Asset liquidity,corporate investment,and endogenous financing costs

We analyze how the liquidity of real and financial assets affects corporate investment. The trade-off between liquidation costs and underinvestment costs implies that low-liquidity firms exhibit negative investment sensitivities to liquid funds, whereas high-liquidity firms have positive sensitivities. If real assets are not divisible in liquidation, firms with high financial liquidity optimally avoid external financing and instead cut new investment. If real assets are divisible, firms use external financing, which implies a lower sensitivity. In addition, asset redeployability decreases the investment sensitivity. Our findings demonstrate that asset liquidity is an important determinant of corporate investment.     

Financial constraints on investment in an emerging market crisis

We investigate whether capital market imperfections constrain investment during an emerging market financial crisis. Both large currency devaluations and banking sector failures characterize recent crises. Although a currency devaluation should increase exporters’ competitiveness and investment, a failing banking system may limit credit to these firms. Foreign-owned firms, which may have greater access to overseas financing but otherwise face the same investment prospects, provide an ideal control group for determining the effect of liquidity constraints. We test for liquidity constraints in Indonesia following the 1997 East Asian financial crisis, a period when the issuance of new domestic credit shrank rapidly. Exporters’ value added and employment increased after the crisis, suggesting that they profited from the devaluation and had sufficient cash flow to finance more workers. However, only exporters with foreign ownership increased their capital significantly. Our results suggest that liquidity constraints greatly retarded domestic-owned manufacturing firms’ ability to take advantage of improved terms of trade. Specifically, compared to foreign-owned exporters they had resembled before the crisis, after the crisis domestic-owned exporters had more than 20% lower employment and capital and more than 40% lower value added and materials usage.     

银行价格竞争、融资约束与企业研发投资——基于“中介效应”模型的实证研究

近年来我国利率市场化改革积极推进,实体经济发展积极向创新驱动转型,一个亟须研究厘清的关键问题是,银行业竞争如何驱动企业创新活动?本文关注银行价格竞争对企业创新的影响,以2013—2018年沪深两市的上市企业为样本,采用"中介效应"因果分析模型,实证检验了银行价格竞争对企业研发投资的影响,并识别出以融资约束为中介渠道的作用机制。研究发现,银行价格竞争不仅会提高银行的风险容忍度,直接增加R&D投资的信贷供给意愿,而且还会通过降低贷款价格和增加贷款可得性来缓解企业整体的融资约束,间接促进企业创新活动。这一机制在解除贷款利率管制之后以及在民营企业层面体现得更加明显。本文的研究结果对于深化金融市场化改革、改善金融服务实体经济效果以及实施经济创新驱动发展战略,具有明确的政策启示。     

Banks and innovation: Microeconometric evidence on Italian firms

In this paper we investigate the effect of local banking development on firms’ innovative activities, using a rich data set on innovation for a large number of Italian firms over the 1990s. There is evidence that banking development affects the probability of process innovation, particularly for firms in high-tech sectors, in sectors more dependent upon external finance, and for firms that are small. The evidence for product innovation is much weaker and not robust. There is also some evidence that banking development reduces the cash flow sensitivity of fixed investment spending, particularly for small firms, and that it increases the probability they will engage in R&D.     

Asymmetric information and liquidity constraints: A new test

Using a novel measure of the degree of information asymmetry across firms, this study shows that information-related financial market imperfections do matter for a firm’s access to external finance. Prior studies of the importance of liquidity constraints faced by nonfinancial firms have suffered from a glaring weakness. They have been based on a sample of publicly traded firms, omitting precisely those firms most likely to be liquidity constrained. Furthermore, they have tended to rely on indirect measures of the degree of information asymmetry, such as firm size. We overcome these limitations by focusing on the banking sector. Unlike the nonfinancial sector, the banking sector has balance sheet and income data available for all firms, whether or not they are publicly traded. This allows the use of a superior measure of the degree of information asymmetry across firms by distinguishing between publicly traded and non-publicly traded banks.     

Asset liquidity and venture capital investment

We examine the relationship between asset market liquidity and venture capital (VC) investment and find that it is inverted U-shaped. Asset liquidity and VC investment are positively related for low levels of asset liquidity but negatively related for higher levels of asset liquidity. We also document evidence that VC firms with more industry experience invest more in a liquid asset market than those without industry experience or with significant experience in other industries. Portfolio companies obtained their first investment in a liquid asset market are less likely to exit successfully; however, given a successful exit, they prefer to exit through mergers and acquisitions rather than going public.     

