Owner-consumers and efficiency

If each household owns the same fraction of a firm as its share of consumption, shareholders unanimously want marginal-cost pricing. Otherwise, profits are overemphasised relative to consumer surplus.     

Internal debt and welfare

This paper analyzes how multinational firms' internal debt financing affects high-tax countries. It uses a dynamic small open economy model and takes into account that internal debt impacts both the multinational firms' investment decisions and the government's tax policy. The government has incentives to redistribute income from firm owners to workers. If the government's redistributive motive is not too strong, internal debt reduces welfare in the short term by decreasing tax revenues. However, debt financing stimulates capital accumulation and exerts a positive long-term welfare impact.     

The Perverse Effect of Debt Tax Benefits on Firm Investment Decisions

In this paper we question the idea that the deduction of debt interest is always an effective policy instrument to spur firm investment. We analyse the investment decision in presence of a borrowing constraint on the amount of debt that the firm can raise. We show that if the debt interest rate is decreasing in the firm's capital accumulation and another financial resource more expensive than debt is available (at least for levels of debt lower than the upper bound), then the deduction of the debt interest from taxes on capital income may reduce firm investment. This theoretical result is relevant for economic policy decisions when financial intermediaries are not willing to finance beyond a certain threshold but firms have access to other sources of finance.     

Optimal size, optimal timing and optimal financing of an investment

Corporate investment is an important determinant of economic well-being. The existing literature identifies optimal investment size and timing without the possibility of debt financing, as well as the effect of debt financing on investment timing without the option to choose investment size. This paper contributes to the literature by identifying the optimal size, optimal timing and optimal financing for an investment when the firm controls all three decisions (as it usually does in practice). The investment size and investment trigger are generally positively related: when investment is delayed (accelerated) it is larger (smaller) in size, thus the overall effect on investment is ambiguous. However, when tax rate or bankruptcy cost is increased, the trigger rises and size falls, hence the effect on investment is unambiguously negative. The effect of debt financing on investment depends on the amount of debt used; with the optimal amount of debt, investment is delayed relative to the no-debt case, and this delay can be economically significant; however, the investment, when eventually made, will be larger in size. Overall, it is not appropriate to ignore either the firm’s ability to choose investment size or its option to use debt financing, when modeling the investment decision.     

STRATEGIC DEBT AND RJV COMPETITION*

Firms first choose their debt level, next form an RJV and choose R&D investment, and then choose output in Cornot competition. Through the use of debt, a firm commits an aggressive stance, a higher output level, and higher R&D investment, whereby the latter helps solve the free‐riding problem that usually exists in R&D studies. However, a firm in an unleveraged industry gains the highest profit, while a leveraged firm in an asymmetric industry (which achieves the highest profit in Brander and Lewis (1988)) gains the lowest profit. As a result, both firms using debt and both firms not using debt are the two equilibria, and the latter survives as a focal outcome. This is in sharp contrast to Brander and Lewis who find that both firms using debt is a prisoner's dilemma outcome.     

过度投资、公司业绩与债务融资——基于信息对称视角下的持续时间模型研究

基于信息对称的视角,通过建立持续时间模型,并用杠杆比率表示为投资项目进行融资的总成本中债务融资所占的比重来研究债务融资对过度投资和公司业绩的影响.结果发现:当信息是对称的情况下,公司如果发生过度投资便不会出现投资不足,并且债务融资占投资项目总成本的比重越高公司过度投资程度越大.     

