R&D sensitivity to asset sale proceeds: New evidence on financing constraints and intangible investment

We examine the intersection between corporate divestitures of tangible assets and investment in intangible capital (R&D) to provide new tests for the impact financing constraints have on real activity. A positive R&D sensitivity to asset sale proceeds indicates binding financing constraints since cash inflows from tangible asset sales are negatively correlated with productivity shocks and not otherwise connected to intangible investment via non-financial channels. Using a variety of estimation approaches, we document a strong, positive link between cash inflows from fixed asset sales and corporate R&D investment, but only among firms most likely facing binding financing constraints. These results offer robust evidence that financing frictions impact the increasingly important yet understudied intangible corporate investments that drive innovative activity, and they highlight a previously unexplored but potentially valuable use of proceeds from fixed asset divestitures.     

Access to private equity and real firm activity: Evidence from PIPEs

We study how access to private equity financing affects real firm activities using a broad panel of publicly traded U.S. firms that raise external equity through private placements (PIPEs) between 1995 and 2008. The public firms relying on PIPEs are generally small, high-tech firms that cannot finance investment internally and likely face severe external financing constraints; PIPEs are by far the most important source of finance for these firms. We show that firms use PIPE inflows to maintain extremely high R&D investment ratios and to build substantial cash reserves. We also use GMM techniques that control for firm-specific effects and the endogeneity of the decision to raise private equity and find that PIPE funding has a substantial impact on corporate investment in cash reserves and R&D, and a smaller but significant impact on investment in non-cash working capital, but little impact on fixed investment or acquisitions. Our estimates indicate that R&D investment initially increases by $0.20–$0.25 for each dollar of private equity flowing into the firm, and that PIPE funds initially invested in cash ultimately go to R&D. These findings offer direct evidence that access to private equity finance has an important effect on the key input that drives innovation at the firm- and economy-wide levels.     

Financing Innovation and Growth: Cash Flow, External Equity, and the 1990s R&D Boom

The financing of R&D provides a potentially important channel to link finance and economic growth, but there is no direct evidence that financial effects are large enough to impact aggregate R&D. U.S. firms finance R&D from volatile sources: cash flow and stock issues. We estimate dynamic R&D models for high-tech firms and find significant effects of cash flow and external equity for young, but not mature, firms. The financial coefficients for young firms are large enough that finance supply shifts can explain most of the dramatic 1990s R&D boom, which implies a significant connection between finance, innovation, and growth.     

How does the financial environment affect the stock market valuation of R&D spending?

This paper investigates the role of the financial environment in the stock market valuation of research and development (R&D) spending by firms. We examine the importance of equity financing relative to bank financing and the importance of both relative to the size of the economy on the stock market valuation of R&D expenditures. Empirical analysis of the Compustat Global Vantage firm-level data indicates that, the more market-based a financial system is, the more R&D expenditures are valued by the stock market. The degree of financial development does not appear to be important. Our results remain materially unchanged after controlling for numerous firm and country differences.     

Shareholder governance, bondholder governance, and managerial risk-taking

We examine the relation between the overall corporate governance structure and managerial risk-taking behavior. We find that the overall governance structure has a significant impact on how managers make decisions on investment policy: strong bondholder governance motivates more low-risk investments such as capital expenditure and lower high-risk investments such as R&D expenditures, whereas weak shareholder governance (entrenched managers) leads to more R&D expenditures. Moreover, we find that the effects of governance on investment policy differ significantly between speculative and investment-grade firms. For speculative firms, strong bondholder or shareholder governance leads to more capital expenditures and low R&D investments. For investment-grade firms, strong bondholder or shareholder governance leads to low capital expenditures and an insignificant impact on R&D investments. Furthermore, financing and investment covenants exhibit strong binding power to deter risky investments. Finally, a more dependent (or a less independent) board is associated with low capital expenditures and high R&D investments.     

Cash flow uncertainty,financial constraints and R&D investment

Based on the data from Chinese listed companies of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets between 2005 and 2016, we systematically examine the relationship between cash flow uncertainty and R&D investment, and further research the moderating effect of financial constraints on the association between the two. Our empirical results find that R&D investment decisions tend to be more conservative and cautious due to cash flow uncertainty, which is not conducive to innovation efficiency. Firms with higher cash flow uncertainty invest more cautiously in R&D innovation, whereas firms with lower cash flow invest more boldly in R&D innovation. Financial friction may exacerbate the negative impact of cash flow uncertainty on innovation activities. Strategic cash holding can help firms better deal with the risks caused by cash flow uncertainty. In provinces with high marketization, the market competition intensifies, resulting in more significant cash flow uncertainty.     

The Effect of Managerial Incentives to Bear Risk on Corporate Capital Structure and R&D Investment

In this study we use estimates of the sensitivities of managers' portfolios to stock return volatility and stock price to directly test the relationship between managerial incentives to bear risk and two important corporate decisions. We find that as the sensitivity of managers' stock option portfolios to stock return volatility increases firms tend to choose higher debt ratios and make higher levels of R&D investment. These results are even stronger in a subsample of firms with relatively low outside monitoring. For these firms, managerial incentives to bear risk play a particularly pivotal role in determining leverage and R&D investment.     