Firm investment,finance constraint and voluntary asset sales: the evidence from Indian manufacturing firms

This paper examines the importance of finance constraints for firm investment expenditures by looking at the investment-asset sales sensitivity in financially healthy Indian manufacturing firms. Voluntary asset sales is a cleaner indicator of firms' liquidity than cash flows since it is unlikely to influence firms' growth opportunities unless they are financially constrained. We take care of the endogeneity and the implicit monotonicity problems, which are much debated in the literature, by using an endogenous regime switching regression model. We find that the investment-asset sales sensitivity is significantly greater for firms that are likely to be financially constraints.     

Does lending relationship help or alleviate the transmission of liquidity shocks? Evidence from a liquidity crunch in China

We examine China’s June 2013 liquidity crunch as a negative shock to banks and analyze the wealth effects on exchange-listed firms. Our findings suggest that liquidity shocks to financial institutions negatively impact borrower performance, particularly borrowers reporting outstanding loans at the end of 2012. Stock valuations of firms with long-term bank relationships, however, outperform the market and experience smaller subsequent declines in investment than peers lacking solid banking relationships. This effect is the strongest for firms that enjoy good relations with China’s large state-owned banks or foreign banks, and weakest for firms whose connections are solely with local banks. We document a positive correlation between the stock performances of firms and the stock performances of lender banks and the likelihood of lender banks operating as net lenders in the interbank market. These results suggest that banks transmit liquidity shocks to their borrowing firms and that a long-term bank-firm relationship may mitigate the negative effects of a liquidity shock.     

Stock liquidity and investment opportunities: New evidence from FTSE 100 index deletions

This paper examines the relationship between stock liquidity and investment opportunities in a sample of firms experiencing a negative exogenous liquidity shock, captured by deletion from the FTSE 100 stock index. We find no statistical association between stock liquidity and investment opportunities. These findings are in sharp contrast to the positive relation between liquidity and investment opportunities reported in US equity markets. This unique result in the London Stock Exchange suggests that deletion from a major stock index does not influence corporate investment decisions because there is no significant change in the cost of capital.     

The impact of all-star analyst job changes on their coverage choices and investment banking deal flow

Using a sample of all-star analysts who switch investment banks, we examine (1) whether analyst behavior is influenced by banking relationships and (2) whether analyst behavior affects investment banking deal flow. Although the stock coverage decision depends on the relationship with the client firms, we find no evidence that analysts change their optimism or recommendation levels when joining a new firm. Investment banking deal flow is related to analyst reputation only for equity transactions. For debt and M&A transactions, analyst reputation does not matter. There is no evidence that issuing optimistic earnings forecasts or recommendations affects investment banking deal flow.     

Investment, Uncertainty, and Liquidity

We analyze the dynamic investment decision of a firm subject to an endogenous financing constraint. The threat of future funding shortfalls lowers the value of the firm's timing options and encourages acceleration of investment beyond the first‐best optimal level. As well as highlighting another way by which capital market frictions can distort investment behavior, this result implies that (1) the sensitivity of investment to cash flow can be greatest for high‐liquidity firms and (2) greater uncertainty has an ambiguous effect on investment.     

Liquidity mergers

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions “liquidity mergers,” since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur when industry-level asset-specificity is high and firm-level asset-specificity is low. We analyze firms' liquidity policies as a function of real asset reallocation, examining the trade-offs between cash and credit lines. We verify the model's prediction that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur in industries in which assets are industry-specific, but transferable across firms. We also show that firms are more likely to use credit lines (relative to cash) in industries in which liquidity mergers are more frequent.     

财务杠杆对企业投资的影响——股权集中背景下的经验研究

不同于以往建立在股权分散背景下的研究,本文讨论了股权集中的上市公司中财务杠杆与企业投资之间的关系以及控股股东持股比例对这一关系的影响。研究结果表明,财务杠杆对企业投资具有显著的抑制作用,并且这种抑制作用随着控股股东持股比例的提高而减弱。本文还发现,财务杠杆对企业投资的抑制作用在成长机会较小的企业中表现得更为突出。这些结果均支持了过度投资假说。     

Family control and investment–cash flow sensitivity: Empirical evidence from the Euro zone

This paper considers the ownership structure of family firms to determine whether family control alleviates or exacerbates investment–cash flow sensitivity in the Euro zone. We find that family-controlled corporations have lower investment–cash flow sensitivities. Further, our results show that this reduced sensitivity is mainly attributable to family firms with no deviations between cash flow and voting rights and to family firms in which family members hold managerial positions. We also find that second largest shareholders affect family firms' sensitivity and are associated with either monitoring (non-family second blockholders) or collusion (family second blockholders). Overall, family control seems to mitigate investment inefficiencies that derive from capital market imperfections.     

