Testing trade-off theory and pecking order theory under managerial overconfidence

Raising capital and decide on capital structure still seems to be puzzle. Still, much research has been devoted to investigating the issue, and there are theories that have been developed to try to explain company-financing behavior. There is especially a lot of research that tackles this by applying trade-off theory (TOT) and pecking order theory (POT) assumptions. The results, however, of extensive attempts leave us with no consistent answer.

The lack of consensus on a theory that might explain financing decisions was a trigger to bring other factors into the analysis. Recently, behavioral factors have been included into explaining financing decision-making. One of intensively studied behavioral bias herein is overconfidence.

Overconfidence is one of the most catastrophic cognitive biases [Plous, 1993], yet although there is much research on overconfidence, there is no one measure of overconfidence. Indeed, while the financing and capital structure of companies managed by overconfident managers has been researched, the results

of such study provide no consistent conclusions: some show that companies managed by overconfident managers use excessive debt, whereas others show debt conservatism.

In our study, we posed several research questions on financing decisions of companies managed by overconfident managers and the aim of the study is to carry out comprehensive research in this field. We want to identify applied static debt ratio and the factors affecting financing decisions. We, hence, attempted to ascertain the target capital structure for each company (according to TOT) and to recognize the distance of actual capital structure from target capital structure, as well as the value of deficit and sources of deficit financing (according to POT). The analysis was carried out by comparing two subsamples: companies managed by overconfident managers and companies managed by nonoverconfident managers.

The originality of our research lies in our applying a unique way of identifying and measuring overconfidence. The added value is that we comprehensively tackled the problem of financing and capital structure. We tried to find a pattern in the static and dynamic capital decisions and to recognize the factors affecting applied capital structure. Of note, most of the existing research compares only debt ratio differences of companies managed by overconfident and nonoverconfident managers. We contribute research into the capital structure decision-making of overconfident managers by calculating not only debt ratio or financial leverage but also recognizing the financing strategy of fixed assets. Herein, we applied TOT and the methodology of setting a target debt ratio [Fama and French, 2002]. We applied POT and methodology of calculating a value of deficit and sources of its financing [Shyam-Sunder and Myers, 1999]. This approach (setting a target debt ratio, calculating deficit, and ascertaining sources of financing) has never been previously applied in research on overconfidence and financing decisions.

Our research covers the unique characteristics of managers (overconfidence) and the specific features of companies (general and financial data). The companies assessed in our work are private Polish companies. We chose Poland because this country has low research coverage, yet it is quite interesting in terms of applied capital structure theories. Poland has a specific geopolitical location and has an economic culture that seeks close political and economic connection with Western countries. This is quite important because most research on overconfidence is on management practices in well-established Western countries (especially the United States), but individual cognitive process depends on cultural context (e.g., Exposure individualism and collectivism). The concepts of individualism and collectivism have been widely discussed. Chui et al. [2010] and Ferris et al. [2013] find that people in an individualistic culture are more likely to be overconfident. According to the GLOBE report the dimension of collectivism and individualism [House et al., 2004; Antonczyk and Salzmann, 2014], the collectivism index for Poland is 5.74, whereas for the United States it is 5.77 (on 1–7 scale), which makes possible comparative research findings.

Finding the answer as to how companies run by overconfident managers are financed is quite important because it will help to recognize overconfident managers, to decide upon their hiring, and to predict what their financing pattern decisions are to be. So far the research findings are inconclusive on the impact of overconfidence on the financing decisions, but in 2015 Kahneman [2015] interviewed for The Guardian said that he would eliminate overconfidence if he had a magic wand.

The paper is organized in the following manner. Section 2 contains a literature review on the TOT and the POT. Section 3 refers to the problem of overconfidence. Section 4 is a literature review on the issue of financing decisions taken by overconfident managers. In this section, we also developed a hypothesis that is to be tested. Section 5 contains a description of methodology implemented. Section 6 contains research findings, especially a description of the sample and a verification of the hypotheses. Conclusions are included in the Section 7.

TOT that is based on research of Modigliani and Miller [1963] including taxes, and later extension with bankruptcy and financial distress costs [Warner, 1977], and the contribution from the agency literature [Jensen and Meckling, 1976], suggest that firms have a unique optimal capital structure. The optimal capital structure is a balanced relation between the debt advantages and costs. Debt advantages include tax advantage of debt financing (i.e., debt tax shields) and the agency benefits of debt. Debt costs consist of the costs of financial distress and the agency costs of debt. Static TOT assumes that in order to increase company value, companies set optimal capital structure by taking into account benefits and costs of debt. According to TOT, companies set a target individual optimal capital structure and attempt to achieve it [Jalilvand and Harris, 1984].

