IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/dyncon/v27y2003i11p1993-2006.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do adjustment costs explain investment-cash flow insensitivity?

Author

Listed:
  • Pratap, Sangeeta

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Pratap, Sangeeta, 2003. "Do adjustment costs explain investment-cash flow insensitivity?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(11), pages 1993-2006.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:27:y:2003:i:11:p:1993-2006
    DOI: 10.1016/S0165-1889(02)00113-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188902001136
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/S0165-1889(02)00113-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chirinko, Robert S, 1993. "Business Fixed Investment Spending: Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1875-1911, December.
    2. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    3. Gilchrist, Simon & Himmelberg, Charles P., 1995. "Evidence on the role of cash flow for investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 541-572, December.
    4. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    5. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Robert S. Chirinko, 1992. "Business Fixed Investment Spending: A Critical survey of Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," Working Papers 9213, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    7. Fabio Schiantarelli & Alessandro Sembenelli, 1995. "Form of Ownership and Financial Constraints: Panel Data Evidence from Leverage and Investment Equations," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 286., Boston College Department of Economics.
    8. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1999. "Aggregate investment," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 813-862, Elsevier.
    9. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    10. Abel, Andrew B & Eberly, Janice C, 1994. "A Unified Model of Investment under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1369-1384, December.
    11. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    12. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Capital-Market Imperfections and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 193-225, March.
    13. Huntley Schaller, 1993. "Asymmetric Information, Liquidity Constraints and Canadian Investment," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 26(3), pages 552-574, August.
    14. Barnett, Steven A. & Sakellaris, Plutarchos, 1998. "Nonlinear response of firm investment to Q:: Testing a model of convex and non-convex adjustment costs1," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 261-288, July.
    15. Caballero, R.J., 1996. "Fixed Costs: The Demise of Marginal q," Working papers 96-14, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    16. Sangeeta Pratap & Silvio Rendon, 2003. "Firm Investment in Imperfect Capital Markets: A Structural Estimation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(3), pages 513-545, July.
    17. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1991. "Corporate Structure, Liquidity, and Investment: Evidence from Japanese Industrial Groups," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 33-60.
    18. Mark E. Doms & Timothy Dunne, 1998. "Capital Adjustment Patterns in Manufacturing Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 409-429, April.
    19. Greenwald, Bruce & Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1984. "Informational Imperfections in the Capital Market and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 194-199, May.
    20. John Haltiwanger & Russell Cooper & Laura Power, 1999. "Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 921-946, September.
    21. Michael Devereux & Fabio Schiantarelli, 1990. "Investment, Financial Factors, and Cash Flow: Evidence from U.K. Panel Data," NBER Chapters, in: Asymmetric Information, Corporate Finance, and Investment, pages 279-306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel & John C. Haltiwanger, 1995. "Plant-Level Adjustment and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 1-54.
    23. A. Sandmo, 1970. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Saving Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(3), pages 353-360.
    24. Austan Goolsbee & David B. Gross, 1997. "Estimating Adjustment Costs with Data on Heterogeneous Capital Goods," NBER Working Papers 6342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Guiseppe Bertola & Ricardo J. Caballero, 1994. "Irreversibility and Aggregate Investment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(2), pages 223-246.
    26. Albuquerque, R. & Hopenhayn, H.A., 1997. "Optimal Dynamic Lending Contracts with Imperfect Enforceability," RCER Working Papers 439, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    27. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-224, January.
    28. Schaller, Huntley, 1990. "A Re-examination of the Q Theory of Investment Using U.S. Firm Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(4), pages 309-325, Oct.-Dec..
    29. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Caggese, Andrea, 2007. "Testing financing constraints on firm investment using variable capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 683-723, December.
    2. Andrea Caggese, 2005. "Financing Imperfections and the Investments Decisions of Privately Owned Firms," Working Papers 265, Barcelona School of Economics.
    3. Carlos Carreira & Filipe Silva, 2010. "No Deep Pockets: Some Stylized Empirical Results On Firms’ Financial Constraints," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 731-753, September.