负债融资、负债来源与企业投资行为——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

本文以我国上市公司为研究对象,考察负债融资及负债来源对企业投资行为的影响,从而揭示我国上市公司中股东-债权人冲突和负债作为治理机制所带来的经济后果。实证结果表明,负债比例越高的企业,企业投资规模越小,且两者之间的相关程度受新增投资项目风险与投资新项目前企业风险大小关系的影响———低项目风险企业比高项目风险企业,投资额随负债比例上升而下降得更快。此外,本项研究还发现,不同来源负债对企业投资规模的影响程度不尽相同。     

The impact of convertible debt financing on investment timing

We develop a model to examine the timing of investment decisions in relation to the issuance of convertible debt by firms. Our model shows that when the demand shock has higher volatility, the firm finances the investment cost with high-coupon convertible debt. We find that default occurs earlier for firms that finance with convertible debt rather than with straight debt. We also find that firms with high-growth prospection, high volatility, and low capital costs that issue convertible debt tend to defer investments. Furthermore, we examine the investment decisions in which the convertible debt includes a call provision. We show that firms that use callable convertible debt invest earlier than those that use non-callable convertible debt by using suboptimal coupon payments. The opportunity from the forced conversion increases as the volatility increases. These results are consistent with recent empirical evidence.     

The impact of debt restructuring on firm investment: Evidence from China

This paper empirically investigates the causal effects of debt restructuring on firm investment using the propensity matching score with difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) method based on the panel data of listed companies in China from 2005 to 2016. The results show that the impact of debt restructuring on firm investment are heterogeneous among different property rights, industry natures, restructuring payment modes and amounts, and debt renegotiation characteristics. Our analyses indicate that debt restructuring has a more significant impact on promoting investment efficiency for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), firms in industries with excess capacity, and debt-restructuring firms that pay off debts with assets. Debt restructuring significantly aggravates overinvestment when the amount of debt restructuring is large. When shareholder bargaining power is higher than that of debtholders in the debt renegotiation, debt restructuring has a significant inhibitory effect on underinvestment. Smaller debt renegotiation frictions exacerbate underinvestment and help mitigate overinvestment. This paper provides a new perspective for understanding the rationality of debt restructuring and has implications for policymakers and corporate decision makers aiming to improve debt governance and investment efficiency.     

Antidumping Regulations: Anti‐Competitive and Anti‐Export

In a Bertrand duopoly model, it is shown that an antidumping regulation can be strategically exploited by the home firm to reduce the degree of competition in the home market. The home firm commits not to export to the foreign market which gives the foreign firm a monopoly in its own market. As a result the foreign firm will increase its price allowing the home firm to increase its price and its profits. If the products are sufficiently close substitutes then the higher profits in the home market are large enough to compensate for the loss of profits on exports.     

刺激还是抑制：企业负债对广告投入影响的理论与实证研究

以布莱德和莱维斯的理论为基础,假设广告具有拓展效应和窃取效应,研究企业负债与市场地位对企业广告投资的影响。结果显示：企业资本市场行为影响其产品市场竞争,负债具有竞争策略性;企业负债刺激其广告投入,而竞争对手负债抑制其广告投入;寡头垄断市场,企业初始市场份额抑制其广告投入;广告投入具有行业差异,且非制造业内部差异更大。研究结论拓展布莱德和莱维斯研究的同时,也给企业广告投资提供参考价值。     

Sustainability of public debt,public capital formation,and endogenous growth in an overlapping generations setting

Under the golden rule of public finance for public investment with a constant budget deficit/GDP ratio, we show that for the sustainability of government budget deficits there is a threshold of the initial public debt for a given stock of public capital, and that this threshold level of public debt is increasing in the stock of public capital. If the initial public debt is greater than the threshold, the government can no longer sustain budget deficits, while if it is smaller, the government can conduct a permanent deficit policy, which eventually leads to a positive public debt/GDP ratio.     

后危机时代负债融资与投资规模的实证研究——来自中国制造业上市公司的经验证据

负债融资与投资规模的关系研究是财务理论研究的重要课题之一.现代财务理论基于委托—代理理论和信息不对称理论的考虑,认为负债融资影响到企业的投资规模.负债融资、负债期限通过不同的传导机制影响着企业的投资规模.本文采用2008-2010年我国制造业上市公司数据,在控制对投资有影响的销售收入、托宾Q和现金流量等变量的基础上,实证检验了负债融资、负债期限与企业投资规模的关系及其影响机制.检验结果表明,负债融资总体上与投资规模负相关;然后,又按企业利润总额的标准差作为衡量企业风险的大小进行了分组检验,结果显示,短期负债、长期负债对投资规模的影响不尽相同,高风险企业随着负债的增加与低风险企业相比减少投资的幅度较小.这些结论对我国当前调整经济结构、制定宏观经济政策提供了有益启示.     

