Do adjustment costs explain investment-cash flow insensitivity?

In this paper, I explain two “puzzles” that have been observed in firm level data. First, firms that display a high sensitivity of investment to cash flow (commonly believed to be an indicator of liquidity constraints) usually have large unutilized lines of credit which, presumably, could be used to overcome the shortage of funds. Second, firms that are perceived to be extremely liquidity constrained actually show very little sensitivity of investment to cash flow.I show how a dynamic model of firm investment with liquidity constraints and non-convex costs of adjustment of capital can explain these facts. These two features together imply that firms need to have a certain threshold level of financial resources before they can afford to increase investment. Once they cross this threshold, firms’ investment will be positively correlated with their financial resources until they reach their desired level of capital stock. However, even if investment is sensitive to cash flow, firms may borrow below their credit limit to guard against future bankruptcy or binding liquidity constraints.     

Interaction between central planners and firms: The uncertainty of target adjustment

Conclusions The interaction between planners and firms in a centrally planned economy has already been treated by a number of authors. They have generally focused upon the firm's performance in the face of various reward structures and have, with the exception of Gindin (1970) and Snowberger (1977), not dealt explicitly with the feed-back effect this performance has on the planners' adjustment of the reward structure for the future. This paper has extended the previous analysis of the feedback mechanism into the case where a firm knows that the planners have the power to make such adjustments but does not know precisely what form they will take. We have developed models which reflect several different ways in which a firm might respond to this uncertainty. Furthermore, we have introduced an adjustment scheme which considers the performance of all firms in the industry when setting a target for any one of them, in addition to treating the ordinary assumption that a firm's future target depends only upon its own present underor overfulfillment.8060 Niwot Road, # 19, Longmont, Colorado 80501, USA.     

WACC and free cash flows: A simple adjustment for capitalized interest costs

This paper shows how to value investment projects involving capitalization of interest costs by using the standard WACC method. Whenever capitalized interest costs do not immediately generate proportionate tax shields, one of the assumptions that justify the use of the after-tax weighted average cost-of-capital formula is violated. As an offset to this violation, the project's free cash flows have to be adjusted. We here derive and interpret a simple adjustment formula. A numerical illustration is provided.     

Demand for labour inputs and adjustment costs: evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms

This paper studies the structure of the adjustment costs for heterogeneous labour inputs, allowing for asymmetries and interaction effects among them. To do this, I estimate Euler equations for the demands of permanent nonproduction (white collar) and production (blue collar) employees using a sample of Spanish manufacturing firms. These equations are estimated using the subsample of observations for which adjustment is done, controlling for endogenous sample selection. The main results confirm the heterogeneity of adjustment costs for these two labour inputs, and the existence of cross-adjustment effects between them. Weak evidence of asymmetry in permanent nonproduction labour is also found.     

Price uncertainty and the effect of capital costs in a point in-point out inventory investment

This paper analyzes a point in-point out inventory investment under price uncertainty. The optimal quantity is determined by maximizing the expected value of the investor's risk preference function, which is a function of profit. Using an exponential risk preference function, the adjustment in the optimal quantity stemming from a change in the interest rate is investigated. The main conclusion is that the sign of the adjustment depends both on how profit is expressed and on the type of price distribution applied. Contrary to what is assumed in conventional managerial control practices, a rise in the interest rate might lead to an increase in the optimal quantity when present value serves as a measure of profit.     

Price uncertainty, saving, and welfare

We analyze how commodity price uncertainty affects saving behavior and welfare in a dynamic model with multiple commodities, portfolio hedging, and a preference structure that disentangles ordinal preferences, attitudes towards risk, and attitudes towards intertemporal substitution. We show that the effect of price uncertainty on savings boils down to knowing (1) hf degree of resistance to intertemporal substitution and (2) the effect that uncertainty has on the certainty-equivalent real interest rate. We also show that, if the certainty-equivalent real interest rate is lower with uncertainty, consumers' welfare is also lower.     

Social pressure,uncertainty, and cooperation

We analyse the role of uncertainty in a sequential game where players have to decide whether to contribute to a public project or not. A player's payoff may depend on his belief about the other player's action which allows us to model social pressure. Using the theory of psychological games, we show that the players' propensity to choose an individually costly action such as cooperation in a public project may increase if there is some uncertainty about who has cooperated before. A central agency, e.g. the government, can induce incomplete information by using a randomization policy, thus crowding in private contributions. Received: November 16, 1998 / Accepted: May 31, 1999     

Risk, uncertainty, and option exercise

Many economic decisions can be described as an option exercise or optimal stopping problem under uncertainty. Motivated by experimental evidence such as the Ellsberg Paradox, we follow Knight (1921) and distinguish risk from uncertainty. To capture this distinction, we adopt the multiple-priors utility model. We show that the impact of ambiguity on the option exercise decision depends on the relative degrees of ambiguity about continuation payoffs and termination payoffs. Consequently, ambiguity may accelerate or delay option exercise. We apply our results to investment and exit problems, and show that the myopic NPV rule can be optimal for an agent having an extremely high degree of ambiguity aversion.     

