IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v37y2013i2p474-489.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asset liquidity, corporate investment, and endogenous financing costs

Author

Listed:
  • Flor, Christian Riis
  • Hirth, Stefan

Abstract

We analyze how the liquidity of real and financial assets affects corporate investment. The trade-off between liquidation costs and underinvestment costs implies that low-liquidity firms exhibit negative investment sensitivities to liquid funds, whereas high-liquidity firms have positive sensitivities. If real assets are not divisible in liquidation, firms with high financial liquidity optimally avoid external financing and instead cut new investment. If real assets are divisible, firms use external financing, which implies a lower sensitivity. In addition, asset redeployability decreases the investment sensitivity. Our findings demonstrate that asset liquidity is an important determinant of corporate investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Flor, Christian Riis & Hirth, Stefan, 2013. "Asset liquidity, corporate investment, and endogenous financing costs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 474-489.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:474-489
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.09.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426612002907
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.09.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    2. Heitor Almeida & Murillo Campello, 2007. "Financial Constraints, Asset Tangibility, and Corporate Investment," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1429-1460, 2007 12.
    3. Cleary, Sean & Povel, Paul & Raith, Michael, 2007. "The U-Shaped Investment Curve: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 1-39, March.
    4. Leland, Hayne E, 1994. "Corporate Debt Value, Bond Covenants, and Optimal Capital Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1213-1252, September.
    5. Stewart C. Myers & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1998. "The Paradox of Liquidity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 733-771.
    6. Gopalan, Radhakrishnan & Kadan, Ohad & Pevzner, Mikhail, 2012. "Asset Liquidity and Stock Liquidity," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(2), pages 333-364, April.
    7. Agca, Senay & Mozumdar, Abon, 2008. "The impact of capital market imperfections on investment-cash flow sensitivity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 207-216, February.
    8. Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2007. "Do Tests of Capital Structure Theory Mean What They Say?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1747-1787, August.
    9. Hovakimian, Gayane & Titman, Sheridan, 2006. "Corporate Investment with Financial Constraints: Sensitivity of Investment to Funds from Voluntary Asset Sales," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 357-374, March.
    10. Cleary, Sean, 2006. "International corporate investment and the relationships between financial constraint measures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1559-1580, May.
    11. Guariglia, Alessandra, 2008. "Internal financial constraints, external financial constraints, and investment choice: Evidence from a panel of UK firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1795-1809, September.
    12. Glenn W. Boyle & Graeme A. Guthrie, 2003. "Investment, Uncertainty, and Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 2143-2166, October.
    13. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    14. Bhagat, Sanjai & Moyen, Nathalie & Suh, Inchul, 2005. "Investment and internal funds of distressed firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 449-472, June.
    15. Gregor Andrade & Steven N. Kaplan, 1998. "How Costly is Financial (Not Economic) Distress? Evidence from Highly Leveraged Transactions that Became Distressed," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1443-1493, October.
    16. 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.
    17. Gan, Jie, 2007. "Collateral, debt capacity, and corporate investment: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 709-734, September.
    18. Easterwood, John C., 1998. "Divestments and financial distress in leveraged buyouts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 129-159, February.
    19. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    20. Brown, David T. & James, Christopher M. & Mooradian, Robert M., 1994. "Asset sales by financially distressed firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 233-257, August.
    21. Allayannis, George & Mozumdar, Abon, 2004. "The impact of negative cash flow and influential observations on investment-cash flow sensitivity estimates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 901-930, May.
    22. Ang, James & Mauck, Nathan, 2011. "Fire sale acquisitions: Myth vs. reality," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 532-543, March.
    23. Morellec, Erwan, 2001. "Asset liquidity, capital structure, and secured debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 173-206, August.
    24. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Shibata, Takashi & Nishihara, Michi, 2012. "Investment timing under debt issuance constraint," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 981-991.
    26. Carpenter, Robert E. & Guariglia, Alessandra, 2008. "Cash flow, investment, and investment opportunities: New tests using UK panel data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1894-1906, September.
    27. Gayané Hovakimian, 2009. "Determinants of Investment Cash Flow Sensitivity," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 38(1), pages 161-183, March.
    28. Armen Hovakimian & Gayané Hovakimian, 2009. "Cash Flow Sensitivity of Investment," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(1), pages 47-65, January.
    29. 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. Schürg, Carolin V. & Bannier, Christina Evelies, 2015. "Corporate investment, debt and liquidity choices in the light of financial constraints and hedging needs," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 114561, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Jiang, Kangqi & Chen, Zhongfei & Rughoo, Aarti & Zhou, Mengling, 2022. "Internet finance and corporate investment: Evidence from China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Machokoto, Michael & Areneke, Geofry, 2021. "Is the cash flow sensitivity of cash asymmetric? African evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    4. Hirth, Stefan & Viswanatha, Marc, 2011. "Financing constraints, cash-flow risk, and corporate investment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1496-1509.
    5. Ze-To, Samuel Yau Man, 2016. "Asset liquidity and stock returns," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 177-196.
    6. Simone Boccaletti, 2021. "Asset Specificity and the Secondary Market for Productive Assets," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 7(3), pages 411-437, November.
    7. Rong, Yuen & Tian, Cunzhi & Li, Lifang & Zheng, Xinwei, 2020. "Does asset redeployability affect corporate investment and equity value?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 479-492.