    4. Ek, Chanbora & Wu, Guiying Laura, 2018. "Investment-cash flow sensitivities and capital misallocation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 220-230.
    5. Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Potì, 2014. "The Impact of Public Support Intensity on Business R&D: Evidence from a Dose-Response Approach," ERSA conference papers ersa14p625, European Regional Science Association.
    6. Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Poti', 2016. "Explaining firm sensitivity to R&D subsidies within a dose-response model: The role of financial constraints, real cost of investment, and strategic value of R&D," DEM Working Papers 2016/09, Department of Economics and Management.
    7. DOI Takero, 2016. "Incidence of Corporate Income Tax and Optimal Capital Structure: A dynamic analysis," Discussion papers 16022, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    8. Mr. Vadim Khramov, 2012. "Asymmetric Effects of the Financial Crisis: Collateral-Based Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivity Analysis," IMF Working Papers 2012/097, International Monetary Fund.
    9. John Bailey Jones & Sangeeta Pratap, 2020. "An Estimated Structural Model of Entrepreneurial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2859-2898, September.
    10. Alessandra Guariglia & John Tsoukalas & Serafeim Tsoukas, 2010. "Investment, irreversibility, and financing constraints in transition economies," Discussion Papers 10/03, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    11. Junlu Ma & Zeguang Li & Qunyong Wang, 2009. "Financial constraints, agency cost and firm’s investment behavior: Evidence from listed companies of China," Frontiers of Economics in China, Springer;Higher Education Press, vol. 4(3), pages 384-405, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sangeeta Pratap & Silvio Rendon, 2003. "Firm Investment in Imperfect Capital Markets: A Structural Estimation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(3), pages 513-545, July.
    2. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & Stephen D. Oliner, 2006. "Investment Behavior, Observable Expectations, and Internal Funds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 796-810, June.
    3. Simon Gilchrist & Charles Himmelberg, 1999. "Investment: Fundamentals and Finance," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 223-274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Tomat, Gian Maria, 2008. "Modeling the Effects of Financial Constraints on Firm's Investment," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-26.
    5. Chaddad, Fabio Ribas & Heckelei, Thomas, 2003. "Access To Capital And Firm-Level Investment Behavior In Food Industries: A Comparison Of Cooperatives And Publicly Traded Firms," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22205, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Lewe, Stefan, 2003. "Wachstumseffiziente Unternehmensbesteuerung," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 20042, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    7. Christian Bayer, 2001. "Aggregate investment dynamics when firms face fixed investment cost and capital market imperfections," Discussion Papers in Economics 01_13, University of Dortmund, Department of Economics.
    8. Jean-Bernard Chatelain, 2003. "Structural modelling of financial constraints on investment: where do we stand?," Chapters, in: Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss (ed.), Firms’ Investment and Finance Decisions, chapter 2, pages 40-58, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Capital-Market Imperfections and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 193-225, March.
    10. Günay, Hüseyin & Kılınç, Mustafa, 2015. "Credit market imperfections and business cycle asymmetries in Turkey," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 79-98.
    11. Øivind Anti Nilsen & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2003. "Zeros and Lumps in Investment: Empirical Evidence on Irreversibilities and Nonconvexities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1021-1037, November.
    12. Coad, Alex, 2010. "Neoclassical vs evolutionary theories of financial constraints: Critique and prospectus," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 206-218, August.
    13. Caggese, Andrea, 2007. "Testing financing constraints on firm investment using variable capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 683-723, December.
    14. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1999. "Aggregate investment," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 813-862, Elsevier.
    15. Chaddad, Fabio Ribas & Cook, Michael L., 2002. "Testing For The Presence Of Financial Constraints In U.S," Working Papers 26045, University of Missouri Columbia, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    16. Chirinko, Robert S. & Schaller, Huntley, 2009. "The irreversibility premium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 390-408, April.
    17. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    18. Klaus Gugler, 2003. "Corporate governance and investment," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 261-289.
    19. Bayer, Christian, 2006. "Investment dynamics with fixed capital adjustment cost and capital market imperfections," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1909-1947, November.
    20. Jean-Bernard Chatelain, 2002. "Structural modelling of investment and financial constraints: Where do we stand?," Working Paper Research 28, National Bank of Belgium.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Liquidity constraints; Adjustment costs; Tobin's q;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:27:y:2003:i:11:p:1993-2006. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.