Labor Taxation and Foreign Direct Investment*

In this paper, we analyze the implications of the effective taxation of labor for profits and, hence, the decisions made by multinational enterprises concerning the location of their headquarters. If a higher employee‐borne tax burden reduces manager effort, it should also negatively affect firm profits and the location of the headquarters. We compile data on personal income tax profiles for 52 economies and the year 2002 at different moments of the distribution of gross wages. Our findings suggest that higher employee‐borne labor taxes are less conducive to the location of headquarters and foreign direct investment stocks in a given host economy.     

The impact of the 2008 German corporate tax reform: A dynamic CGE analysis

In this paper we develop the dynamic CGE model, ifoMod, which is designed to analyse the impact of fundamental tax reforms and in particular capital income tax reforms for Germany. The model is in line with neoclassical growth theory and features all important behavioural interactions between the four major building blocks of an economy including the firm and household sector, the government and the rest of the world. We consider firms of different legal forms which all face an intertemporal investment problem, a financing problem w.r.t. the optimal choice of debt and equity financing as well as a factor input problem when deciding on the optimal amount of different skill types of labour employed. We show the impact of different types of taxes on the behavioural margins of firms and households. The conducted simulation shows the impact of the latest German corporate tax reform of 2008 on the German macroeconomic variables such as investments, GDP, consumption and household's welfare.     

Money,government debt,q, and investment

The aim of this study is to analyze empirically the linkages among changes in money and federal debt, Tobin's q variable, and investment expenditures in the United States. The vector autoregressive modeling technique proposed by Hsiao and extended by Caines, Keng, and Sethi is employed. The patterns of Granger-causality from the estimated vector autoregression are consistent with the transmission mechanism outlined by Tobin. Both money and debt Granger-cause q; q in turn causes investment and money and debt's effects upon investment operate primarily through their effects on q. However, neither money nor debt are exogenous.     

On industry equilibrium under uncertainty

The paper considers an industry consisting of numerous firms that produce a homogeneous output, the demand for which is a random variable. Each firm belongs to one of K possible types, and each type is characterized by a U-shaped average cost curve. It is shown that: (i) the first-order necessary conditions for efficient investment and output are sufficient; accordingly, the set of competitive equilibria is non-empty and coincides with the set of efficient allocations; (ii) a dynamic process of free entry and exit of firms, guided by expected profits, is quasistable and every limit point is a competitive equilibrium. The paper also defines a sufficient condition for uniqueness of the competitive equilibrium, in which case it is stable.     

企业债务的经济效应检验*

整体债务问题在中国相当严峻,其中企业债务问题也日益突出。本文利用中国工业企业统计数据,研究企业债务对经济发展的影响,着重研究了研发效应、生产率效应和规模效应,发现企业债务对研发投入、全要素生产率和企业规模的影响皆存在着显著的非线性关系。虽然在个别方面能起到正向作用,但其主体作用是负的。目前中国的企业债务水平很高,而且负债增长速度也很快,这无疑将会给中国经济发展带来非常严重的负面影响,且会不断积累高负债引致的高风险。     

When a Loser Gains: Free Riding in the Innovation of Network Goods

We consider duopolists innovating and producing a good subject to network externalities. If successful in R&D, a firm sells both the old product and the new one. The new product increases the utility of its user; it also generates a higher network externality than does the old product. A firm which fails to innovate nevertheless profits from the success of the rival: the network effect raises the value of the old product it still produces. A firm free-rides on the innovative efforts of another firm, reducing the incentives of any firm to innovate.