Preemption,leverage, and financing constraints

This paper investigates the interactions between preemptive competition and leverage in a duopoly market. We investigate both a case in which the firms have optimal financial structures, and a case in which financing constraints require firms to finance their investments by debt. Our findings are that the second mover always leaves the duopoly market before the leader, although the leader may exit before the follower's entry. The leverage effects of debt financing can increase the value of a firm and accelerate investment, even in the presence of preemptive competition. Notably, financing constraints can delay preemptive investment and improve firm values in preemptive equilibrium. Indeed, the leader's high leverage due to financing constraints can lower the first-mover advantage and weaken preemptive competition. Especially with strong first-mover advantage, the financing constraint effects can dominate the leverage effects. These findings are almost consistent with the empirical evidence, which shows that high leverage leads to competitive disadvantage and mitigates product market competition.     

Aggressive leaders

I characterize the incentives to undertake strategic investments in markets with Nash competition and endogenous entry. Contrary to the case with an exogenous number of firms, when the investment increases marginal profitability, only a “top dog” strategy is optimal. For instance, under both quantity and price competition, a market leader overinvests in cost reductions and overproduces complement products. The purpose of the strategic investment is to allow the firm to be more aggressive in the market and to reduce its price below those of other firms. Contrary to the post‐Chicago approach, this shows that aggressive pricing strategies are not necessarily associated with exclusionary purposes.     

Employee‐friendly practices,product market competition and firm value

In this paper, we examine whether employee‐friendly practices are associated with product market competition, and whether firm value is related to employee‐friendly practices and product market competition. Using a large sample of US firms, we find positive and significant associations between employee friendliness and product market competition, and between firm value and employee friendliness when product market competition is high, consistent with the value creation theory. Both positive relations hold when we account for corporate governance. In addition, using the list of Fortune's ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ as an alternative measure of employee‐friendly policies, we find firms in more competitive industries are more likely to treat their workers favourably. Furthermore, we find that the market reaction is more positive when firms in more competitive industries are selected for the Fortune list.     

Product market competition and cost stickiness

Extant literature on cost stickiness has focused on how firm-specific characteristics affect the asymmetric cost behavior. In this paper, we explore how a firm’s operating environment affects the firm’s cost stickiness. Specifically, we examine the effect of product market competition on cost stickiness since a firm’s investment and cost retention decisions partly depend on how the firm interacts with its rival firms in the product markets. Using two firm-level text-based product market competition measures extracted from management disclosures in firms’ 10-K filings (Li et al. in J Account Res 51(2):399–436, 2013; Hoberg and Phillips in Rev Financ Stud 23(10):3773–3811, 2010; J Polit Econ, 2015), we find strong evidence consistent with cost asymmetry increasing in competition after controlling for known economic determinants of cost stickiness. In additional analyses, we also find that the effect of product market competition on the degree of cost stickiness increases in firms’ financial strength, likely because management in financially stronger firms has more resources for investment expenditures in spite of a sales fall. We also find that cost stickiness is increasing in competition if management is optimistic about future demand, whereas competition is not associated with cost asymmetry if management is pessimistic about future demand. Finally, we find that the relationship between competition and cost stickiness, although statistically insignificant at conventional levels, is more pronounced for single-segment firms relative to multi-segment firms.     

Product market competition and earnings management: A firm‐level analysis

In this paper, we employ a firm‐level measure of product market competition constructed from the textual analysis of firms’ 10‐K filings to examine the relationship between managers’ perceived competition pressure and earnings management. We find that accounting irregularities and accrual‐based earnings management are positively related to product market competition. This finding is consistent with the notion that competition pressure increases managerial incentives to manage earnings, due to their career concerns. We also find that real earnings management is negatively related to product market competition. This finding suggests that real earnings management involves actions that decrease firms’ competitiveness and thus is costly for firms confronted with high competition pressure.     

Product Market Competition,Managerial Incentives and Firm Valuation

This paper contributes to the very small empirical literature on the effects of competition on managerial incentive schemes. Based on a theoretical model that incorporates both strategic interaction between firms and a principal agent relationship, we analyse the relationship between product market competition, incentive schemes and firm valuation. The model predicts a nonlinear relationship between the intensity of product market competition and the strength of managerial incentives. We test the implications of our model empirically based on a unique and hand‐collected dataset comprising over 600 observations on 200 Swiss firms over the 2002–2005 period. Our results suggest that, consistent with the implications of our model, the relation between product market competition and managerial intensive schemes is convex indicating that above a certain level of intensity in product market competition, the marginal effect of competition on the strength of the incentive schemes increases in the level of competition. Moreover, competition is associated with lower firm values. These results are robust to accounting for a potential endogeneity of managerial incentives and firm value in a simultaneous equations framework.     