The TOT assumes that every company has its own optimal capital structure, which is used in every penny raised. Every additional capital is gained to keep this optimal capital structure stable, to minimize the cost of capital and maximize the company value [Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Miller, 1977].

The POT developed by Myers and Majluf [Myers, 1984; Myers and Majluf, 1984] and extended by Lucas and McDonald [1990] is based on the information asymmetry between managers and investors of public companies. Herein, managers possess more detailed information about the financial standing, future prospects, and true value of a company than do outside investors. According to Myers [1984], firms primarily finance their activities with retained earnings. If reinvested earnings are inadequate, then the company uses debt securities. If retained earnings and debt securities are not available or sufficient, firms will subsequently issue shares. Thus, the order of financial sources used is as follows: internal funds from profits, debt securities, and finally stocks.

The POT assumes that companies do not have any optimal capital structure, but the capital structure is simply the result of capital-raising decisions. Hence, the gaining of new funds is affected by several factors, including asymmetric information and signaling problems linked to external financing. The theory also touches upon profitability, dividend, and investment decisions. According to this theory, all companies prefer internal to external financing and debt to equity. Moreover, all additional capital is gained by following a specific hierarchy and capital structure might show higher or lower leverage [Myers, 1984; Myers and Majluf 1984; Shyam-Sunder and Myers, 1999]. This theory thus explains why profitable companies have low debt ratios.

Quite often these two theories are perceived as competing [Shyam-Sunder and Myers, 1999; Matemilola et al. 2012; Adair and Adaskou, 2015; Serrasqueiro and Caetano, 2015]. While empirical evidence seems to support the POT prediction, for example, Rajan and Zingales [1995] and Fama and French [2002] among others, Bradley et al. [1984] seem to think that rather than TOT that is actually more valid. It can be argued, however, that both these theories are helpful in explaining financing behavior, as each theory emphasizes different issues and different way of decision-making. In TOT, all additional capital-raising activity follows target capital structure (with cost of capital, debt advantages, and financial distress taken into account). In POT, the company decides the order of money-raising activity (with dividends, investments, profit, asymmetric information, and signaling problems taken into account) no matter what the cost of capital is and no matter what the capital structure will be. Hence, the capital structure according to POT is simply the result of investment decisions and the hierarchy of capital gaining. In actuality, both theories explain certain aspects of financing decisions, as each theory focuses on different factors and different ways of gaining capital. Therefore, in our study, in its title and in accordance with Cotei and Farhat [2009], we do not use the word “versus.”

Capital structure decisions, despite the aforementioned, however, still seem not to be explained, although there are a lot of research and many factors included in these research. Recently behavioral factors have been employed in explaining financing decisions. One of the intensively studied behavioral biases is overconfidence.

Overconfidence is one of many biases and fallacies that have impact on cognitive processes. Overconfidence, however, is the most pervasive, and overconfidence is perceived as prevalent and catastrophic [Plous, 1993, p. 217]. Of note, research in cognitive psychology finds that in certain situations, the majority of persons display overconfidence.

There is no one definition and measure of overconfidence. Eventually, overconfidence was defined as a complex phenomenon. Moore and Healy [2008] assigns three dimensions to overconfidence: (1) overestimation of one’s actual performance (relative to objective standard), (2) overplacement of one’s performance (relative to others), and (3) overoptimism in one’s beliefs.

Generally, overconfident people: do not listen to others’ opinion because they think they possess better knowledge (overestimation), they think they are better than other people at a particular task (overplacement), attribute success to own abilities and failure to that of others’ (self-serving bias), they overestimate their ability to control events (the illusion of control), overestimate probability of positive results and underestimate the failure, and underestimate completion times and overestimating the quality of their performances (the planning fallacy), and are too optimistic about the future (wishful thinking).