Attitude towards risk,uncertainty, and fixed investment

We explore the relevance of the risk attitude of managers to the investment-uncertainty relation. Higher moments of the distribution of net profits are used to measure the risk premium of the firm, from which we derive a proxy for the risk aversion of managers. Using an unbalanced panel of Dutch listed firms, we find that in general a low degree of risk aversion coincides with a positive impact of demand uncertainty on investment. More specifically, we find that risk-averse firms respond to demand uncertainty by cutting investment, while the investment undertaken by risk-taking firms responds to demand uncertainty positively.     

Franchise bidding,regulation and investment costs

This paper analyzes the design of an optimal monopoly franchise policy when firms incur investment costs. We show how this policy depends on the timing of entry. When the investment cost is a fixed cost or a sunk cost paid after knowing the marginal cost parameter, the optimal policy consists of a Baron-Myerson type pricing rule and a lowest cost awarding rule. When the investment cost is a sunk cost paid before knowing the marginal cost parameter, auctioning the right to serve the market eliminates the need for an incentive regulation: the price is given by the complete information Ramsey formula and the subsidy is a Loeb-Magat type subsidy, while an entry fee yields first best entry.     

Transport costs, intermediate goods, and localized growth

This paper presents a dynamic, two-regional, general equilibrium model in which interregional production and trade patterns are endogenously determined. Localized growth stems from the geographical concentration of an industrial sector exhibiting permanent productivity increases. Geographical concentration is a result of the interaction between local market size and local competition in the differentiated input industry. Regional factor endowment with an immobile factor is decisive for the long-run specialization, trade and growth patterns between the regions if large endowment differences prevail. With equal-sized regions, multiple equilibria exist. Furthermore, we argue that integration might lead to increasing regional concentration of production and innovation.     

Transport improvements,commuting costs,and residential location

This paper develops a theoretical framework for evaluating one of the long-run or secondary effects of a transport improvement. The familiar model of residential location is manipulated to derive an estimating equation relating changes in travel costs to changes in the household's preferred location. When estimated for a particular transport situation the major finding is the importance of the price effect. Although direct cost savings are important, especially in the short-run, in the long-run and especially for innovations with substantially increased speed or reduced operating costs the price effect may completely dwarf the income effect.     

土地市场淡静中的调整

曾经的热反衬了2008年土地市场的冷.　　就在一年以前,土地裹挟着资本将地产市场推向了过山东的顶点.……     

Firing costs, severance payments, judicial mistakes and unemployment

In the discussion about employment protection, little attention has been given to judicial mistakes. In most countries, only in the case of dismissals due to economic reasons, the employee is entitled to a severance payment. Given judicial mistakes when reviewing a dismissal, shirkers might falsely receive a severance payment while non-shirker might not. At fighting unemployment, increasing the level of severance payments can increase employment for small judicial mistakes and effectively dominate the pure firing costs which leave ambiguous effects on employment. For large judicial mistakes, the opposite can hold and severance payments can decrease employment.     

不完全信息倾销与反倾销博弈

倾销与反倾销是国际竞争中的一个典型博弈,假设博弈双方均以利润最大化为目标,且局中双方均对博弈策略能正确选择和应对,即为经济理性且擅长博弈,设完全信息市场中有双寡头企业i=1,2(其中企业1代表进口国,记为Ⅰ方,企业2代表出口国,记为Ⅱ方,Ⅰ、Ⅱ方均为市场经济国家企业,即成本为真实的),记C_i、q_i为i企业平均成本和销售量,P为Ⅰ方市场总销量q_1 q_2的均衡价格函数,双方利润可表示为:     

Labour adjustment costs: Estimation of a dynamic discrete choice model using panel data for Greek manufacturing firms

In this paper we estimate a dynamic structural model of employment at firm level. Our dataset consists of a balanced panel of 2790 Greek manufacturing firms. The empirical evidence of this dataset stresses three important stylized facts: (a) there are periods in which firms decide not to change their labour input, (b) there are periods of large employment changes (lumpy nature of labour adjustment) and (c) the commonality is employment spikes to be followed by smooth and low employment growth periods. Following Cooper and Haltiwanger [Cooper, R.W. and Haltiwanger, J. “On the Nature of Capital Adjustment Costs”, Review of Economic Studies, 2006; 73(3); 611–633], we consider a dynamic discrete choice model of a general specification of adjustment costs including convex, non-convex and “disruption of production” components. We use a method of simulated moments procedure to estimate the structural parameters. Our results indicate considerable fixed costs in the Greek employment adjustment.     

State-contingent representations, strategic market games and systematic uncertainty

In this paper it is argued, in the context of a Walrasian market game, that the statecontingent representation of uncertainty is not compatible with the existence of what we call systematic uncertainty, that is, uncertainty that cannot be removed whatever the decision maker's conduct and past experience. The implications of this conclusion from the point of view of the foundations of decision theory are also drawn.