IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eurasi/v7y2017i1d10.1007_s40821-016-0053-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Returns to scale, operating leverage, and expected stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Roi D. Taussig

    (Ariel University)

  • Sagi Akron

    (University of Haifa)

Abstract

The asset pricing literature demonstrates a positive association between operating leverage and expected stock returns. We uniquely examine the predictive power of operating leverage on expected stock returns, in light of the industry returns to scale. Our inspection starts with a theoretical illustration of this facet, demonstrating higher sensitivity of operating profits to production inputs along higher level of production returns to scale. We then empirically examine 83,415 firm-year observations in the US manufacturing industry between 1963 and 2011. We find that the positive and significant relation between operating leverage and the cross-section expected stock returns appears only when the production returns to scale are high. Low returns to scale, however, alleviates both the economic and statistical significance positive effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Roi D. Taussig & Sagi Akron, 2017. "Returns to scale, operating leverage, and expected stock returns," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 7(1), pages 141-155, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurasi:v:7:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s40821-016-0053-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s40821-016-0053-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40821-016-0053-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40821-016-0053-5?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murray Carlson & Adlai Fisher & Ron Giammarino, 2004. "Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for the Cross-section of Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(6), pages 2577-2603, December.
    2. Basu, Susanto & Fernald, John G, 1997. "Returns to Scale in U.S. Production: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 249-283, April.
    3. repec:spr:eurasi:v:1:y:2011:i:2:p:125-144 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    5. Lev, Baruch, 1974. "On the Association between Operating Leverage and Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 627-641, September.
    6. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    7. Panayiotis Artikis & Georgia Nifora, 2011. "The Industry Effect on the Relationship Between Leverage and Returns," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 1(2), pages 125-145, December.
    8. Ron Giammarino & Murray Carlson & Adlai Fisher, 2004. "Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for Post-SEO Performance," 2004 Meeting Papers 812, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "The Relation between Price and Marginal Cost in U.S. Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 921-947, October.
    10. Peter Diamond (ed.), 1990. "Growth / Productivity / Unemployment," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262041103, December.
    11. Robert Novy-Marx, 2011. "Operating Leverage," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(1), pages 103-134.
    12. Burnside, Craig, 1996. "Production function regressions, returns to scale, and externalities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 177-201, April.
    13. Motohiro Yogo, 2006. "A Consumption‐Based Explanation of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(2), pages 539-580, April.
    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. Jonathan Batten & Xuan Vinh Vo, 2019. "Liquidity And Firm Value In An Emerging Market," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(02), pages 365-376, March.

    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. Michael Weber, 2014. "Nominal Rigidities and Asset Pricing," 2014 Meeting Papers 53, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Figen Gunes Dogan, 2016. "Non†cancellable Operating Leases and Operating Leverage," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(4), pages 576-612, September.
    3. Cao, Viet Nga, 2015. "What explains the value premium? The case of adjustment costs, operating leverage and financial leverage," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 350-366.
    4. João F. Gomes & Leonid Kogan & Motohiro Yogo, 2009. "Durability of Output and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 941-986.
    5. Hafiz Muhammad Zia ul haq & Muhammad Sohail Shafiq & Muhammad Kashif & Saba Ameer, 2020. "Determining Force behind Value Premium: The Case of Financial Leverage and Operating Leverage," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, September.
    6. Mikhail Simutin & JessieJiaxu Wang & Lars Kuehn, 2014. "A Labor Capital Asset Pricing Model," 2014 Meeting Papers 695, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Luis García‐Feijóo & Randy D. Jorgensen, 2010. "Can Operating Leverage Be the Cause of the Value Premium?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(3), pages 1127-1154, September.
    8. Kyung Shim & Harjoat Bhamra, 2015. "Stochastic Idiosyncratic Operating Risk and Real Options: Implications for Stock Returns," 2015 Meeting Papers 1494, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Calvet, Laurent E. & Betermier, Sebastien & Jo, Evan, 2019. "A Supply and Demand Approach to Equity Pricing," CEPR Discussion Papers 13974, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Bai, Hang & Hou, Kewei & Kung, Howard & Li, Erica X.N. & Zhang, Lu, 2019. "The CAPM strikes back? An equilibrium model with disasters," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(2), pages 269-298.
    11. Hackbarth, Dirk & Gu, Lifeng & Johnson, Timothy, 2017. "Inflexibility and Stock Returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 12441, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Graeme Guthrie, 2014. "Real Options And The Cross-Section Of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 265-283, April.
    13. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    14. Liu, Hao & Gao, Ya-Chun, 2019. "The impact of corporate lifecycle on Fama–French three-factor model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 513(C), pages 390-398.
    15. Kang, Moonsoo & Khaksari, S. & Nam, Kiseok, 2018. "Corporate investment, short-term return reversal, and stock liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 68-83.
    16. François Gourio, 2006. "Firms’ Heterogeneous Sensitivities to the Business Cycle, and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2006-005, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    17. Sebastien Valeyre, 2020. "Refined model of the covariance/correlation matrix between securities," Papers 2001.08911, arXiv.org.
    18. Wang, Yifeng & Liu, Cheyuan & Lee, Jen-Sin & Wang, Yanming, 2015. "The relation between asset growth and the cross-section of stock returns: Evidence from the Chinese stock market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 59-67.
    19. Mathijs Cosemans & Rik Frehen & Peter C. Schotman & Rob Bauer, 2016. "Estimating Security Betas Using Prior Information Based on Firm Fundamentals," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 1072-1112.
    20. Donangelo, Andres & Gourio, François & Kehrig, Matthias & Palacios, Miguel, 2019. "The cross-section of labor leverage and equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 497-518.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Operating leverage; Stock returns; Returns to scale; Production technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:spr:eurasi:v:7:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s40821-016-0053-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.