AN INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIORAL CORPORATE FINANCE

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect the behavioral aspects that govern corporations. The paper briefly presents some of the main pillars of behavioral corporate finance: management, closed – end funds puzzle, dividends and the importance of aggregate earnings releases. The first pillar consists in a brief presentation of the behavioral factors related to the management of corporations, such as the fact that independent directors are not that independent as they should be, they do not have the prerequisite expertise for assessing complex financial risks, the importance of ethics and having a corporate culture that nurtures doing the right thing above anything else and the fact that CEO’s decisions reflect in good part, their personal style rather than a set of criteria determined by the company. In the second part of the paper, it is treated the puzzle why would investors buy a closed-end fund at its IPO price, knowing that it is likely to fall to a discount, when they could buy instead an open-end fund that is guaranteed always to trade at par and some mentions about the way that dividend policy may be influenced by managers “catering” to the demands of investors and also the effects of aggregate earnings announcements over the market returns.

Keywords

• Behavioral finance, conflicts of interests, corporate finance, managers, dividends, closed-end fund puzzle, aggregate earnings