The Influence of Financial Factors on Corporate Investment

Abstract
Recent theoretical developments have shown that cash flows and the structure of a firm's balance sheet may have an important influence on investment. Establishing a link between cash flows, leverage and investment provides insights into the way that monetary policy and cyclical factors more generally influence the corporate sector. If cash flows are an important determinant of investment then changes in monetary policy (by changing interest rates) will influence investment through a cash flow effect as well as through altering the rate at which the returns to investment are discounted. If this is the case, the higher leverage of the corporate sector implies, other things being equal, that monetary policy may have a larger impact on investment than in the past .
In this article we use panel-data analysis to examine the impact of financial factors on investment decisions of firms in the Australian corporate sector. We find strong support for the influence of financial factors on investment decisions. Leverage, internally generated cash flows, and the stock of cash and liquid financial assets are all important influences on investment behaviour, particularly for smaller firms, highly leveraged firms, and firms with high retention ratios .     

Book Reviews

Abstract

This paper argues that exchange rate models rooted in the theory of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and balanced trade are fundamentally mis-specified, as evidenced by the disjuncture between: (1) the empirical evidence, which largely refutes PPP; and (2) the empirical result that ‘real’ productivity shocks are associated with observed secular trends in exchange rates. In the former case we have a theory without convincing evidence, and in the latter case we have empirical evidence in want of a consistent theory. If looked at from the perspective of a ‘cost of production’ theory of prices, such empirical results might not be so theoretically anomalous. So-called ‘real’ variables (especially productivity and unit labor costs), let in through the side door as ‘shocks’ to PPP equilibrium, may in fact be part and parcel of the formation of prices of production on an international scale through capitalist competition. The primary conclusion is that the empirical evidence supports a cost of production theory of the terms of trade and the real exchange rate. The empirical evidence in support of the Balassa–Samuelson model of the exchange rate is re-interpreted in this light. In this interpretation, parity holds only in terms of rates of return on investment which, in the classical tradition, are presumed to equalize across industries internationally.     

The Intertemporal Causal Dynamics Between Fixed Capital Formation and Economic Growth in The Group-Of-Seven Countries *

The debate between De Long and Summers (1991, 1992) and Blomstrom, Lipsey and Zejan (1996) who reported conflicting results on the relationship between fixed capital formation and economic growth raised doubts on whether changes in a country's capital formation shares in GDP have an influence on its future growth rates. This paper addresses the issue again by examining the causal patterns between the share of fixed investment in GDP and the growth rate of per capital real GDP on an individual country basis, using time series on each of the group-of-seven countries. The empirical results suggest that the causal relationship between these variables may vary significantly across the major industrialized countries that presumably belong to the same growth group. Most importantly, no consistent evidence is found that causality is running in only one direction. Rather, causality between fixed investment and growth seems to have a country-specific nature and may run in either directions.     

Professor Friedman,meet Lady Rhys-Williams: NIT vs. CIT

In the conventional view, income testing is required to make a tax-transfer program ‘efficient.’ This view can be seen to hinge on the ‘target efficiency’ concept. The economic efficiency of income testing is analyzed here-including distortions of household behavior and the total administrative costs of the tax-transfer system. The income-tested program is a negative income tax system (NIT), which has divergent marginal tax rates for beneficiaries and net taxpayers; the nontested scheme is a credit income tax (CIT), which makes universal payments and imposes a uniform marginal tax rate. Theoretical analysis shows the conditions under which the CIT is more efficient than a comparable NIT. Some suggestive empirical evidence and policy considerations in the choice between NIT and CIT are presented.     

Investment, Exports, and Output in South Korea: A VAR Approach to Growth Empirics

This study examines the time-series behavior of investment, exports, and output in South Korea from 1956 to 1996. Impulse-response analysis and variance decompositions indicate that investment rates and export growth rates have significant short-run effects on the growth rates of per capita output. While there are long-run effects to the levels of per capita output, statistically all growth rate effects disappear within four years. No special role for equipment investment was found. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the Solow growth model. The study found no empirical support for endogenous growth theory.     