Agency problems,product market competition and dividend policies in Japan

This study investigates whether product market competition reduces agency problems between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders in Japan. In particular, we examine firms’ dividend policies in competitive versus concentrated industries. In a large sample of Japanese firms, we find that firms in more competitive industries pay more dividends, are more likely to increase dividends and are less likely to omit dividends. Furthermore, the impact of firm‐level agency problems on dividend payouts is weaker in highly competitive industries. The results suggest that product market competition can be an effective industry‐level governance mechanism that can force managers to disgorge cash to outside investors.     

Corporate Governance,Product Market Competition,and the Wealth Effect of R&D Spending Changes

This article examines whether corporate governance and product market competition interact to affect the profitability of corporate research and development (R&D) investments. Firms announcing R&D spending changes experience positive and significant wealth effects, and these effects are mainly driven by good‐governance firms. Investors appear to view announcements of R&D spending changes undertaken by firms with stronger shareholder rights as evidence of value creation. Moreover, the favorable wealth effects are stronger for good‐governance firms in noncompetitive industries than in competitive industries, supporting the argument that good governance substitutes for product market competition.     

Managerial Behavior and the Link between Stock Mispricing and Corporate Investments: Evidence from Market‐to‐Book Ratio Decomposition

We examine the impact of mispricing on corporate investments and its components: capital expenditures, research and development, acquisitions, and asset sales. By decomposing the market‐to‐book ratio into mispricing and growth components, we show that corporate investments are linked to mispricing through market‐timing and catering, after controlling for growth and financial slack. This investment‐mispricing link is more pronounced in financially constrained firms and in firms with short‐horizon shareholders. Overall, our study indicates that the sensitivity of investments to mispricing is a function of the nature of mispricing, the type of investment, and the firm's characteristics.     

Local product market competition and bank loans

We investigate the influences of local product market competition on the cost of private debt. Our evidence suggests that the cost of bank loans is significantly higher for firms headquartered in states with greater local product market competition measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for resident industries. To establish causality, we examine the recognition of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine and firm relocations to identify exogenous shocks to local product market competition. We find that the cost of bank loans is lower for firms facing less intense local product market competition after the adoption of IDD and higher for firms relocated to states with more competitive product markets. The results imply that banks value the characteristics of a firm's local product market when approving loan contracts.     

Investor Protection,Investment Efficiency and Value: The Case of Cross‐Listed Firms

We examine the impact of improved investor protection due to cross‐listing on foreign firms’ investment decisions and firm value. While we find that cross‐listing increases firms’ capital expenditures and mergers and acquisitions activities, cross‐listed firms also invest more in research and development, make better acquisition decisions, and have higher profitability compared to non‐cross‐listed firms. Moreover, cross‐listing is associated with better cash utilization by foreign firms for investments. These improvements in investments and cash utilization are more pronounced for firms cross‐listed on US exchanges and for firms from countries with weak investor protection laws.     

Accounting for investments and the relevance of losses to firm value

Recent research has documented investment in research and development as a key driver of the market value of currently unprofitable firms (hereafter loss firms) in a knowledge-based economy. We broaden this argument to consider the influence of accounting for investments in general on the relation between current profitability and firm value for loss firms. Specifically, in the context of a resource-based economy, we find that exploration costs, cash flow measures of investment, and research and development costs help to explain the value of loss firms and reduce the negative relation between current profitability and firm value.     

Entering a new market: Market profitability and first-mover advantages

We analyze a firm's investment problem when it faces preemption risk and profits are convex in market profitability. In a setup where firms have asymmetric profit convexity, which we relate to firm quality, we show that this has interesting effects on valuation and the order of entry. The interplay between profit convexity and market growth impacts whether a high-quality or a low-quality firm is the first mover. We relate the first-mover advantage to patents; we find that patents expedite investments and increase the incentives for high-quality firms to become first movers. Furthermore, even with a persistent first-mover advantage we show that first-mover advantages in terms of firm value are either over- or underestimated. Thus, our model sheds light on why empirical studies find mixed support for the existence of a first-mover advantage.     

