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Exhuming Q: market power capital market imperfections

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Author Info
Russell Cooper
Joao Ejarque
Abstract

Evidence of the statistical significance of profits in Q regressions remains one of the principal findings in the empirical investment literature. This result is frequently taken to support the view that capital market imperfections are an important element for understanding investment. This paper challenges that conclusion. We argue that allowing the profit function at the firm level to be strictly concave, reflecting, for example, market power, is sufficient to replicate the Q theory based regression results in which profits are a significant factor determining investment. To be clear, our ability to replicate the existing results does not require the specification of any capital market imperfections. Thus the friction that explains the statistical significance of profits could be market power by sellers rather than capital market imperfections.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in its series Working Papers with number 611.

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Date of creation: 2001
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:611

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Keywords: Capital investments ; Corporate profits ; Regression analysis;

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  1. Lucas, Robert E, Jr & Prescott, Edward C, 1971. "Investment Under Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(5), pages 659-81, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Hayashi, Fumio & Inoue, Tohru, 1991. "The Relation between Firm Growth and Q with Multiple Capital Goods: Theory and Evidence from Panel Data on Japanese Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 731-53, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Gilchrist, S. & Himmelberg, C.P., 1995. "Evidence on the Role of Cash Flow for Investment," Papers 95-29, Columbia - Graduate School of Business.
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  4. Simon Gilchrist & Charles Himmelberg, 1998. "Investment, Fundamentals and Finance," NBER Working Papers 6652, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Cummins, Jason & Hassett, Kevin & Oliner, Stephen, 1997. "Investment Behavior, Observable Expectations and Internal Funds," Working Papers 97-30, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1988-1), pages 141-206. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Joao F. Gomes, 2001. "Financing Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1263-1285, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. R. Glenn Hubbard & Anil K Kashyap & Toni M. Whited, 1995. "Internal Finance and Firm Investment," NBER Working Papers 4392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Russell Cooper & John Haltiwanger & Laura Power, 1999. "Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 921-946, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Steve Bond & Alexander Klemm & Rain Newton-Smith & Murtaza Syed & Gertjan Vlieghe, 2004. "The roles of expected profitability, Tobin's Q and cash flow in econometric models of company investment," IFS Working Papers W04/12, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Thomas STEINBERGER, 2002. "Imperfect Financial Markets and Investment Dynamics," Economics Working Papers ECO2002/04, European University Institute. [Downloadable!]
  3. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & Stephen D. Oliner, 2006. "Investment Behavior, Observable Expectations, and Internal Funds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 796-810, June. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Jordan Rappaport, 2002. "A bottleneck capital model of development," Research Working Paper RWP 01-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Wendy Carlin & Andrew Charlton & Colin Mayer, 2008. "Multinational Ownership and Subsidiary Investment," OFRC Working Papers Series 2008fe05, Oxford Financial Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  6. Bo Becker & Jagadeesh Sivadasan, 2006. "The effect of financial development on the investment-cash flow relationship - cross-country evidence from Europe," Working Paper Series 689, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  7. Aubhik Khan & Julia Thomas, 2004. "Idiosyncratic shocks and the role of nonconvexities in plant and aggregate investment dynamics," Staff Report 352, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Guido Lorenzoni & Karl Walentin, 2007. "Financial Frictions, Investment and Tobin's q," NBER Working Papers 13092, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Joseph P. Byrne & E. Philip Davis, 2005. "Investment and Uncertainty in the G7," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 1-32, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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