我国经济转型过程中的合理投资规模

在梳理现有文献的基础上,运用局部调整模型且从经济转型过程中工业化和城市化的视角,以及运用自适应预期模型且从预期经济增长率的视角,分析了我国经济转型过程中的合理投资规模。通过实证分析,得到两个不同的投资率,即局部调整投资率和自适应预期投资率;并分析了实际投资率、局部调整投资率和自适应预期投资率的关系,从而得出经济转型过程中自适应预期投资率、局部调整投资率分别是合理投资率的上、下限的结论。据此,提出宏观投资调控的目标是使实际投资率位于合理的投资规模区间内,以实现转型过程中经济的平稳发展。     

Financial liberalization,private investment and portfolio choice: Financialization of real sectors in emerging markets

Using firm level panel data, we analyze the impacts of rates of return gap between financial and fixed investments under uncertainty on real investment performance in three emerging markets, Argentina, Mexico and Turkey. Employing a portfolio choice model to explain the low fixed investment rates in developing countries during the 1990s, we suggest that rather than investing in irreversible long-term fixed investments, firms may choose to invest in reversible short-term financial investments depending on respective rates of returns and the overall uncertainty in the economy. The empirical results show that increasing rates of return gap and uncertainty have an economically and statistically significant fixed investment reducing effect while the opposite is true with respect to financial investments.     

The real exchange rate and economic development

Recent empirical studies have found a robust correlation between competitive exchange rates and economic growth in developing economies. This paper presents (i) a formal model to help explain these findings and (ii) econometric evidence on the relation between investment and the real exchange rate. The model emphasizes the existence of (hidden) unemployment as a source of endogenous growth, even under constant returns to scale. Growth promoting policies, however, affect the external balance, and two instruments are needed in order to achieve targets for both the growth rate and the trade balance. The real exchange rate can serve as one of those instruments. The implications of the model for the relation between real exchange rates and the rate of capital accumulation find support in our econometric analysis.     

Brand capital and firm value

We study the role of brand capital – a primary form of intangible capital – for firm valuation and risk in the cross section of publicly traded firms. Using an empirical measure of brand capital stock constructed from advertising expenditures accounting data, we show that: (i) firms with low brand capital investment rates have higher average stock returns than firms with high brand capital investment rates, a difference of 5.2% per annum; (ii) more brand capital intensive firms have higher average stock returns than less brand capital intensive firms, a difference of 5.1% per annum; and (iii) investment in both brand capital and physical capital is volatile and procyclical. A neoclassical investment-based model in which brand capital is a factor of production subject to adjustment costs matches the data well. The model also provides a novel explanation for the empirical links between advertising expenditures and stock returns around seasoned equity offerings (SEO) documented in previous studies.     

How elastic are national corporate income tax bases in OECD countries? The role of domestic and foreign tax rates

Abstract To what extent do reductions in corporate income tax (CIT) rates attract foreign tax bases? What are the revenue implications of a unilateral tax reduction when tax bases are internationally mobile? These questions are explored using annual data from 17 OECD countries spanning the period 1982 to 2005. Controlling for fixed country effects, year effects, and country time trends, and subjecting our results to an extensive robustness analysis, we find (i) a country’s aggregate reported corporate profits are negatively and significantly affected by CIT rate reductions in neighbouring countries; (ii) a unilateral reduction in the domestic CIT rate results in lower domestic CIT revenues.     