银行竞争提高了企业投资水平和资源配置效率吗？——基于分支机构空间分布的研究

银行贷款是我国企业融资的重要方式,在企业生产经营中发挥着举足轻重的作用。2006年和2009年,我国先后两次放松了商业银行分支机构市场准入规制,银行分支机构空间分布发生了较大变化,银行竞争水平和服务实体经济能力明显提升。本文利用2001-2012年国家统计局工业企业数据,以企业周边银行分支机构的数量衡量银行竞争水平,研究银行竞争对企业投资的影响。研究发现,银行分支机构数量的增加显著提高了企业投资水平和投资效率。进一步研究表明,银行分支机构数量增加对企业投资效率的提升作用主要表现在投资不足的企业和非国有企业中,企业融资约束降低和代理冲突减弱是银行竞争提高企业投资效率的主要原因。本研究拓展了银行竞争以及企业投资和资源配置效率的相关文献,对供给侧结构性改革和银行业高质量发展具有启示意义。     

Real Options, Product Market Competition, and Asset Returns

We study how competition in the product market affects the link between firms' real investment decisions and their asset return dynamics. In our model, assets in place and growth options have different sensitivities to market wide uncertainty. The strategic behavior of market participants influences the relative importance of these components of firm value. We show that the relationship between the degree of competition and assets' expected rates of return varies with product market demand. When demand is low, firms in more competitive industries earn higher returns, whereas when demand is high firms in more concentrated industries earn higher returns.     

Discussion of “The impact of product market competition on the quantity and quality of voluntary disclosures”

Li (2010, this issue) examines how product market competition affects voluntary disclosure by firms. Using several competition proxies, she finds that both the competitive threat from potential entrants into an industry and from existing rivals affect the quantity and accuracy of voluntary profit and investment forecasts by firms in that industry. However, the study’s findings are inconclusive mainly because each competition proxy used can reflect both types of competitive threat. The focus of my discussion is to provide some comments and suggestions for future researchers to consider in examining how the nature of product market competition affects voluntary firm disclosure.     

Bond market access and investment

Prior research has shown that differential access to debt markets significantly affects capital structure. In this paper, we examine the effect of access to debt markets on investment decisions by using debt ratings to indicate bond market access. We find that rated firms are more likely to undertake acquisitions than nonrated firms. This finding remains even after accounting for firm characteristics, for the probability of being rated, and in matched sample analysis as well as in subsamples based on leverage, firm size, age and information opacity. Rated firms also pay higher premiums for their targets and receive less favorable market reaction to their acquisition announcements relative to non-rated firms. However, the average announcement returns to rated acquirers are non-negative. Collectively, these findings suggest that the lack of debt market access has a real effect on the ability to make investments as well as on the quality of these investments by creating underinvestment, instead of simply constraining overinvestment.     

Product Market Threats and the Value of Corporate Cash Holdings

We construct a model to show that predatory strategies by a financially strong rival can cause a financially weak firm to underinvest. This threat intensifies when the two firms produce similar products and share similar future investment opportunities. We show that cash holdings become more valuable by providing liquidity to fund investment opportunities as they emerge, thereby mitigating the underinvestment problem. Empirical evidence supports these model predictions. The value of cash is significantly higher for firms facing higher predatory threats. The results are robust to various controls for financial constraints, corporate governance, risk factors, and industry‐level measures of product market competition. An identification strategy that exploits exogenous variation in financial constraints further corroborates the causal effect of predatory threats on the value of cash.     

The Effect of Venture Capital Financing on the Sensitivity to Cash Flow of Firm's Investments

This work studies the effect of venture capital (VC) financing on firms' investments in a longitudinal sample of 379 Italian unlisted new‐technology‐based firms (NTBFs) observed over the 10‐year period from 1994 to 2003. We distinguish the effects of VC financing according to the type of investor: independent VC (IVC) funds and corporate VC (CVC) investors. Previous studies argue that NTBFs are the firms most likely to be financially constrained. The technology‐intensive nature of their activity and their lack of a track record increase adverse selection and moral hazard problems. Moreover, most of their assets are firm‐specific or intangible and hence cannot be pledged as collateral. In accordance with this view, we show that the investment rate of NTBFs is strongly positively correlated with their current cash flows. We also find that after receiving VC financing, NTBFs increase their investment rate independently of the type of VC investor. However, the investments of CVC‐backed firms remain sensitive to shocks in cash flows, whereas IVC‐backed firms exhibit a low and statistically not significant investment–cash flow sensitivity that we interpret as a signal of the removal of financial constraints.     

Capital market frictions and human capital investment: Evidence from workplace safety around regulation SHO

This paper examines the effect of capital market frictions on firms’ workplace safety. Using Regulation SHO as a natural experiment, we find a significant increase in work-related injury rates of pilot firms. The effect is stronger for firms in more competitive industries and with high financial constraints, and weaker for firms whose employees have high negotiating power and with good corporate governance. Further tests suggest that managers’ myopia shifts their focus away from investments in workplace safety when workplace safety is not related to firm performance. Overall, the results highlight how capital market frictions affect firms’ investment in human capital.