The U-Shaped Investment Curve: Theory and Evidence

Policy Research Working Papers, 1999

Page 1. &)Fs /G6 3 POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 1663 Internal Finance Firms rely on internal finance for capital expenditures and Investment because of managerial considerations instead of Another Look informatior-theoretic considerations. That is, rather ...

Jurnal Keuangan dan Perbankan

To prevent investment growth in 2013 to 2015 from decreasing, the Industrial Ministry provided fiscal incentives to stimulate investment-growth. Nevertheless, the investmentgrowth of manufacturing firms still declined. This condition indicated that fiscal stimulus might be ineffective to prevent investment-growth from declining. The decline of investment might be influenced by the increase of firm financial constraints to access a source of long term debts. This study aimed to examine the influence of financial constraints in moderating the effect of financing decisions from internal financing sources on investment. The population of the study was all listed-manufacturing firms in Indonesia from 2013 to 2015. Samples were chosen based on the availability of firms' financial report covering the period of the study. The study concluded that financial constraints significantly weaken the effect of internal funding decision on investment. Unconstrained firms had a higher beta than constrained firms. Although unconstrained firms had an opportunity to choose their source of funding, they preferred to finance their investment from cash flows because the cost of debts might be much higher than the cost of equity. Hence, to help firms to finance their feasible investment opportunity, the government should not only provide tax incentives but also provide a low-interest loan. Untuk mencegah pertumbuhan investasi pada tahun 2013 sampai 2015 dari penurunan, Kementerian Industri memberikan insentif fiskal untuk merangsang pertumbuhan investasi. Meski begitu, pertumbuhan investasi perusahaan manufaktur masih menurun. Kondisi ini menunjukkan bahwa stimulus fiskal mungkin tidak efektif untuk mencegah pertumbuhan investasi menurun. Penurunan investasi tersebut mungkin dipengaruhi oleh kenaikan kendala keuangan perusahaan untuk mengakses sumber utang jangka panjang. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji pengaruh kendala keuangan dalam memoderasi pengaruh keputusan pembiayaan dari sumber pembiayaan internal terhadap investasi. Populasi penelitian ini adalah semua perusahaan manufaktur terdaftar di Indonesia dari tahun 2013 sampai 2015. Sampel dipilih berdasarkan ketersediaan laporan keuangan perusahaan yang mencakup periode penelitian. Studi tersebut menyimpulkan bahwa kendala keuangan secara signifikan melemahkan pengaruh keputusan pendanaan internal terhadap investasi. Perusahaan yang tidak dibatasi memiliki beta yang lebih tinggi daripada perusahaan yang dibatasi. Meskipun perusahaan yang tidak dibatasi memiliki kesempatan untuk memilih sumber pendanaan mereka, mereka lebih suka membiayai investasi mereka dari arus kas karena biaya hutang mungkin jauh lebih tinggi daripada biaya ekuitas. Oleh karena itu, untuk membantu perusahaan membiayai peluang investasi yang layak, pemerintah seharusnya tidak hanya memberikan insentif pajak tetapi juga memberikan pinjaman dengan bunga rendah.

This paper brings into focus a link between the investment and financing decisions of a firm which has an access to costly debt financing. Our analysis shows that lump-sum debt issuance costs play a prominent role in a determination of the optimal investment strategy. Faced with larger lump-sum debt issuance costs, a firm will optimally set up a higher-scale investment project in order to "compensate" dead-weight financing costs by higher return. Moreover, in the presence of lump-sum debt issuance costs, the optimal investment scale of financially constrained firms exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with the firm's borrowing capacity, so that relatively more/less constrained firms will realize smaller investment projects, whereas firms with an intermediate borrowing capacity will undertake larger investment.

