IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v138y2023i1p205-264..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asset Specificity of Nonfinancial Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Amir Kermani
  • Yueran Ma

Abstract

We develop a new data set to study asset specificity among nonfinancial firms. Our data cover the liquidation values of each category of assets on firms’ balance sheets and provides information across major industries. First, we find that nonfinancial firms have high asset specificity. For example, the liquidation value of fixed assets is 35% of the net book value in the average industry. Second, we analyze the determinants of asset specificity and document that assets’ physical attributes (e.g., mobility, durability, and customization) play a crucial role. Third, we investigate several implications. Consistent with theories of investment irreversibility, high asset specificity is associated with less disinvestment and stronger effects of uncertainty on investment activities. We also find that the increasing prevalence of intangible assets has not significantly reduced firms’ liquidation values.

Suggested Citation

  • Amir Kermani & Yueran Ma, 2023. "Asset Specificity of Nonfinancial Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 205-264.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:138:y:2023:i:1:p:205-264.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjac030
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Keuschnigg & Michael Kogler & Johannes Matt, 2022. "Banks, Credit Reallocation, and Creative Destruction," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 22-83, Swiss Finance Institute.
    2. Martin Kornejew & Chen Lian & Yueran Ma & Pablo Ottonello & Diego J. Perez, 2024. "Bankruptcy Resolution and Credit Cycles," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2024, volume 39, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gill, Andrej & Heller, David, 2024. "Leveraging intellectual property: The value of harmonized enforcement regimes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    4. Carola Frydman, 2024. "Comment on "Bankruptcy Resolution and Credit Cycles" 2," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2024, volume 39, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:oup:qjecon:v:138:y:2023:i:1:p:205-264.. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    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.