and reviews the growing empirical literature (mostly focused on analysts) on the economic implications of these conflicts. Economic analysis shows that, although conflicts of interest are omnipresent when contracting is costly and parties are imperfectly informed, there are important factors that mitigate their impact and, strikingly, it is possible for customers of financial institutions to benefit from the existence of such conflicts. The empirical literature reaches conclusions that differ across types of conflicts of interest, but overall these conclusions are more ambivalent and certainly more benign than the conclusions drawn by journalists and politicians from mostly anecdotal evidence. Though much has been made of conflicts of interest arising from investment banking activities, there is no consensus in the empirical literature supporting the view that conflicts resulting from these activities had a systematic adverse impact on customers of financial institutions.