Public investment,national debt,and economic growth: The role of debt finance under dynamic inefficiency

Public investment is a central issue in the dynamic analyses of fiscal policy and economic growth. Debt financing for public investment and its effects have recently received great attention because interest rates have been low, almost invariably remaining below economic growth rates. This paper presents examination of the effects of debt-financed public investment subject to a simple fiscal rule in an overlapping generations model with public capital. This topic includes capital budgeting and the debt–deficit criterion of the Maastricht treaty. We show herein that debt financing for public investment enhances economic growth if an economy is dynamically inefficient and if public capital has a sufficiently large productivity effect. Moreover, it reduces economic growth rates in a dynamically efficient economy. Debt and growth can have a monotonic or non-monotonic relation, depending on the steady-state interest rate, growth rate, and productivity effect of public investment. The findings indicate that debt–growth relations match with controversial empirical evidence. Furthermore, existing generations choose perfect debt finance if dynamic inefficiency exists. In contrast, a balanced budget is preferred in a dynamically efficient economy with low productivity effects of public capital. However, an economy with high productivity effects of public capital might cho ose debt financing. This paper contributes to the elucidation of currently emphasized issues of public investment.     

ENDOGENOUS JOB CONTACT NETWORKS

We develop a model where workers, anticipating the risk of becoming unemployed, invest in connections in order to access information about available jobs that other workers may have. The investment in connections is high when the job separation rate in the labor market is moderate, whereas it is low for either low or high levels of job separation rate. The equilibrium response of network investment to changes in the labor market conditions generates novel empirical predictions. In particular, the probability that a worker finds a new job via his connections increases in the separation rate when the separation rate is low, whereas it decreases when the separation rate is high. These predictions are supported by the empirical patterns that we document for the U.K. labor market.     

How Islamic are Islamic banks? A non-linear assessment of Islamic rate – conventional rate relations

In this paper, we perform a non-linear assessment of Islamic rate – conventional rate relations for the case of Malaysia. Using monthly data covering the period January 1999 to November 2016, we find strong evidence supporting non-linear reactions of the Islamic investment rates to conventional rates in the long run and/or short-run for all matched maturities. More precisely, the Islamic investment rates exhibit faster upward movement (slower downward movement) in responses to conventional deposit rate increases (decreases). The asymmetric pricing behaviour of Islamic banks however tends to weaken as maturity lengthens. Accordingly, we infer that Islamic banks do not rigidly peg their investment deposit rates to conventional deposit rates as some have claimed in questioning the Islamicity of Islamic banks.     

金融发展、资本积累与内生增长:一个评述

本文以资本外溢AK内生增长模型为基础,对金融发展、资本积累与经济增长关系的理论研究和经验分析作了一个文献综述.理论研究表明:金融发展通过提高储蓄转化为资本比率、改善投资配置效率和改变储蓄率等途径促进资本积累和经济增长;金融发展与经济增长之间呈互相促进、互为因果的双向关系,并形成金融发达、经济高增长和金融欠发达、经济低增长的双重均衡.经验分析显示,金融发展与经济增长之间呈显著正相关关系,这证实了金融发展与内生增长理论的预测.     

Real interest rates: nonlinearity and structural breaks

Real interest rate is a crucial variable that determines the consumption, investment and saving behavior of individuals and thereby acts as a key policy tool that the central banks use to control the economy. Although many important theoretical models require the real interest rates to be stationary, the empirical evidence accumulated so far has not been able to provide conclusive evidence on the mean reverting dynamics of this variable. To resolve this puzzle we re-investigate the stochastic nature of the real interest rates by developing unit root tests for nonlinear heterogeneous panels where the alternative hypothesis allows for a smooth transition between deterministic linear trends around which stationary asymmetric adjustment may occur. When the newly developed panel unit root tests are applied to the real interest rates of the 17 OECD countries, we were able to uncover overwhelming empirical support in favor of mean reversion in the short-run and long-run real interest rates. Therefore, these results show that the conclusions drawn from a miss-specified test that ignores the presence of either nonlinearity, structural breaks or cross sectional dependence can give quite misleading results about the stochastic behavior of the real interest rates.     