The Effects of Private Investments in Public Equity on R&D Investment in Small and Medium-Size Enterprises

This paper provides evidence that small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) use a portion of private investments in public equity (PIPEs) for current research and development (R&D) investment, hold the rest in liquidity reserves such as cash assets and working capital, and ultimately use these reserves to smooth R&D investment. That is, PIPEs may have a direct effect on R&D investment and an indirect or smoothing effect using liquidity reserves. This paper also shows that innovative SMEs such as venture businesses, inno-biz firms, and management innovative firms are more likely to use PIPEs for R&D investment than are noninnovative SMEs. The implications of this paper are that PIPEs can be used as an important source of external financing to fund R&D investment and can be particularly valuable for R&D investment in innovative SMEs.     

Did financing constraints cause investment stagnation in Japan after the 1990s?

Has investment by Japanese firms been affected by financing constraints since the collapse of the asset price bubble? This study answers the question while improving on the weaknesses of the models used in previous studies. It employs panel data for Japanese listed firms in four R&D-intensive industries. We divide our sample by firm size and examine three periods with different economic environments: the first half of the “two lost decades” from 1991 to 2000, the second half of the ‘two lost decades’ from 2001 to 2009, and the period following the ‘two lost decades’ from 2010 to 2016. We construct new investment functions based on the Euler equation by considering both physical and R&D investment factors to remove estimator bias, thus enabling us to determine whether firms face financing constraints accurately. The estimation results indicate that there were financing constraints on both R&D and physical investments by large listed firms from 1991 to 2000 and from 2010 to 2016. Conversely, the weak growth of both R&D and physical investments by small listed firms from 2010 to 2016 was not attributed to financing constraints but the lack of productive investment opportunities. Different policy measures are needed depending on whether the investment is stagnant due to financing constraints or the lack of investment opportunities.     

Cash holdings and R&D smoothing

The sharp increase in R&D investment in recent decades has important but unexplored implications for corporate liquidity management. Because R&D has high adjustment costs and is financed with volatile sources, it is very expensive for firms to adjust the flow of R&D in response to transitory finance shocks. The main contribution of this paper is to directly examine whether firms use cash reserves to smooth their R&D expenditures. We estimate dynamic R&D models and find that firms most likely to face financing frictions rely extensively on cash holdings to smooth R&D. In particular, our estimates suggest that young firms used cash holdings to dampen the volatility in R&D by approximately 75% during the 1998–2002 boom and bust in equity issues. Firms less likely to face financing frictions appear to smooth R&D without the use of costly cash holdings. Our findings provide new insights into the value of liquidity and the financing of intangible investment, and suggest that R&D smoothing with cash reserves is now important for understanding cash management for a substantial fraction of publicly traded firms.     

The Stock Market and Corporate Investment: A Test of Catering Theory

We test a catering theory describing how stock market mispricingmight influence individual firms' investment decisions. We usediscretionary accruals as our proxy for mispricing. We finda positive relation between abnormal investment and discretionaryaccruals; that abnormal investment is more sensitive to discretionaryaccruals for firms with higher R&D intensity (opaque firms)or share turnover (firms with shorter shareholder horizons);that firms with high abnormal investment subsequently have lowstock returns; and that the larger the relative price premium,the stronger the abnormal return predictability. We show thatpatterns in abnormal returns are stronger for firms with higherR&D intensity or share turnover.     

R&D and performance persistence: Evidence from the United Kingdom

There is compelling evidence from both the United States and United Kingdom suggesting that R&D investment is positively related to operating and/or market performance. This study extends prior research on R&D and valuation by further examining the sustainability or persistence of operating growth and market performance as a result of R&D investments.We use a large dataset of U.K. companies during the period 1990–2003 and our findings confirm the relation between R&D intensity and consistent growth in Sales and Gross Income, but only in the cases when a firm needs to engage in R&D activity because of the industry in which it operates. Moreover, our evidence indicates not only a positive relation between R&D intensity and subsequent risk-adjusted excess returns among firms that engage in R&D as testified by prior literature, but we also show that R&D intensity improves persistence in excess stock returns: the highest R&D-intensity firms are found to earn higher risk-adjusted excess returns more consistently than the sample median return, compared to lower R&D-intensity firms, as well as firms with no R&D. We interpret this finding as consistent with at least some form of market mispricing.     

Family Control and Financing Decisions

This study uses a comprehensive European dataset to investigate the role of family control in corporate financing decisions during the period 1998–2008. We find that family firms have a preference for debt financing, a non‐control‐diluting security, and are more reluctant than non‐family firms to raise capital through equity offerings. We also find that credit markets are prone to provide long‐term debt to family firms, indicating that they view their investment decisions as less risky. In fact, our empirical results demonstrate that family firms invest less than non‐family firms in high‐risk, research and development (R&D) projects, but not in low‐risk, fixed‐asset capital expenditure (CAPEX) projects, suggesting that fear of control loss in family firms deters risk‐taking. Overall, our findings reveal that the external financing (and investment) decisions of family firms are in greater (lesser) conflict with the interests of minority shareholders (bondholders).     

