A Dynamic Model of the Firm: Structural Explanations of Key Empirical Findings

We derive a dynamic model of the firm in the spirit of the trade‐off theory of capital structure that explains firm behavior in terms of firm characteristics. We show our model is consistent with many important findings about the cross‐section of firms, including the negative relations between profitability and leverage, and between dividends and investment‐cash flow sensitivities. The model also explains the existence of zero‐debt firms and their observed characteristics. These results have been used to challenge the trade‐off theory and the assumption of perfect capital markets. We revisit these critiques and provide structural explanations for the regularities we replicate.     

Investment decisions with financial constraints. Evidence from Spanish firms

This paper analyses to what extent the rejection of the investment dynamics implied by the Euler equation model with quadratic and symmetric adjustment costs can be attributed to the fact that the investment behavior of some firms in some periods is financially constrained by the availability of internal funds. I use a hierarchy of finance model which assumes that internally generated finance for investment is available at a lower cost than external finance, and implies the existence of distinct financial regimes depending on the firm’s financial policy. I estimate the empirical investment equation derived from the model using GMM, taking into account the endogeneity of the selection and allowing for debt finance, imperfect competition and the existence of a possible measurement error in the user cost of capital. The empirical results suggest that the Euler equation model is not seriously misspecified for a sub-sample of firms pursuing a particular financial policy.     

Investment efficiency,state-owned enterprises and privatisation: Evidence from Viet Nam in Transition

Our research firstly tests the difference in investment efficiency between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms and secondly evaluates the effect of privatisation and equitisation policies on the investment efficiency of former state owned enterprises (SOEs). We use a novel dataset from Viet Nam which covers large and non-listed SMEs across construction, manufacturing, and service sectors. Our methodology uses a structural model to test the relationship between Tobin's Q and capital spending. While evident differences in investment efficiency are found across heterogeneous groups of private firms (size, industry, financially constrained and location), we find no evidence of investment spending being linked to marginal returns by SOEs across all sectors and size classes. However, former SOEs that have been privatised and equitized with a minority state shareholding display positive links between Q and investment. In fact, the link is stronger for these firms than for private firms. Differences are also evident across size and sector highlighting that the method of divestment chosen by government shareholders has a differential impact on efficiency across groups of firms and industries.     

Investment Policies and Excess Returns in Corporate Spin-offs: Evidence from the US Market

This article analyzes excess returns generated by corporate spin-offs with respect to changes in investment policies of the spun-off companies. Following the spin-off, the best performing spun-off companies with low growth opportunities exhibit a significant reduction in investment and the best performing high-growth spun-off companies tend to increase or maintain the previous level of investment. The results provide evidence of the existence of a direct monotonic relationship between the size of the change in the level of investment, Tobin’s Q, and excess returns based on the Fama and French (J. financ. Econ. 33: 3–56, 1993) model.     

Accounting for development through investment prices

Cross-country income gaps are large in the data. Can observed investment prices account for these gaps? Our model adds an extensive margin to the neoclassical growth model by allowing for entry of firms. When combined with a “returns to variety” effect, our model provides an amplification mechanism from investment prices to output. Using cross-country data on relative investment prices, the model can explain up to 5 to 6-fold income differences between the richest and poorest countries in our sample while simultaneously reducing the implied cross-country TFP differences.     

Estimating dynamic R&D choice: an analysis of costs and long‐run benefits

This article estimates a dynamic structural model of discrete Research and Development (R&D) investment and quantifies its cost and long‐run benefit for German manufacturing firms. The model incorporates linkages between R&D choice, product and process innovations, and future productivity and profits. The long‐run payoff to R&D is the proportional difference in expected firm value generated by the investment. It increases firm value by 6.7% for the median firm in high‐tech industries but only 2.8% in low‐tech industries. Simulations show that reductions in maintenance costs of innovation significantly raise investment rates and productivity, whereas reductions in startup costs have little effect.     

