Capital Expenditure Behavior of Overconfident Managers of Japanese Firms: Empirical Evidence During the Financial Crisis in Japan

Malmendier and Tate (2005) and Aktas et al. (2019) suggested that overconfident managers will invest if they have sufficient internal funds. Still, they will save internal funds instead of reducing investment if they have insufficient internal funds because they perceive more substantial financial constraints than other managers. This study examines whether overconfident managers will not invest when the financial crisis makes it difficult to raise external funds. In particular, during the financial crisis in Japan, banks simultaneously provided active monitoring and financing to firms with strong relationships with banks. Therefore, this study can also examine the relationship between overconfident managers and bank behavior by focusing on Japanese firms. This study examines whether overconfident managers increase their investment in firms with strong relationships with banks during the financial crisis. The results of this study showed that overconfident managers, especially their firms with strong relationships with banks, reduce investments more than other managers during the financial crisis. This study suggests that Japanese banks reduced financial constraints and exerted strong corporate governance on Japanese firms during the financial crisis.