In the previous research, there are many ways of identifying managerial overconfidence. The widely used proxies for managerial overconfidence was developed by Malmendier and Tate [2005] and is based on the following: options (longholder, holder 67), shares (net buyer), and press. Another way of identifying overconfident CEOs was proposed by Lin et al. [2005] and was constructed upon how often overconfident managers made upward-biased earnings forecasts. The method based on frequency of M&A was proposed first by Doukas and Petmezas [2007] and was built on how often overconfident managers conduct M&A. A still further method developed by Hayward and Hambrick [1997] considered CEOs’ relative compensations. All of these methods require information that might be collected from analyzing annual reports or financial press. These, however, all identify overconfidence by behavior, not by held beliefs. And managerial behavior might result not from managerial beliefs but from the strategy implemented by the company (e.g., frequency of M&A). What is more, those measures might be applied only to listed companies because these companies release forecasts and information about CEO’s compensation.

No matter how overconfidence was identified and measured, it is perceived as one of the most pervasive biases that strongly affect decisions. Overconfident decision-making has been also observed in financial decisions. Managerial overconfidence leads to a higher probability of failure for newly established companies [Cooper et al. 1988; Russo and Schoemaker, 1992; Busenitz and Barney, 1997; Camerer and Lovallo, 1999; Simon and Houghton 2003; Fitzsimmons and Douglas, 2005; Lee et al., 2016], overinvestment—even in negative NPV projects [Gervais et al. 2002; Heaton, 2002; Malmendier and Tate, 2005; Hirshleifer et al., 2012], lower propensity of dividend payment and lower level of dividend ratio [Brav et al., 2005; Ben-David et al. 2007; Cordeiro, 2009; Deshmukh et al. 2013; Al-Ghazali, 2014], more optimistic financial forecasts [Hribar and Yang, 2010; Hilary and Hsu, 2011; Libby and Rennekamp, 2012], and earnings management [Kasznik, 1999; Hribar and Yang, 2010; Hilary and Hsu 2011; Schrand, and Zechman, 2012; Ahmed and Duellman, 2013; Hwang et al. 2014].

The relationship between overconfidence and financing decisions has been subjected to much research that resulted in inconsistent findings.

Research studies that can be found are on the way the companies managed by overconfident manager are financed, especially when debt ratio is concerned. When static capital structure ratios have been focused upon, researchers noted that overconfident managers keep higher debt ratios than do managers showing no overconfidence [Hackbarth, 2004; Ben-David et al. 2007; Barros and Silveira, 2008; Hackbarth, 2008; Hackbarth, 2009; Park and Kim, 2009; Fedyk, 2014; Rihab and Lotfi, 2016]. The explanation for such higher debt ratios is that overconfident managers underestimate the probability of failure and they cannot see the risk connected with the use of excessive debt. Agency theory helps also to explain the excessive debt ratios. Herein, owners are aware of managerial overconfidence and try to curb overinvestment by using higher debt ratios to mitigate managers. In our research we also will attempt to verify the following hypothesis concerning static capital structure (hypothesis 1):

Hypothesis 1: companies managed by overconfident managers have higher leverage.

All of the aforementioned studies are comparison between actual debt ratios of companies managed by overconfident managers and that of nonoverconfident managers. Yet, such research does not tackle the issue of target capital structure (target debt ratio) and how far is the actual debt ratio of companies managed by overconfident or nonoverconfident manager from their target debt ratio. In this study, therefore, we will attempt to calculate the target debt ratio for each company and discern how actual debt ratio differs from the target debt ratios for companies managed by overconfident managers and by nonoverconfident managers. We assume that overconfident managers overestimate the financial standing so the actual is, in reality, worse. We also assume that overconfident managers underestimate the probability of failure and they use higher debt ratios than their financial standing justifies. This means that the companies managed by overconfident managers have lower target debt ratios than the actual. We have, hence, proposed a hypothesis to tackle the problem of target and actual capital (debt) structure—Hypothesis 2:

Hypothesis 2: companies managed by overconfident managers have higher actual debt ratio than target debt ratio indicate.

Another group of researchers have dealt with the issue of dynamic decisions on overconfident managers’ capital rising. Lin et al. [2008] find that the optimistic CEOs place higher importance of debt use relative to equity. Indeed, the ratios of net debt issues to total external financing are 53% and 49% for the optimistic and the nonoptimistic CEOs, respectively. Optimistic CEOs seem to issue more debt than non-optimistic CEOs. These research findings are consistent with the static capital structure conclusions, hence Hypothesis 3:

Hypothesis 3: companies managed by overconfident managers use more debt to finance deficit.

