Labor Hiring, Investment, and Stock Return Predictability in the Cross Section
Abstract
We study the impact of labor market frictions on asset prices in the cross section of US publicly traded firms. On average, firms with low hiring rates have higher future stock returns than firms with high hiring rates, a difference of 5.2% per annum. Interpreting a hiring decision as analogous to an investment decision, we propose a dynamic neoclassical investment-based model with labor and capital adjustment costs to explain this hiring return spread. Firms that are hiring relatively more have lower macroeconomic risk which explains why high hiring rates predicts low stock returns. The model matches the observed levels of the hiring return spread, key properties of the firm-level hiring and investment rates, and other empirical regularities. Our analysis suggest that labor market frictions can have a significant impact on asset prices in financial markets.Download Info
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Paper provided by Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number 2012-17.Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2012-17
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Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Xiaoji Lin & Santiago Bazdrech & Frederico Belo, 2009. "Labor Hiring, Investment and Stock Return Predictability in the Cross Section," FMG Discussion Papers dp628, Financial Markets Group.
- E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Capital; Investment; Capacity
- E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
- E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
- G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-11-24 (All new papers)
- NEP-DGE-2012-11-24 (Dynamic General Equilibrium)
- NEP-LAB-2012-11-24 (Labour Economics)
- NEP-MAC-2012-11-24 (Macroeconomics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Frederico Belo & Chen Xue & Lu Zhang, 2010. "Cross-sectional Tobin's Q," NBER Working Papers 16336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Kuehn, Lars-Alexander & Petrosky-Nadeau, Nicolas & Zhang, Lu, 2011.
"An Equilibrium Asset Pricing Model with Labor Market Search,"
Working Paper Series
2012-01, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
- Kuehn Lars-Alexander & Petrosky-Nadeau Nicolas & Zhang Lu, . "An Equilibrium Asset Pricing Model with Labor Market Search," GSIA Working Papers 2010-E63, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
- Lars-Alexander Kuehn & Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau & Lu Zhang, 2012. "An Equilibrium Asset Pricing Model with Labor Market Search," NBER Working Papers 17742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Yashiv, Eran, 2011. "The Joint Behavior of Hiring and Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 8237, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Yashiv, Eran, 2012. "Frictions and the Joint Behavior of Hiring and Investment," IZA Discussion Papers 6636, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Chen, Long & Zhang, Lu, 2011. "Do time-varying risk premiums explain labor market performance?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 385-399, February.
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