2012

The present study aimed to document the effects of financial constraints on the negative relationship between cash flow and external funds, a phenomenon associated with the Pecking Order Theory. This theory suggests that companies subject to more expensive external funds (financially constrained firms) should demonstrate a stronger negative relationship with cash flow than companies subject to minor financial frictions (financially unconstrained firms). The results indicate that the external funds of constrained firms consistently present less negative sensitivity to cash flow compared with those of unconstrained companies. Additionally, the internal funds of constrained companies demonstrate a positive sensitivity to cash flow, whereas those of unconstrained companies do not show any such significant behavior. These results are in accordance with the findings of Almeida and Campello (2010), who suggest the following: first, because of the endogenous nature of investment decisions in constrained companies, the complementary relationship between internal and external funds prevails over the substitutive effects suggested by the Pecking Order Theory; and second, the negative relationship between cash flow and external funds cannot be interpreted as evidence of costly external funds and therefore does not corroborate the Pecking Order Theory.

A euro area, 2006

In this paper we describe a theoretical model of optimal investment of various types of financially constrained firms. We show that the resulting relationship between internal funds and investment is non-monotonic. In particular, the magnitude of the cash flow sensitivity of the investment is lower for firms with credit rationing compared to firms that are able to obtain short-term external financing. The inverse relationship is driven by the leverage multiplier effect. A positive cash flow shock increases the short-term borrowing capacity of the firm, which in turn has a positive effect on investment and firm's growth. Moreover, the leverage multiplier effect is the highest for firms relying on short-term credits and it is lower for firms that are able to obtain long-term financing. Analysing a large euro area data set we find strong empirical support for our theoretical predictions. The results also help to explain some contradictory findings in the financing constraints literature.

2006

In this paper we investigate the analytical and empirical linkages between firms' capital investment behavior and financial frictions arising from asymmetric information, proxied by firms' liquidity and degree of uncertainty. Measures of intrinsic and extrinsic uncertainty are derived from firms' daily stock returns and S&P 500 index returns along with a CAPM-based risk measure. We employ a panel of U.S. manufacturing firm data obtained from COMPUSTAT over the 1984-2003 period. Financial frictions captured by interactions between firms' cash flow and both intrinsic and CAPM-based measures of uncertainty have a significant negative impact on firms' investment spending, while extrinsic uncertainty has a positive impact.

International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2006

This paper examines the relation between cash-flow availability and investment spending in the Netherlands. In particular, we are interested whether managerial discretion and/or asymmetric information drive the positive relation between cash-flow and investment spending. This relation is positive for both firms with low and high investment opportunities. It is however significantly larger for firms with low investment opportunities suggesting that the managerial-discretion problem is most important in the Dutch setting. Effective corporate-governance may reduce this agency problem.Specific to the Netherlands, firms with low shareholder influence posit a higher cash-flow-investment sensitivity. The relevance of asymmetric information is confirmed as smaller firms and firms from information-sensitive industries show a larger cash-flow-investment sensitivity.

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2002

The interpretation of the significant relation between business investment spending and cash flow has been controversial. A large body of research has found that investment/cash flow sensitivities are higher for financially constrained firms. This fundamental result underlying the finance constraints hypothesis has been challenged recently by Kaplan, Zingales, and Cleary. The latter author introduces an important new element to this debate by using discriminant analysis, which allows creditworthy firms to be identified using an objective ex-ante criterion based on dividend payouts. Consistent with the Kaplan and Zingales critique, investment/cash flow sensitivities are lower for financially constrained firms. This short paper documents that the use of discriminant analysis does not necessarily lead to lower sensitivities. Our contrasting results are traceable to the use of the firm's creditworthiness as the discriminating variable and appropriate adjustments for endogenous regressors and serially correlated residuals. We document that the investment/cash flow sensitivity is higher for financially constrained firms. JEL Codes: G32, E22 Zusammenfassung Die Interpretation der signifikanten Beziehung zwischen unternehmerischen Investitionsausgaben und dem Cash-Flow ist umstritten. Eine größere Anzahl von Forschungsarbeiten kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Sensitivität der Investitionen bezüglich des Cash-Flow bei finanziell beschränkten Unternehmen höher liegt. Dieses für die Theorie finanzieller Beschränkungen grundlegende Resultat wurde in jüngerer Zeit von Kaplan, Zingales und Cleary in Zweifel gezogen. Der letztgenannte Autor führte ein wichtiges neues Element in die Debatte ein: Finanziell beschränkte Unternehmen werden von ihm mit Hilfe eines diskriminanzanalytischen Verfahrens identifiziert, also eines objektiven ex-ante Kriteriums. Im Einklang mit der Kritik von Kaplan und Zingales findet er bei finanziell beschränkten Unternehmen eine geringere Cash-Flow-Sensitivität. Dieses kurze Papier dokumentiert, dass eine diskriminanzanalytische Vorgehensweise nicht notwendigerweise zu einem derartigen Resultat führt. Unsere abweichenden Ergebnisse basieren einerseits auf der Identifikation finanziell beschränkter Unternehmen auf der Basis ihrer Kreditwürdigkeit, andererseits aber auf der Berücksichtigung endogener Regressoren und seriell korrelierter Residuen bei der Schätzung. Wir zeigen auf, dass die Cash-Flow-Sensitivität der Investitionsausgaben bei finanziell beschränkten Unternehmen höher ist. JEL Klassifikation: G32, E22 * We gratefully acknowledge the comments of Heinz Herrmann, and the invaluable contribution of Fred Ramb with respect to the construction of our user cost variable. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the Deutsche Bundesbank or CESifo.