With regard to the financing decisions of overconfident managers, Heaton [2002] thinks that these individuals refrain from utilizing external financing, especially debt financing, and they attempt to rely solely upon internal financing. Indeed, Malmendier et al. [2011] find that the frequency with which overconfident managers access any external finance (debt or equity) is significantly lower than that of nonoverconfident managers. However, if they choose external financing, they raise 32 cents more debt to cover an extra dollar of deficit than their peers. Malmendier et al. [2011] in explaining these low debt ratios, called this effect “debt conservatism.” They hold the opinion that optimistic managers believe that capital markets perceive firm’s securities to be undervalued, and hence, they refrain from external financing. Herein, Hackbarth [2008] also discovers that overconfident CEOs that show “risk perception bias” tend to consider that their debt is undervalued while equity is overvalued, thus they prefer equity to debt financing. This observed “overconfidence-induced reverse pecking order” approach also confirms the results of the greater frequency of share issuance by overconfident CEOs. What is more, Banerjee et al. [2015] show that overconfident CEOs seem to be more likely to conduct secondary equity offerings and raise larger sums when doing so. In trying to find consensus, Fairchild [2007] developed a model showing that among companies using low debt ratios, there are more overconfident managers, and that among companies using high debt ratios, there are more overconfident managers.

The lack of consistency in current research findings gives a good rationale for further research and for attempts to explain financing decision of companies managed by overconfident managers.

To identify and measure the overconfidence, we followed the methodology of Wrońska-Bukalska [2016] who assumed (after Moore and Healy, 2008) that overconfidence is a complex phenomenon consisting of overestimation, overplacement, and overoptimism. She uses a survey to identify the overconfidence and developed an original method of overconfidence measuring. The survey consists of three parts: the first part (testing overestimation) identifies the scoring dimension and the level of participant confidence in their knowledge; the second part (testing overplacement) detects how participants perceive their future success in relation to other people’s successes; and the third part (testing overoptimism) identifies how participant expect outcomes. The Likert scale was used in the survey. Depending on the results, points are given (−1 if below the middle of the scale, 0 if the middle of the scale, or 1 if above the scale) in each dimension for each person in the sample. The assigned points are then summed up for each participant. The minimum is –3 (indicating strong underconfidence) and the maximum was +3 (indicating strong overconfidence).

To test the static capital structure ratios and to verify Hypothesis 1, we followed the methodology of Rajan and Zingales [1995] in calculating leverage ratios. We presented the data in absolute terms (in thousands PLN) and as the percentage of total assets. We also calculated the ratios indicating financing strategy—the relation of equity to fixed assets and the relation of long-term capital (the sum of equity and long-term liabilities) to fixed assets. To establish the differences in debt ratios, we additionally calculated financial leverage ratio (debt to equity). We subsequently tested the differences using statistical hypothesis testing under the null hypothesis formulation. The null hypothesis is that the there is no difference between two independent group (subsamples): companies managed by overconfident and by nonoverconfident managers.

To test the determinants of capital structure and the financing strategy we utilized the methodology of Titman and Wessels [1988], Bauer [2004], and Anderloni and Tanda [2014]. We identified several dependent variables: debt ratio (the relation of total liabilities to total assets), equity financing ratio (the relation of equity to fixed assets), the long-term financing ratio (the sum of equity and long-term liabilities in the relation of fixed assets), and financial leverage (debt to equity). We employed the following as independent variables: overconfidence, risk (standard deviation of ROA), effects of financial leverage (EFL; the difference between ROE and ROA as a measure of effect of financial leverage), tangibility (share of fixed assets in total assets), size (natural logarithm of Total Assets), and dividend ratio (the relation of dividend paid to net profit). In this part, we carried out the analysis only in relative terms (ratios). To identify the importance of the independent variables, we employed regression analysis for evaluating the relationships among these variables.

Because we expect to find positive coefficient correlation between size and tangibility, we utilized either the first or the second as variables (tangibility or size variable). As equity financing and long-term financing are both calculated in the relation to fixed assets, we employed size as independent variable (instead tangibility, as tangibility is connected with equity and long-term financing). For debt ratio and financial leverage, we used tangibility as the independent variable.

To test the TOT and to verify Hypothesis 2, with regard to target ratio, we followed the methodology of Fama and French [2002] and Ilgaz [2012]. They postulated that there is a target leverage that companies try to adjust to. While Ilgaz [2012] calculated target leverage for both book and market leverage ratios, unlike Ilgaz [2012] we focused only on one dependent variable—book debt ratio (not financial leverage, or equity or long-term financing) to make our research results comparable with others regarding static capital structure decisions. Fama and French [2002] assumed that target leverage ratio depends on profitability, investment, size (natural logarithm of total assets) and notax shield (research and development expenses and depreciation). Ilgaz [2012], in contrast, presupposed that target debt ratio depends on other factors such as: earnings before interest and tax over total assets (profitability), market value over total assets (MV to BV), depreciation over total assets (no-tax shield), logarithm of total assets (size), plant, property and equipment over total assets (tangibility), research and development expenses over total assets (innovativeness), research and development dummy (=1 if R&D expense exists, 0 otherwise), and industry leverage.