WHY DO RATES OF β‐CONVERGENCE DIFFER? A META‐REGRESSION ANALYSIS

The roles played by differences in study design and methodology in influencing the estimates of β‐convergence have been hinted at in narrative reviews of the empirical convergence literature. While such reviews are useful, they only provide informal evidence as to the reasons for the study‐to‐study variation in reported convergence rates. In contrast, meta‐regression analysis is a way of formally measuring the roles played by study design and methodology in influencing β‐convergence. In cross‐national studies, convergence rates are found to be higher when panel estimation methods are used, and when human capital development, investment rates and spatial factors are controlled for. The longer the time span covered by the estimation, the lower the rates. In intra‐national studies, β‐convergence is higher when the investment rate is included as a conditioning variable and when GMM estimation methods are used. Rates are found to be lower in studies of developing countries.     

Valuing investment projects under interest rate risk: empirical evidence from European firms

In this article, we perform an empirical investigation of the effect of the interest rate uncertainty on the valuation of investment projects. The analysis is carried out by employing a real option approach and by considering a set of firms that operate in various production sectors in the euro area. In particular, the revenues generated by the investment projects are modelled using a geometric Brownian motion, whereas the interest rate is specified as a stochastic process of Vasicek type. Moreover, using the volatility of the equity return as a proxy, the volatility of the revenues is calibrated to real firm data, while the parameters of the interest rate model are estimated by fitting the Euribor time series. To this aim, an ad hoc calibration procedure is developed which is based on the maximum likelihood principle and thus has the merit of being simple, fast and suitable for practical purposes. Our study reveals that the interest rate uncertainty reduces the valuation of investment projects. However, stochastic interest rates do not provide a substantial improvement with respect to constant interest rates, or at least the differences are not statistically significant.     

Productive physical investment and growth: testing the validity of the AK model from a panel perspective

In this article, we analyse the relationship between productive physical investment and economic growth from a panel perspective for a sample of 61 countries spanning the period 1950 to 1992. The analysis can be thought of as two-fold. First, we test the empirical validity of AK models following the logic by Jones (1995 Jones, CI. 1995. Time series properties of endogenous growth models. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110: 495–525. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). For that purpose, we determine the degree of persistence of physical investment rates and growth by employing recently developed panel unit-root tests that enable us to make more reliable inferences about the existence of stochastic trends in the series. Second, we estimate the long-run effect of physical investment on growth by using panel data techniques rather than cross-section regressions. Overall, our findings cast doubts on the rejection of the empirical validity of the AK model, as suggested by Jones’ analysis.     

增值税转型改革的效应评价——基于安徽省经验数据的实证分析

增值税转型引起增值税实际税率下降和税负降低,而增值税的税负降低必然导致经济运行发生变化.基于增值税转型所产生的投资效应、财政收入效应和安徽省的经验数据,实证检验了增值税转型对企业固定资产投资和财政收入的影响.结果显示:增值税转型具有投资正效应和财政收入负效应.即增值税转型促进了安徽省企业的固定资产投资增加,但导致了其财政收入减少.     

Accounting for China's Saving‐Investment Imbalance from 2002–2008

This paper decomposes and analyzes China's saving‐investment imbalance (equivalent to current account imbalance) from 2002–2008. We first use the Flow of Funds Accounts to calculate the saving and investment rates (propensity) of the household, corporate and government sectors and to evaluate their relative contribution to the aggregate saving‐investment surplus. The results indicate that the increase of saving‐investment surplus can be attributed to the steady increase of saving by the household and government sectors and the short‐term downsizing of investment by the corporate and government sectors. We then use more disaggregate supplementary datasets to explore the factors behind the evolution of the saving and investment rates for the three sectors. The rise of the household saving rate mainly sources from the urban sector. The corporate saving rate experienced a steady increase because of the rise of profitability. Government macroeconomic policies have had a strong influence on the saving and investment patterns of the corporate and government sectors.