Inflation risk, wealth expropriation and governance implications

Abstract

With its often unperceived impact, interest rates and inflation volatility strongly affect long term stability within the firm, surreptitiously reshaping equilibria among different stakeholders and so raising key corporate governance concerns. Whereas the impact of interest rates and inflation on capital budgeting issues had been extensively analyzed, little attention has been paid to corporate governance implications, concerning key issues such as “optimal” (indexed) contracting, effective corporate ownership (messed up by wealth expropriation and redistribution), asset substitution or information asymmetries (embedded in hidden impacts on interest/inflation sensitive assets and liabilities). The topic is so theoretically and practically captivating, filling a gap in the existing literature and addressing real value protection targets, unassumingly crucial even for corporate ownership and control issues.