Journal of Banking & Finance, 1998

This paper examines the degree to which cash flow availability influences firm investment in six OECD countries. In particular, we are interested in the extent to which the reliance on internal funds is affected by firm size, since there is general agreement that smaller firms have less access to external capital markets and, thus, should be more affected by the availability of internal funds. Earlier work has concluded that the documented positive relationship between cash flow and investment is evidence of the existence of financial constraints. We first examine all firms, regardless of size, in each country, and we find that the amount of corporate investment is affected by internal resources in all six countries; that is, internal financing affects firm investment. We then repeat the analysis segmenting the sample using three measures of firm size. Contrary to our a priori expectations, we find that the cash flow-investment sensitivity is generally highest in the large firm size group and smallest in the small firm size group. We deduce that the explanations for these findings are grounded in managerial agency considerations, and in the greater flexibility enjoyed by large firms in timing their investments. Thus, we conclude that the degree of sensitivity of a firm's investments to its cash flows cannot be interpreted as an accurate measure of its access to capital markets (as do Kaplan, S., Zingales, L., 1997. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 169–215), since small firms are known to have less access to external markets.

2012

Investment is an important economic variable and, therefore, it is important to have an understanding of the factors that determine its evolution over time. One aspect that has been highlighted in recent research is that corporate investment behavior is influenced by the financial structure of firms. In fact, if the hypothesis of imperfect capital markets holds, there is no perfect substitutability between the various sources of funds, which may affect the investment expenses of firms and lead to a situation of underinvestment. In this paper, a brief overview of different explanations for the relationship between financing patterns and investment behavior of firms is presented.

1998

In this paper the corporate investment decision under financial restrictions is investigated with Belgian firm data from 1984 to 1992. An investment Euler equation is derived from a dynamic optimization model with debt ceilings and an elastic credit supply. The model is estimated by GMM for different firm groups. An important aspect is that the sample is split according to a firm’s association with coordination centers. These centers have become the major external funding source of corporate investment in Belgium since 1986. The estimation results show the dependence of corporate investment on financial factors, both for non-coordination center as well as coordination center firms.

Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 2012

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of internal and external financial constraints on investment choice. The data have been taken from 9 major sectors (52 listed firms in the Karachi Stock Exchange) namely; Pharmaceutical & Bio Technology, Textile, Sugar, Tobacco, Chemicals, Oil and Gas, Fixed line Telecommunication, Industrial metal and Mining, and Cement sectors for the time period 2004 to 2010 on annual basis. Multiple regression analysis has been done to examine the relationship among firm’s size, dividend payout ratio, firm’s age, and investment. The empirical findings show that there is positive relationship between the firms’ size and investment while a negative relationship exists between firms’ age and investment. It also reports that there is negative relationship between dividend payout ratio and the investment. This shows that if a firm grows old or high dividend payout ratio then it will tend to spend less for expansion as compared to the young firms.