We adopted most of the variables, but not all, especially because we dealt with private companies that have no market value based on stock price. Another reason is that we do not have access to some data (especially R&D expenses). Although most studies on determinants of capital structure use both tangibility (fixed assets to total assets) and size (natural logarithm of total assets) variables, we excluded variable size based on natural logarithm of total assets as we found it correlated with tangibility. We therefore, employed the following variables: profitability (as the proxy for financial distress, calculated as the relation of EBITDA to total assets), dividend ratio (as the proxy for agency costs, calculated as the relation of dividend to net profit—the higher dividend, the lower the demand for debt to be used as a tool for mitigating managerial activity), tangibility (as the proxy for stockholder-bondholder agency problems, calculated as the relation of fixed assets to total assets—the higher tangibility, the higher the demand for debt, especially long-term), depreciation (proxy for non-interests tax shield, calculated as the depreciation to total assets—the higher non interest tax shield, the lower the demand for debt and interest tax shielding). We then applied the following equation:

This equation describes how profitability, dividend payout ratio, tangibility, and noninterests tax shield affect the target leverage. We use estimation of the coefficient beta to construct the firms’ annual target leverage ratios. After Ilgaz [2012], and Flannery and Hankins [2013], we employed GMM (generalized methods of moments) estimation method to derive adequate estimates of regression analysis for identifying the target debt ratio. Our estimation procedure is done using STATA software (just as Ilgaz [2012] did) and we used the coefficient beta to construct each firm’s target leverage ratio.

Instead of dynamic analysis of capital structure adjustment decisions (how fast companies adjust their leverage ratio to target leverage ratio), we implemented static analysis that is focused on identifying the target leverage ratio for each company. Hence, we aimed at investigating the differences in target leverage ratio between companies managed by overconfident and non-overconfident managers. Moreover, to establish whether there are any statistically significant differences in target leverage ratio, we applied Mann Whitney U test. The null hypothesis is that the there is no difference between two independent group (subsamples): companies managed by overconfident and non-overconfident managers.

We also calculated the difference between target and actual debt ratio. The difference tells us how far each company is from its target leverage. The difference might be positive—meaning that target ratio is higher than actual one; the difference might be negative—meaning that target ratio is lower than actual leverage ratio. To ascertain whether there are any statistically significant differences between target and actual leverage ratio for both subsamples we employed Mann Whitney U test. The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between two independent groups (subsamples): companies managed by overconfident and nonoverconfident managers.

To test the POT and to verify Hypothesis 3, we followed the methodology of Shyam-Sunder and Myers [1999] and Cotei and Farhat [2008] in identifying the sources of financial deficit. To do so, they use following variables: dividend payment, capital expenditure, net increase in working capital and cash holdings. To establish the sources of financing, they use increase in equity and increase in debt. Their equation of financial deficit and funds is as follows:

We subsequently extended their research by decomposing all elements of the model into the basic, especially the increase in net working capital into which was broken down into: increase in inventory (Inv), increase in operating receivables (Rec), and increase in operating liabilities (Pay). We also decomposed the increase in equity into: increase in share capital as a proxy of shares issuance (Share), and increase in reserve capital as a proxy of earning investment (Res); and increase in debt into: increase in long-term bank loan (LTD), and increase in short-term bank loans (STD). Our attitude is presented in the following equation:

We therefore analyzed the data in relative terms. We normalized the financial deficit and the sources of financing data related to total assets. We also tested the differences between two subsamples using the statistical hypothesis testing under the null hypothesis formulation. The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between two independent groups (subsamples): companies managed by overconfident managers and companies managed by nonoverconfident managers.

We also implemented regression analysis after Shyam-Sunder and Myers [1999], Cotei and Farhat [2008], and Lin et al. [2008]. The dependent variables are: increase in debt (D), long-term bank loans (LTD), short-term bank loans (STD), payables (Pay), equity (E), share capital (Share) and reserve capital (Res), whereas independent are overconfidence (OC) and the value of deficit (DEF). All the proxies used in regression models are normalized by being related to total assets. By using regression analysis, we established whether managerial overconfidence has impact on the financing decisions.

