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How Valuable is Financial Flexibility when Revenue Stops? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis

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  • Rüdiger Fahlenbrach
  • Kevin Rageth
  • René M. Stulz

Abstract

Firms with greater financial flexibility should be better able to fund a revenue shortfall resulting from the COVID-19 shock and benefit less from policy responses. We find that firms with high financial flexibility experience a stock price drop lower by 26% or 9.7 percentage points than those with low financial flexibility accounting for a firm’s industry. This differential return persists as stock prices rebound. Similar results hold for CDS spreads. The stock price of a firm with an average payout over assets ratio would have dropped 2 percentage points less with no payouts for the last three years.

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  • Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Kevin Rageth & René M. Stulz, 2020. "How Valuable is Financial Flexibility when Revenue Stops? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis," NBER Working Papers 27106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27106
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy

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