Corporate financing decisions, managerial market timing, and real investment

Both market timing and investment-based theories of corporate financing predict under-performance after firms raise capital, but only market timing predicts that the composition of financing (equity compared with debt) should also forecast returns. In cross-sectional tests, we find that the amount of net financing is more important than its composition in explaining future stock returns. In the time series, investment-based factor models explain abnormal stock performance following a variety of corporate financing events that previous studies link to market timing. At the aggregate level, the amount of new financing is also more important for future market returns than its composition. Overall, our joint tests reveal that measures of real investment are correlated with future returns and measures of managerial market timing are not.     

Public market staging: The timing of capital infusions in newly public firms

We examine financing activities of newly public firms for evidence on capital staging in the public equity market. Staging (sequential financing) can increase issuance costs but can limit costs associated with overinvestment. We find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that staging is employed to help control the overinvestment problem in public firms. Initial public offering (IPO) proceeds, relative to external financing requirements, are smaller for firms with more intangible assets and more research and development (R&D)-intensive firms. Asset intangibility and R&D intensity are also both negatively related to the length of time from a firm's IPO to its first post-IPO capital infusion.     

Vertical merger,R&D collaboration and innovation

This paper studies the effects of vertical merger and R&D collaboration activities on firms' innovation decisions and stock returns based on a continuous-time real option model under market and technological uncertainties. Our analysis confirms vertical merger's benefit in amplifying the potential gain from innovation through eliminating inefficiencies. We show that vertical merger boosts innovation incentives in two ways: it reduces the optimal innovation threshold when firms suspend the project and increases R&D investment when firms launch the project. If vertical merger is not possible, R&D collaboration can improve firms' innovation levels as an alternative decision, but inefficiencies still exist which implies less pronounced stimulation effects. Both vertical merger and R&D collaboration can reduce firms' risk when conducting innovation project and weaken the positive R&D-returns relation and financial constraints-returns relation, while these effects of vertical merger are stronger than those of R&D collaboration.     

Uncertainty and R&D investment: Does product market competition matter?

In recent years, the question of how uncertainty influences corporate decisions has received greater interest among academics, researchers, and corporations. This study is an attempt to investigate how uncertainties (firm-specific uncertainty (fsu), market-based uncertainty (mu), and economic policy uncertainty (epu)) influence research and development (R&D) investment and to further examine whether this relation is moderated by product market competition across firms of different sizes. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms covering 2000–2017, this study applies a two-step system GMM model to perform estimations and control for endogeneity issues. The findings show that uncertainties (fsu, mu, and epu) negatively influence R&D investment and that this negative relationship is more prominent for firms operating in competitive industries. In concentrated industries, however, the negative impact of uncertainty is mitigated for large firms, which have more internal resources and better access to external financing. This study contributes to real options theory by illustrating how different forms of uncertainty embedded in a firm’s internal and external environment reduce R&D investment, and by indicating how this relationship is moderated by product market competition.     

Mispricing of Research and Development Investments in a Rapidly Emerging and Electronics-Dominated Market

This paper documents prevailing mispricing of research and development (R&D) investments in the Taiwan stock market, a rapidly emerging and electronics-dominated market. Applying stock return data from July 1988 to June 2005, we observe that R&D-intensive stocks tend to outperform stocks with little or no R&D. The R&D-intensity effect cannot be attributed fully to firm size and seasonal effects. The R&D-associated anomaly not only exists but also persists for up to three years. The market apparently undervalues R&D-intensive firms and overvalues non-R&D-intensive firms. Finally, the R&D anomaly is clearer for firms in the electronics industry after 1996.     

Peer R&D disclosure and corporate innovation: Evidence from American depositary receipt firms

In this paper, we examine the effect of peer research and development (R&D) disclosures on corporate innovation. R&D disclosures can generate externalities for related firms, enabling those firms to better infer a project's likely payoffs and thus prioritize projects with higher net present values. We use a sample of foreign firms cross-listed on U.S. exchanges to investigate whether U.S. peer firms experience externalities from the cross-listing firm's R&D disclosures. We find that R&D disclosures by cross-listing firms are associated with greater innovation for industry peers in the U.S. market, especially when product market competition is high. The effect also varies with the home country's legal protection systems, disclosure environments, and accounting reporting rules. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that the externalities are more pronounced in industries or firms that rely more on external financing and firms subject to higher financial constraints; disclosures of higher quality appear to promote innovation by ameliorating financing frictions. Overall, this study provides evidence of R&D disclosure as an industry-wide determinant of innovation, thereby contributing to literature on the real effects of peer disclosures.     

The q-theory explanation for the external financing effect: New evidence

Several studies document a robust negative association between net external financing and average stock returns, which is referred to as the external financing effect. Using total asset growth as a comprehensive measure of overall corporate investment and total profitability gross of R&D expenditures as a measure of true economic profitability, we provide new evidence in support of the q-theory explanation for the external financing effect. We also test the market timing explanation for the external financing effect but fail to document supportive evidence.