最低工资标准提高对企业资本劳动比的影响研究

资本劳动比的提高对企业发展、经济增长和结构转型都具有重要意义。本文利用2002—2011年中国工业企业数据和283个地级市统计数据,探讨了最低工资标准提高对企业资本劳动比的影响。研究发现,最低工资标准提升对制造业企业资本劳动比具有显著的正向影响。平均而言,最低工资标准每提升10%,企业资本劳动比将提高2%,该结果在工具变量回归、双重差分法等多项稳健性检验下均成立。机制分析表明,最低工资标准提高会使企业增加资本投入和减少劳动力雇佣,这一结论为企业用资本替代劳动力的事实提供了直接证据。异质性分析表明,最低工资标准提升对企业资本劳动比的影响主要集中于非国有企业、较低工资水平企业和劳动密集型企业。进一步研究发现,随着最低工资标准提升,企业生产率和盈利能力显著提高,从而佐证了企业用资本替代劳动力的积极效应。本文的研究为进一步完善最低工资制度,促进经济转型升级提供了经验依据与政策启示。     

Corporate liquidity,investment and financial constraints: Implications from a multi-period model

In single period models, financially constrained firms invest more in response to increases in their net worth or interest rate cuts. We examine whether or not these results necessarily hold in a multi-period setting. We present a multi-period version of the Holmstrom and Tirole moral hazard model and show that the probability of investment (or the hurdle rate for investment) in the first period of a two-period model is non-monotonic in the level of liquid balances [Holmstrom, B., Tirole, J., 1997. Financial intermediation, loanable funds, and the real sector. Quart. J. Econ. 112 (3), 663–691. August; Holmstrom, B., Tirole, J., 1998. Private and public supply of liquidity. J. Polit. Economy 106 (1), 1–40. February; Holmstrom, B., Tirole, J., 2000. Liquidity and risk management. J. Money, Credit, Banking 32 (3), 295–319. August]. When a risk-free interest rate is introduced in the model, we show that a lower interest rate (or a downward shift or the yield curve) can lead to less current investment due to the interaction of future financial constraints and discounting of cash flows. Our results have implications for the effect of monetary policy on investment by financially constrained firms. They also address several recent empirical debates, such as the relationship between liquidity and the cash-flow sensitivity of investment, and whether or not accumulation of cash balances by Japanese firms can be consistent with the existence of financial constraints affecting investment.     

政治关系、地区经济增长与企业投资行为

本文以2007～2008年我国沪深主板市场上586家民营上市公司为样本,实证研究了政治关系对企业投资行为的影响。经验结果显示:(1)从整体上看,相比于没有政治关系的民营上市公司,具有政治关系的民营上市公司的投资支出更多;(2)经济增长影响了政治关系作用的发挥,良好的经济增长弱化了政治关系对企业投资行为的影响;(3)政治关系与投资支出之间的关系在不同规模公司之间存在差异,政治关系对投资支出的影响在小公司中更加显著。     

Liquidity and firm investment: Evidence for Latin America

This paper explores the relationship between firms' investment and stock market liquidity. Using a panel of Latin American firms, I find evidence that a higher trading volume and a higher industry-adjusted trading volume are associated with higher firm investment (PPE, Total Assets, and Inventory). This relationship is higher in episodes where the firm decides to issue shares, and it is also greater for firms with tighter financial constraints and better investment opportunities. This evidence is consistent with a mispricing channel, where firms issue and invest the proceeds to take advantage of low cost of capital, or with a cost channel, where liquidity is associated with lower issuance costs. Also, it is less related with an informational channel, where a liquid market helps a manager to take more efficient decisions, since this channel does not necessarily predict an increase in investment, but only more efficient investment.     

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。     

Cash Flow Sensitivity of Investment

Investment cash flow sensitivity is associated with both underinvestment when cash flows are low and overinvestment when cash flows are high. The accessibility of external capital is positively correlated with cash flows, intensifying investment cash flow sensitivity. Managers actively counteract the variations in internal and external liquidity by accumulating working capital when liquidity is high and draining it when liquidity is low. These results imply that cash flow sensitive firms face financial constraints, which are binding in low cash flow years. Traditional indicators of financial constraints, such as size and dividend payout, successfully distinguish firms that may potentially face constraints, but are less successful in distinguishing between periods of tight and relaxed constraints. These periods are much more clearly separated by the KZ index, which, on the other hand, is less successful in identifying firms that are likely to face liquidity constraints.