IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-01348574.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The missing corporate investment, are low interest rate to blame ?

Author

Listed:
  • Elliot Aurissergues

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the small effect of a long period of low real interest on corporate investment. I challenge the idea that corporate investment is sensitive to the wedge between the marginal product of capital and the user cost of capital. I provide a theoretical justification for an investment which is unresponsive to the wedge between marginal product of capital and real interest rate. I build an infinite horizon adverse selection model. Investment is constrained by cash flows. Next, I try to determinate if investment is a decreasing or an increasing function of interest rate once user cost channel is removed. I build a macroeconomic model where investment is a linear function of cash flows. I identify two channels by which real interest rate still affects investment: the entrepreneurial net worth channel and the precautionnary channel. The first one is well known and induces a negative relation between real interest rate and investment. The second is often neglected by the literature and can induce a positive relation. Under some calibration, investment response to real interest fall is negative. Then , I endogenize the credit constraint in the model. The response becomes unambiguously negative. I conclude by arguing that such a counterintuitive response should be taken seriously.

Suggested Citation

  • Elliot Aurissergues, 2016. "The missing corporate investment, are low interest rate to blame ?," Working Papers halshs-01348574, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01348574
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01348574v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01348574v2/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Cooley & Ramon Marimon & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2004. "Aggregate Consequences of Limited Contract Enforceability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 817-847, August.
    2. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    3. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-248, April.
    4. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    5. Carlstrom, Charles T & Fuerst, Timothy S, 1997. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 893-910, December.
    6. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    7. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    8. 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(1), pages 141-206.
    9. Oliver Hart & John Moore, 1994. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 841-879.
    10. Azariadis, Costas & Smith, Bruce, 1998. "Financial Intermediation and Regime Switching in Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 516-536, June.
    11. Holmström, Bengt, 2013. "Inside and Outside Liquidity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262518536, December.
    12. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & John Moore, 2001. "Liquidity, Business Cycles and Monetary Policy (Clarendon Lectures 2)," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 111, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    13. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    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. Umar Farooq & Jaleel Ahmed & Shamshair Khan, 2021. "Do the macroeconomic factors influence the firm's investment decisions? A generalized method of moments (GMM) approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 790-801, January.

    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. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    2. House, Christopher L., 2006. "Adverse selection and the financial accelerator," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 1117-1134, September.
    3. Shirai, Daichi, 2016. "Persistence and Amplification of Financial Frictions," MPRA Paper 72187, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Cao, Dan & Lorenzoni, Guido & Walentin, Karl, 2019. "Financial frictions, investment, and Tobin’s q," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 105-122.
    5. Ekaterina Pirozhkova, 2017. "Financial frictions and robust monetary policy in the models of New Keynesian framework," BCAM Working Papers 1701, Birkbeck Centre for Applied Macroeconomics.
    6. (Kim | Lopez-Salido | Swanson) & Andrew Levin, 2004. "The magnitude and Cyclical Behavior of Financial Market Frictions," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 224, Society for Computational Economics.
    7. Chen, Kaiji & Song, Zheng, 2013. "Financial frictions on capital allocation: A transmission mechanism of TFP fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 683-703.
    8. Kato, Ryo, 2006. "Liquidity, infinite horizons and macroeconomic fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1105-1130, July.
    9. Zetlin-Jones, Ariel & Shourideh, Ali, 2017. "External financing and the role of financial frictions over the business cycle: Measurement and theory," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1-15.
    10. Sangeeta Pratap & Silvio Rendon, 2003. "Firm Investment in Imperfect Capital Markets: A Structural Estimation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(3), pages 513-545, July.
    11. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2008. "Aggregate Implications of Credit Market Imperfections," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 1-60, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Meisenzahl, Ralf R., 2014. "Verifying the state of financing constraints: Evidence from U.S. business credit contracts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 58-77.
    13. Yicheng Wang, 2015. "Can Wage Dynamics in Long-term Employment Relationships Help Mitigate Financial Shocks?," 2015 Meeting Papers 1189, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Eleni Angelopoulou & Heather D. Gibson, 2007. "The Balance Sheet Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission: Evidence from the UK," Working Papers 53, Bank of Greece.
    15. Beck, Thorsten & Colciago, Andrea & Pfajfar, Damjan, 2014. "The role of financial intermediaries in monetary policy transmission," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-11.
    16. František Brazdik & Michal Hlavacek & Aleš Marsal, 2012. "Survey of Research on Financial Sector Modeling within DSGE Models: What Central Banks Can Learn from It," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 62(3), pages 252-277, July.
    17. Liu, Guangling (Dave) & Seeiso, Nkhahle E., 2012. "Basel II procyclicality: The case of South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 848-857.
    18. Jarrow, Robert A., 2014. "Financial crises and economic growth," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 194-207.
    19. Jennifer La'O, 2010. "Collateral Constraints and Noisy Fluctuations," 2010 Meeting Papers 780, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Bacchetta, Philippe & Caminal, Ramon, 2000. "Do capital market imperfections exacerbate output fluctuations?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 449-468, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    adverse selection; Financial frictions; risk spread; leverage; corporate investment;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-01348574. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.