    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. Gaurav Gupta & Jitendra Mahakud, 2019. "Alternative measure of financial development and investment-cash flow sensitivity: evidence from an emerging economy," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, December.
    2. Serin Choi & Seoki Lee & Kyuwan Choi & Kyung-A Sun, 2018. "Investment–cash flow sensitivities of restaurant firms," Tourism Economics, , vol. 24(5), pages 560-575, August.
    3. Sai Ding & Alessandra Guariglia & John Knight & Junhong Yang, 2021. "Negative Investment in China: Financing Constraints and Restructuring versus Growth," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1411-1449.
    4. Firth, Michael & Malatesta, Paul H. & Xin, Qingquan & Xu, Liping, 2012. "Corporate investment, government control, and financing channels: Evidence from China's Listed Companies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 433-450.
    5. Sprenger, Carsten & Lazareva, Olga, 2022. "Corporate governance and investment-cash flow sensitivity: Evidence from Russian unlisted firms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 71-100.
    6. Brown, James R. & Petersen, Bruce C., 2009. "Why has the investment-cash flow sensitivity declined so sharply? Rising R&D and equity market developments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 971-984, May.
    7. Andrén, Niclas & Jankensgård, Håkan, 2015. "Wall of cash: The investment-cash flow sensitivity when capital becomes abundant," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 204-213.
    8. Borisova, Ginka & Brown, James R., 2013. "R&D sensitivity to asset sale proceeds: New evidence on financing constraints and intangible investment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 159-173.
    9. Schauer, Catharina & Elsas, Ralf & Breitkopf, Nikolas, 2019. "A new measure of financial constraints applicable to private and public firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 270-295.
    10. Maurizio La Rocca & Raffaele Staglianò & Tiziana La Rocca & Alfio Cariola, 2015. "Investment cash flow sensitivity and financial constraint: a cluster analysis approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(41), pages 4442-4457, September.
    11. Bertoni, Fabio & Croce, Annalisa & Guerini, Massimiliano, 2015. "Venture capital and the investment curve of young high-tech companies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 159-176.
    12. Drobetz, Wolfgang & Haller, Rebekka & Meier, Iwan & Tarhan, Vefa, 2017. "The impact of liquidity crises on cash flow sensitivities," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 225-239.
    13. Nishihara, Michi & Shibata, Takashi, 2013. "The effects of external financing costs on investment timing and sizing decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1160-1175.
    14. Vijayakumaran, Ratnam, 2021. "Impact of managerial ownership on investment and liquidity constraints: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    15. Özgür Arslan-Ayaydin & Chris Florackis & Aydin Ozkan, 2014. "Financial flexibility, corporate investment and performance: evidence from financial crises," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 211-250, February.
    16. Vikash Gautam & Rajendra R. Vaidya, 2018. "Evidence on the determinants of investment-cash flow sensitivity," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 229-244, December.
    17. Xin Qu & Majella Percy & Fang Hu & Jenny Stewart, 2022. "Can CEO equity‐based compensation limit investment‐related agency problems?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2579-2614, June.
    18. Fabio Bertoni & María Ferrer & José Martí, 2013. "The different roles played by venture capital and private equity investors on the investment activity of their portfolio firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 607-633, April.
    19. Michael O'Connor Keefe & James Tate & Henk Berkman, 2013. "Is the relationship between investment and conditional cash flow volatility ambiguous, asymmetric or both?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 53(4), pages 913-947, December.
    20. Pellicani, Aline Damasceno & Kalatzis, Aquiles Elie Guimarães, 2019. "Ownership structure, overinvestment and underinvestment: Evidence from Brazil," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 475-482.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financing constraints; Corporate investment; Asset liquidity; Redeployability; Liquid funds;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation

    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:eee:jbfina:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:474-489. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.