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Does Diversification Destroy Value? Evidence From Industry Shocks

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Owen Lamont
Christopher Polk

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Abstract

Does corporate diversification reduce shareholder value? Since firms endogenously choose to diversify, exogenous variation in diversification is necessary in order to draw inferences about the causal effect. We examine changes in the within-firm dispersion of industry investment, or diversity.' We find that exogenous changes in diversity, due to changes in industry investment, are negatively related to firm value. Thus diversification destroys value, consistent with the inefficient internal capital markets hypothesis. This finding is not caused by measurement error. We also find that exogenous changes in industry cash flow diversity are negative related to firm value.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7803.

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Date of creation: Jul 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7803

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G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

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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. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1990. " Do Managerial Objectives Drive Bad Acquisitions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 31-48, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Lamont, Owen, 1997. " Cash Flow and Investment: Evidence from Internal Capital Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 83-109, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Rajan, Raghuram G & Servaes, Henri & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "The Cost of Diversity: The Diversification Discount and Inefficient Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 1801, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Kaplan, Steven N & Weisbach, Michael S, 1992. " The Success of Acquisitions: Evidence from Divestitures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(1), pages 107-38, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Lang, Larry H P & Stulz, Rene M, 1994. "Tobin's q, Corporate Diversification, and Firm Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1248-80, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Owen Lamont & Christopher Polk, . "The Diversification Discount: Cash Flows vs. Returns."," CRSP working papers 504, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
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  7. Lewellen, Wilbur G, 1971. "A Pure Financial Rationale for the Conglomerate Merger," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 521-37, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Stein, Jeremy C, 1997. " Internal Capital Markets and the Competition for Corporate Resources," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 111-33, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. José Manuel Campa & Simi Kedia, 1999. "Explaining the Diversification Discount," Working Papers 99-06, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 1994. "What do firms do with cash windfalls?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 337-360, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Berger, Philip G. & Ofek, Eli, 1995. "Diversification's effect on firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 39-65, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Hyun-Han Shin & René M. Stulz, 1998. "Are Internal Capital Markets Efficient?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(2), pages 531-552, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Francis , Bill B & Hasan , Iftekhar & Sun , Xian, 2006. "Financial market integration and the value of global diversification: evidence from US acquirers in cross-border mergers and acquisitions," Research Discussion Papers 24/2006, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Axel, GAUTIER & Malika, HAMADI, 2005. "Internal Capital Market Efficiency of Belgian Holding Companies," Discussion Papers (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales) 2004037, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES). [Downloadable!]
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  3. Laeven, Luc, 2001. "International evidence on the value of product and geographic diversity," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2729, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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