The aim of our paper was to discern the financing decision-making pattern of overconfident managers’. In summarizing our findings, we can conclude that: companies managed by overconfident managers have higher values of equity, but similar debt ratios; they have lower target debt ratios, but their actual debt ratios are closer to target debt ratios; and they show reverse pecking order preference (internal funds first and then issuance of new shares). This is accompanied by higher value of total assets, higher value of fixed assets, lower profitability, lower dividend ratios, and higher investment in fixed assets.

Our findings contradict all three of our hypotheses that assumed that companies managed by overconfident managers have higher debt ratios, have higher actual debt ratio than target debt ratio and that they use more debt to finance deficit. Although our findings contradict the assumption included in our research hypotheses, we find the behavior of overconfident mangers consistent and that they present specific pattern of action: they show higher demand for capital (higher total value of assets, higher value of fixed assets and higher tangibility and higher CapEx), and they show quite a rational attitude toward debt financing (using similar debt ratios to those of companies managed by nonoverconfident managers and using similar increase in debt to finance deficit to those of companies managed by nonoverconfident managers) and they rely more on internal funds and equity.

Our research findings do not support the research results showing a higher leverage ratio and higher propensity of gaining debt capital in companies run by the overconfident that were provided by Barros and Silveira [2008], Ben-David et al. [2007], Fedyk [2014], Hackbarth [2004], Hackbarth [2009], Hackbarth [2008], Rihab and Lotfi [2016], Park and Kim [2009], Ben-David et al. [2007] and Lin et al. [2005]. Our findings are, however, in line with those of Heaton [2002] and Malmendier et al. [2011] who think that overconfident managers refrain from gaining external financing, especially from debt financing and try to rely only on internal financing. After Malmendier et al. [2011], we can call it “debt conservatism”’ as this explains the relatively low debt ratios of companies run by the overconfident. Our research indicates that the dynamic behavior of overconfident managers in gaining capital that is shown in static ratios reveals that they use more equity and practice debt conservatism and have reverse preference for capital. These conclusions are consistent with that of Heaton [2002], Malmendier et al. [2011], Hackbarth [2008], Banerjee et al. [2015].

We might think that overconfident managers would more easier to convince owners to provide them with more money. Still, managers must have convinced the owners in the recruitment process of the merits of the way they apply management practices [Pfeffer et al., 1998; Paredes, 2004; Anderson and Brion, 2010; Mahmoodi et al., 2013; Phua et al., 2018]. To tell overconfident manager from nonoverconfident (rational) is difficult, as behavior of the overconfident makes them appear to be more competent than nonoverconfident. Still, professional lenders (banks) detect the overconfidence quite quickly as the relation between managers and banks is not a matter of trust, but of simple calculations.

We think that our different results on financing decisions are the result of different proxies for overconfidence and different sampling (public or private companies) than that in previous research. The attitudes to financing found in our paper might be the result of the specific characteristic of our sample. The companies in our sample (both managed by overconfident and nonoverconfident managers) are private companies with a low level of agency costs and information asymmetry between the managers and the owners. Thus, there is no need to use debt as a tool to mitigate managers and as a tool of signaling.

The TOT has been tested so far for listed companies with agency problems. We, in contrast, studied private companies where most of the managers are owners at the same time. The problem of agency costs between managers and owners might be different in private and public companies, so there is no need to use debt as a tool to mitigate managers in private companies.

POT was also developed for public and listed companies where information asymmetry and signaling issues are present. Contrarily, we analyzed private companies where most of the managers are the owners at the same time. The problems of information asymmetry and signaling issues might be different in private than in public companies.

We think that overconfident managers believe that financial institutions (especially banks) undervalue firm’s prospects and that is why overconfident manager refrain from obtaining debt financing. This is consistent with the notions put forward by Hackbarth [2008] who found that overconfident CEOs with “risk perception bias” tend to consider that their debt is undervalued while equity is overvalued, hence they prefer equity to debt financing (“overconfidence-induced reverse pecking order”).

But our findings point a future direction of research—investment decisions. In every regression model we developed, tangibility and the value of fixed assets were found to be the most important factors affecting financing decisions. By using more equity, companies managed by overconfident managers implement the more risky strategies of fixed assets financing. Hence, we hold that overconfidence affects the investment decisions, and we intend to find out to what extent investment decisions are affected by managerial overconfidence.