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.     

THE EFFECTS OF ABANDONMENT OPTIONS ON INVESTMENT TIMING AND INTENSITY

This paper examines how the presence of an abandonment option affects the timing and intensity of a firm’s investment. We develop a continuous‐time model wherein a firm is endowed with a perpetual option to invest in a project at any time by incurring an investment cost at that instant. The amount of the investment cost is directly related to the intensity of investment that is endogenously chosen by the firm at the investment instant. The project generates a stream of stochastic revenue flows with a concomitant stream of constant cost flows, both of which increase with the investment intensity. We show that allowing the firm to make an irreversible decision to abandon the project does not affect the firm’s optimal investment intensity if the investment cost is totally reversible. Otherwise, the option to abandon the project induces the firm to choose a lower level of investment intensity. Furthermore, we show that the presence of the abandonment option pushes down the firm’s optimal investment trigger, thereby hastening the undertaking of the project.     

The effects of irreversibility on the timing and intensity of lumpy investment

This paper examines how changes in irreversibility of investment affect the timing and intensity of lumpy investment. We develop a continuous-time model wherein a firm is endowed with a perpetual option to invest in a project at any time by incurring a partially reversible investment cost at that instant. The amount of the investment cost is directly related to the intensity of investment that is endogenously chosen by the firm at the instant when the investment option is exercised. We show that higher irreversibility of investment induces the firm to raise its optimal investment trigger, thereby deferring the undertaking of the project. Furthermore, we show that changes in irreversibility of investment have no impact on the firm's optimal investment intensity due to two opposing effects that exactly offset each other. Finally, we show that higher irreversibility of investment reduces the value of the investment option and, therefore, makes the firm less valuable.     

The effects of abandonment options on operating leverage and investment timing

This paper examines how the presence of an abandonment option affects a firm's investment decision in general, and its operating leverage in particular. We show that the value of the abandonment option is a decreasing function of the firm's operating leverage. Upon the introduction of the abandonment option, the firm as such optimally lowers its operating leverage. We further show that there are direct and indirect effects of the abandonment option on the firm's optimal investment trigger, which act against each other. First, the ability to shut down production offers downside protection to the firm, thereby making the firm more eager to exercise the investment option. This is the negative direct effect that pushes down the investment trigger. Second, introducing the abandonment option to the firm induces the firm to lower its operating leverage, thereby making the firm more reluctant to exercise the investment option. This is the positive indirect effect that lifts up the investment trigger. We numerically verify that the overall effect of the abandonment option on the firm's optimal investment trigger is negative.     

EXPORT AND HEDGING DECISIONS UNDER CORRELATED REVENUE AND EXCHANGE RATE RISK

This paper examines the behaviour of a competitive exporting firm under joint revenue and exchange rate risk. The firm can trade unbiased currency futures contracts for hedging purposes. We show that neither the separation theorem nor the full‐hedging theorem holds when the revenue shock prevails. If the correlation between the revenue shock and the random spot exchange rate is non‐positive, the firm optimally produces less than the benchmark level when the revenue shock is absent. If, in addition, the firm is prudent, the optimal futures position is an under‐hedge. Finally, we derive sufficient conditions under which the firm's optimal output level is higher in the presence than in the absence of the revenue shock. Operational hedging and financial hedging as such interact in a complicated way to better cope with the multiple sources of uncertainty faced by the firm.     

Progressive taxation and corporate liquidation policies with mean-reverting earnings

This paper develops a real options model of an all-equity financed firm that receives mean-reverting earnings and is subject to progressive taxation. Tax progression arises from an exogenously given tax exemption threshold such that the firm pays no corporate income taxes should its earnings be less than this threshold. The firm possesses a perpetual option to liquidate its operation for a deterministic salvage value at any time. We show that the firm optimally exercises the liquidation option at the first instant when its earnings reach an endogenously determined threshold (the liquidation trigger) from above. Using numerical analysis, we show that the liquidation trigger is higher or lower than the exogenously given tax exemption threshold, depending on whether the tax exemption is below or above a unique critical level, respectively. We further show that the liquidation trigger is strictly decreasing for all tax exemption thresholds less than the critical level, and can be hump-shaped for all tax exemption thresholds greater than the critical level, especially when the salvage value is small. Corporate income taxes as such are not neutral when tax schedules are progressive.     

Irreversibility,mean reversion,and investment timing

This paper examines the effect of irreversibility on investment under mean reversion. We develop a continuous-time model wherein a risk-neutral firm is endowed with a perpetual option to invest in a project at any time by incurring a fixed investment cost at that instant. The project, once undertaken, generates a stream of cash flows that are governed by a mean-reverting stochastic process. The firm is then allowed to liquidate its project at any time to partially recover the fixed investment cost. The recovery rate of the fixed investment cost inversely gauges the degree of irreversibility of investment. Using a real options approach, we derive an analytical solution to the value of the firm that is analogous with an American compound option. We show that greater irreversibility of investment induces the firm to raise its investment trigger, thereby deferring the undertaking of the project. We further show that greater irreversibility of investment has a detrimental effect that makes the firm less valuable.     