基于SVECM的我国经济增长动态效应的实证研究

本文应用结构向量误差修正模型(SVECM),实证分析1990-2008年我国投资、消费、进出口对经济增长的动态效应.实证结果显示:消费对经济的短期和长期冲击均高于投资和进出口,消费对投资冲击大于投资对消费冲击,消费和投资未产生相互挤出效应;经济波动以消费为主,世界经济波动对我国经济波动显著增强.     

创业投资网络对投资绩效的影响研究——基于投资决策的中介效应检验

依据2007-2013年中国市场创业投资数据,运用基于Bootstrap抽样的结构方程模型,考量投资决策在投资网络影响机构投资绩效过程中的中介效应。结果表明:创业投资网络可以通过投资决策影响投资绩效,具有较高网络中心性或占据丰富结构洞位置的创业投资机构可以通过采用项目后期介入策略、地域分散投资策略和行业专业化投资策略,提高机构投资绩效。     

基于经济资本的我国保险公司投资风险限额配置研究

投资风险限额管理是保险公司对投资风险进行管理的重要手段,是保险公司建立有效风险管理体系不可或缺的组成部分。保险公司投资风险限额管理主要包括投资风险限额配置、风险限额监控和风险限额动态调整三个环节,其中风险限额配置是整个风险限额管理流程的基础。运用GARCH模型和GJR模型,并结合Copula理论,探讨了投资风险限额配置的方法,通过实证分析证实投资组合之间存在分散化效应,各投资风险限额之和大于总风险限额,并得出投资风险限额优化配置模型调整资产配置,可以显著提高保险公司投资绩效。     

Market Imperfections, Investment Flexibility, and Default Spreads

This paper develops a structural model that determines default spreads in a setting where the debt's collateral is endogenously determined by the borrower's investment choice, and a demand variable with permanent and temporary components. We also consider the possibility that the borrower cannot commit to taking the value‐maximizing investment choice, and may, in addition, be constrained in its ability to raise external capital. Based on a model calibrated to data on office buildings and commercial mortgages, we present numerical simulations that quantify the extent to which investment flexibility, incentive problems, and credit constraints affect default spreads.     

The consequences of perceived risk and objective knowledge for consumers’ investment behavior

Knowledge and risks have a focal role in consumer behavior. However, studies on consumers’ perceive risks in decision situations and the influence of objective knowledge and experience on risk perceptions, consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions are scarce. This paper introduces and tests a novel conceptual model that shows how consumers’ objective financial knowledge and investing experience affect their future investment intentions mediated by perceived risks, and attitudes toward investing. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The proposed model fits the data and accounts for attitudes and intentions to investing. This study advances knowledge by directly measuring the behavior-related objective knowledge and experience. We also suggest new insights into the risk concept by showing that consumers perceive five types of risk in investing context and objective financial knowledge and investment experience has varying effects on different risks types, attitudes and intentions. The results also show significant gender differences.     

Computable Markov‐perfect industry dynamics

We provide a general model of dynamic competition in an oligopolistic industry with investment, entry, and exit. To ensure that there exists a computationally tractable Markov‐perfect equilibrium, we introduce firm heterogeneity in the form of randomly drawn, privately known scrap values and setup costs into the model. Our game of incomplete information always has an equilibrium in cutoff entry/exit strategies. In contrast, the existence of an equilibrium in the Ericson and Pakes' model of industry dynamics requires admissibility of mixed entry/exit strategies, contrary to the assertion in their article, that existing algorithms cannot cope with. In addition, we provide a condition on the model's primitives that ensures that the equilibrium is in pure investment strategies. Building on this basic existence result, we first show that a symmetric equilibrium exists under appropriate assumptions on the model's primitives. Second, we show that, as the distribution of the random scrap values/setup costs becomes degenerate, equilibria in cutoff entry/exit strategies converge to equilibria in mixed entry/exit strategies of the game of complete information.     

Investing at home and abroad: Different costs,different people?

