CEO overconfidence, REIT investment activity, and performance

P.M.A. Eichholtz*, E. Yonder

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This is the first article to study the effects of overconfidence on trading activity and performance in real estate. The article looks at real estate investment trusts (reits), as their investments and divestments can be identified with precision. We look at the effect of ceo overconfidence on investment activity and separately investigate property acquisitions and dispositions. We find that reits with overconfident ceos tend to invest more; these reits acquire more assets and are less likely to sell assets than their counterparts if they have enough discretionary cash. Valuable private information is not the main driver for ceos to be net buyers of company shares: the shares of their companies perform relatively weakly. In addition, we find that overconfident managers have lower property investment performance measured by net operating income and gain on sale of real estate.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)139-162
JournalReal Estate Economics
Volume43
Issue number1
Early online date2 Jun 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

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