A note on optimal capital stock and financing constraints

There is a robust literature on the relationship between financing constraints and real investment. Little has been said on the relationship between financing constraints and capital stock in the long run. This note focuses on this last issue. To keep the model tractable, we assume that the firm employs a single input, and this input is used as collateral. We get three main results. Firstly, we show that the optimal capital stock chosen by a firm is affected by financing constraints even when they are slack at the current time. Secondly, we show that the net present value of the potentially constrained firm is always smaller than the one of the never constrained firm. Finally, we find that in the presence of latent financing constraints the firm does not limit itself to reducing its investment when the upper limit is reached. What it actually does is to lower its long run optimal capital stock, amplifying the effects of constraints in the long run.     

Price and quantity regulation in general equilibrium

We consider a general equilibrium model with a production externality (e.g. pollution), where the regulator does not observe firm productivity shocks. We examine quantity (permit) regulation and price (tax) regulation. The quantity of permits issued by the regulator are independent of the productivity shock, since shocks are unobserved. Price regulation implies use of the regulated input is an increasing function of the productivity shock because firms take advantage of a good productivity shock by increasing input use. Thus price regulation generates higher average, but more variable, production. Therefore, we show that in general equilibrium the relative advantage of quantity versus price regulation depends not only on the slopes of marginal benefits and costs, but on general equilibrium effects such as risk aversion. The general equilibrium effects are often more important than the slopes of the marginal benefits and cost curves. In the simplest model, a reasonable risk aversion coefficient implies quantity regulation generates higher welfare regardless of the benefit function.     

Biased managers as strategic commitment: The relative profit approach

This paper analyzes a duopolistic model wherein each firm׳s owner can hire a biased manager for strategic reasons. We focus on the situation wherein each firm׳s owner evaluates the performance of her/his manager on the basis of her/his relative profit, which is equal to the weighted sum of her/his absolute profit and the absolute profit of her/his opponent firm. We show that in both price-setting and quantity-setting competitions, the owners of the two private firms employ aggressive managers rather than absolute profit maximizing managers regardless of the degree of importance of each firm׳s relative performance. Furthermore, in both the price competition and the quantity competition, as the degree of importance of each firm׳s relative performance increases, we show that the firms׳ owners tend to hire more aggressive managers when the degree of importance of each firm׳s relative performance is sufficiently low, whereas in both the price competition and the quantity competition, the firms׳ owners tend to hire less aggressive managers otherwise. Thus, in both the price competition and the quantity competition, the type of each firm׳s manager is not monotone with respect to the degree of each firm׳s relative performance. Thus, in both the price competition and the quantity competition, we find that the change in the optimal type of manager hired by each firm is non-monotone against the change of competitiveness in the market with the increase in the degree of importance of each firm׳s relative performance.     

EFFECTS OF ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION WITHIN A FIRM ON OLIGOPOLISTIC MARKET OUTCOMES

I analyze the implications of the Laffont–Tirole type agency problems on oligopolistic market outcomes. In the model, a firm's marginal cost is decreasing in managerial effort and is subject to an additive shock. Both managerial effort and the realization of the shock are a manager's private information. A firm first offers a menu of contract to its manager, and then competes in the product market. As in the model of single principal and single agent, the incentive contracts implement efforts that are distorted downward relative to full information. In this model, with multiple agency relationships, an additional source for upward distortion of effort emerges as a result of the interaction in the product market. The results are robust to whether firms compete in price or quantity.     

Selection effects in auctions for monopoly rights

We demonstrate that auctioning market licenses may result in higher market prices than assigning them via more random allocation mechanisms. When future market profit is uncertain, winning an auction is like winning a lottery ticket. If firms differ in risk attitudes, auctions select the least risk-averse firm, which, in turn, set a higher price (or a higher quantity, in case quantity is the decision variable) in the marketplace than an average firm.     

