Using theories from the behavioral finance literature to predict that investors are attracted to industries with more salient outcomes and that therefore firms in such industries have higher valuations, we find that firms in industries that have high industry-level dispersion of profitability...

R&D-intensive firms such as biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies follow very different corporate financial policies from firms in less R&D-intensive industries. To account for these differences, we propose an equilibrium model for such firms in which their capital structure, amount of R&D...

We study the efficiency of internal capital markets at state-controlled and privately owned business groups in China. Using highly granular data on within-group capital flows, we document stark differences: while private groups allocate more capital to units with better investment opportunities,...

We empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on corporate hiring. Using novel data from the labor market for MBA graduates, we show that uncertainty regarding how well job candidates fit with a firm’s industry hinders hiring, and that firms value probationary work arrangements that...

Ensuring that a firm has sufficient liquidity to finance valuable projects that occur in the future is at the heart of the practice of financial management. Yet, while discussion of these issues goes back at least to Keynes (1936), a substantial literature on the ways in which firms manage...

We provide a dynamic model of an industry in which agents strategically time liquidation decisions in an effort to protect their reputations. As in traditional models, agents delay liquidation attempting to signal their quality. However, when the industry faces a common shock that...

Policymakers frequently propose to use capital tax reform to stimulate investment and increase labor earnings. This paper tests for such real impacts of the 2003 dividend tax cut—one of the largest reforms ever to a U.S. capital tax rate—using a quasi-experimental design and a large sample...

We find that a firm's investment is highly sensitive to the investments of other firms headquartered nearby, even those in very different industries. It also responds to fluctuations in the cash flows and stock prices (q) of local firms outside its sector. These patterns do not appear to reflect...

This paper illustrates that evaluating alternate abatement polices that affect the growth path of an economy on the basis of their effects on asset valuation may not be welfare enhancing. We show that the class of abatement polices considered in the integrated assessment literature are robust...

Previous research on the United States and Japan finds economically large impacts of changing real estate collateral value on firm investment. Working with unique data on land values in 35 major Chinese markets and a panel of firms outside the real estate industry, we estimate investment...