IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v47y2012i01p179-211_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Strength and Product Market Competition: Evidence from Asbestos Litigation

Author

Listed:
  • Hadlock, Charles J.
  • Sonti, Ramana

Abstract

We study the role of financial strength on product market competition by examining exogenous shocks to a firm’s liability structure arising from asbestos litigation. We find that exogenous increases (decreases) in asbestos liabilities are interpreted by the market as negative (positive) news for a firm’s close competitors. These reactions are magnified in events in which one asbestos-tainted firm goes bankrupt and other asbestos-tainted stocks fall on the news of the bankruptcy. For smaller competitors, market reactions are more pronounced in more concentrated industries. Our findings support the general hypothesis that increases in fixed liabilities lead to more aggressive product market interactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Hadlock, Charles J. & Sonti, Ramana, 2012. "Financial Strength and Product Market Competition: Evidence from Asbestos Litigation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 179-211, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:47:y:2012:i:01:p:179-211_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109011000639/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Eric E. O. Opoku & Isabel K. M. Yan & Kate Hynes, 2020. "Reaching up and reaching out: The impact of competition on firms’ productivity and export decisions," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 69-101, February.
    2. Friedrich, Benjamin U. & Zator, Michał, 2023. "Flexibility costs of debt: Danish exporters during the cartoon crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 91-117.
    3. Engelbert J. Dockner & Helmut Elsinger & Andrea Gaunersdorfer, 2018. "The Strategic Role of Dividends and Debt in Markets with Imperfect Competition," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 601-619, September.
    4. Shan Ge, 2022. "How Do Financial Constraints Affect Product Pricing? Evidence from Weather and Life Insurance Premiums," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 449-503, February.
    5. Hasan, Iftekhar & Noth, Felix & Tonzer, Lena, 2019. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your customers: Cultural norms and the Volkswagen scandal," IWH Discussion Papers 21/2019, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Taillard, Jérôme P., 2013. "The disciplinary effects of non-debt liabilities: Evidence from asbestos litigation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 267-293.
    7. Leach, J. Chris & Moyen, Nathalie & Yang, Jing, 2013. "On the strategic use of debt and capacity in rapidly expanding markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 332-344.
    8. Hasan, Iftekhar & Noth, Felix & Tonzer, Lena, 2023. "Cultural norms and corporate fraud: Evidence from the Volkswagen scandal," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    9. Sudheer Chava, 2014. "Environmental Externalities and Cost of Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(9), pages 2223-2247, September.
    10. Cheng, Xin & (Helen) Wang, He & Wang, Xianjue, 2022. "Common institutional ownership and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    11. Tommaso Oliviero & Min Park & Hong Zou, 2021. "Liquidity Effects of Litigation Risk: Evidence from a Legal Shock," CSEF Working Papers 623, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 21 Jan 2023.
    12. Bergbrant, Mikael C. & Hunter, Delroy M. & Kelly, Patrick J., 2018. "Rivals’ competitive activities, capital constraints, and firm growth," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 87-108.

    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:cup:jfinqa:v:47:y:2012:i:01:p:179-211_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jfq .

    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.