We investigate US households’ direct investment in stocks, bonds and liquid accounts and their foreign counterparts, in order to identify the different participation hurdles affecting asset investment domestically and overseas. To this end, we estimate a trivariate probit model with three further selection equations that allows correlations among unobservables of all possible asset choices. Our results point to the existence of a second hurdle that stock owners need to overcome in order to invest in foreign stocks. On the other hand, we find little evidence for additional pecuniary or informational costs associated with investment in foreign bonds and liquid accounts.     

Vertical structure and innovation: A study of the SoC and smartphone industries

This article studies how vertical integration and upstream R&D subsidy affect innovation and welfare in vertically separated industries. I formulate a dynamic structural model of a dominant upstream firm and oligopolistic downstream firms that invest in complementary innovations. I estimate the model using data on the System-on-Chip (SoC) and smartphone industries. The results suggest that a vertical merger can increase innovation and welfare, mainly driven by the investment coordination of the merged firms. I also find that subsidizing the upstream innovation increases overall private investment, innovation, and welfare.     

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.     

Circuit theory of banking and finance

Drawing on monetary circuit theory, this study develops an approach to analyze the integrated functions of banking and finance in a monetary production economy. The study proposes a micro-founded, circuit-sequenced model of a decentralized-decisions economy, where production, exchange, and investment from households and firms are integrated through money creation and funds allocation operated, respectively, by banks and non-bank financial intermediaries. The model is used to draw implications on: the special nature of banks and the role of non-bank financial intermediaries; the relationship between saving and investment; and the channels through which finance may cause the circuit process to break down. The study also discusses how the circuit approach can be used for an integrated analysis of economic and financial structural change.     

Interregional Income Redistribution and Convergence in a Model with Perfect Capital Mobility and Unionized Labor Markets

The model presents a general equilibrium dynamic model of an economy consisting of many regions. Capital is perfectly mobile and labor is immobile across regions. Wages are determined by local unions. There is training on the job and strategic complementarity between investment in physical capital by firms and investment in becoming “trainable’’ by workers. Structurally similar regional economies preserve forever their differences in per capita output and employment rate, if the workers’ non-labor income is equalized across regions by interregional income redistribution operated via central budget. Regional decentralization of income redistribution allows convergence in per capita output and employment rate.     

Do broker/analyst conflicts matter? Detecting evidence from internet trading platforms

We analyze the potential conflict of interest between analysts and brokers associated with each other. In contrast to the existing literature, we do not analyze prediction accuracy and/or biases in analyst recommendations. Instead, we focus our analysis on brokers and examine whether their behavior systematically differs before and after investment recommendations are released. The evolution and dynamics of brokers' quotes and trades are used to test for systematic trading patterns around the release of one's own investment recommendation. In the model we control for brokers' responses to other investment advices and employ a SUR estimation framework. Data from the Prague Stock Exchange are used to demonstrate our methodology. Finding significant and systematic differences in brokers' behavior, we conclude that misuse of investment recommendations is widespread.     

Risk sharing,finance, and institutions in international portfolios

We develop a standard model to show how transaction costs in international investment affect conventional tests of consumption risk sharing, both in a multilateral and a bilateral setting. We implement the tests in a novel international data set on bilateral holdings of equity, bonds, foreign direct investment (FDI) and bank loans. In our data, high foreign capital holdings are associated with international consumption risk sharing as implied by our theory. This is especially true of investment in equity or bonds, but not of foreign direct investment or bank loans. In our model, the implication is that transaction costs are higher for FDI and international loans. The discrepancy could reflect technological differences, but also the prospect of expropriation, perhaps most stringent for FDI or loans. We argue that expropriation risk is endogenous to both the borrower's institutions and its openness to international markets. The detrimental impact of poor institutions is muted in open economies, where the possibility of subsequent exclusion from world markets deters expropriation of foreign capital. We show the implied effects of institutions prevail in both the cross-section of consumption risk sharing and in observed international investment patterns.