中国汽车工业的市场规模和企业数量研究

本文根据Bresnahan&Reiss(1 991 )的文章所发展的模型和计量方法 ,对中国汽车工业的市场规模和企业数量进行回归分析。证实了在汽车产业中同样存在着市场规模和企业数量正相关关系 ,并且从实证的角度衡量了中国汽车工业规模小、企业数量多、投资分散的程度。我们的经济计量分析表明 ,在当今中国的汽车行业 ,企业实际数目与理论估算的合理企业数目相吻合 ,且单个企业的生产尚未严重受到“最低市场需求量”这一门槛水平的制约的省份 ,只剩下上海、天津和吉林三个省市。这从一定程度上揭示了 ,下一步中国汽车行业的重组、兼并与整合的任务有多么艰巨     

Participation,Recruitment Selection,and the Minimum Wage

In this paper, we re‐examine the efficiency of participation with heterogeneous workers in a search‐matching model with bargained wages and free entry. Assuming that firms hire their best applicants, we show that participation is always too low. The reason for this is a hold‐up phenomenon: to be active, a worker must pay the entire search cost whereas part of the gain from this investment goes to the firm. As a consequence, introducing a (small) minimum wage raises participation, job creation, and employment. Therefore, net aggregate income of the economy is increased.     

Determinants of firms’ investment behaviour: a multilevel approach

This article investigates the determinants of firms’ investment behaviour using firm data from 101 developing and emerging economies. A substantial number of firms does not invest in fixed capital or invests little relative to sales revenue. Using a multilevel probit model we study what factors trigger investment, and using a multilevel Heckman selection model we study what factors influence a firm’s investment-to-sales ratio. We find that firms’ investment behaviour has relatively little dependency on a country’s macroeconomic setting. Additionally, we find that, on average, firms that are completely foreign-owned have a relatively lower investment-to-sales ratio. Finally, we find evidence which suggests that the probability of investing is higher for firms located in countries with more control of corruption and we find some evidence which suggests that partially foreign-owned firms located in countries with relatively less corruption have a relatively higher investment-to-sales ratio.     

The effects of future financing constraints on capital accumulation: Some new results on the constrained investment problem

In this paper, we study the effects of future constraints on current investment decisions. Unlike the standard literature on this optimizing problem, we present a model in which firms are neither always constrained nor always unconstrained. We are concerned with those cases where a firm is free from constraints at the current time but expects to face an upper bound at some later date. Using the ‘no arbitrage principle’ in the constrained scenario, we show how to explicitly calculate the optimal investment path switching between regimes. The analytical result shows that the effects of future financing constraints are included in the market value of the firm, and thus are captured by marginal q.     

Mutually exclusive investment with technical uncertainty

A firm, which faces technical uncertainty as in Pindyck (1993) can choose between two mutually exclusive investment projects, Projects 1 and 2. The added option to exercise Project 2 makes the firm less likely to exercise Project 1. An increase in the degree of technical uncertainty, the investment rate or the investment value upon completion for Project 2 encourages the firm to exercise Project 2 by increasing the trigger level of the expected cost of Project 2. This, however, ambiguously affects the firm's incentive to exercise Project 1, as the firm would rather implement Project 1 (2) in a region where the expected cost of Project 2 is relatively high (low).     

Progressive taxation,tax exemption,and corporate liquidation policy

This paper develops a real options model of a firm that operates in continuous time with an infinite horizon. The firm receives stochastic profit flows that are subject to progressive taxation. Tax progression arises from an exogenously given tax exemption threshold that makes the average tax rate increase with the tax base. The firm possesses an option to liquidate its operation, which is optimally exercised when the firm's profit flow reaches an endogenously determined threshold level (the liquidation trigger) from above. We show that the firm's liquidation trigger under progressive taxation increases with either a reduction in the tax exemption threshold or an increase in the corporate income tax rate. Corporate income taxes are thus not neutral when tax schedules are progressive.     

The international wealth channel: a global error-correcting analysis

This article investigates empirically whether shocks to asset prices transmit into the trade balance through consumption and investment for a group of five of the world??s most industrialized countries. We refer to this transmission channel as the international wealth channel and estimate a GVAR model including 29 countries with quarterly data over the period 1981Q1?C2006Q4. Generalized impulse response functions show that after a negative stock price shock US and UK consumption decreases, followed by an improving trade balance. This pattern is also visible for France, but not for Germany and Japan. Stock price decreases are only associated with decreasing investment and an improving trade balance in the UK. For housing, we do find that a negative shock to UK housing prices decreases domestic investment and improves the trade balance. However, this pattern is not visible in the other countries. Finally, a domestic negative real exchange rate shock only has a significantly positive impact on the US trade balance.     

Investment, uncertainty and irreversibility

This paper investigates the irreversibility of investments and the impact this has on the nature of the relationship between investment and uncertainty. The empirical analysis uses firm‐level data and is based on a survey of 210 rice‐milling firms in the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam, which was carried out during the year 2000. We show that uncertainty reduces investment of rice millers in the presence of irreversibility, as is predicted by the real options approach to investment. We do not find evidence that the negative association between uncertainty and investment is influenced by the degree of irreversibility.