IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/halshs-00144415.html

Neoclassical vs Evolutionary Theories of Financial Constraints : Critique and Prospectus

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Coad

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LEM - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Management - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur, Max-Planck-Institut)

Abstract

Complicated neoclassical models predict that if investment is sensitive to current financial performance, this is a sign that something is "wrong" and is to be regarded as a problem for policy. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, refers to the principle of "growth of the fitter" to explain investment-cash flow sensitivities as the workings of a healthy economy. In particular, I attack the neoclassical assumption of managers maximizing shareholder-value. Such an assumption is not a helpful starting point for empirical studies into firm growth. one caricature of neoclassical theory could be "Assume firms are perfectly efficient. Why aren't they getting enoug funding ?", whereas evolutionary theory considers that firms are forever struggling to grow. This essay highlights how policy guidelines can be framed by the initial modelling assumptions, even though these latter are often chosen with analytical tractability in mind rather than realism.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Coad, 2007. "Neoclassical vs Evolutionary Theories of Financial Constraints : Critique and Prospectus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00144415, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00144415
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00144415v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00144415v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alex Coad & Rekha Rao, 2010. "Firm growth and R&D expenditure," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 127-145.
    2. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2012. "Do financial constraints threat the innovation process? Evidence from Portuguese firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(8), pages 701-736, November.
    3. Yuji Honjo, 2018. "Do profitable start-up firms grow faster? Evidence from Colombia," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 37(75), pages 727-754.
    4. Pascal Aßmuth, 2018. "The Impact of Credit Rating on Innovation in a Two-Sector Evolutionary Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 839-872, October.
    5. Doğuhan Sündal, 2023. "Not your average firm: A quantile regression approach to firm‐level investment in the United States," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 858-886, November.
    6. Charis VLADOS, 2019. "The Classical and Neoclassical theoretical traditions and the evolutionary study of the dynamics of globalization," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, EconSciences Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 257-280, September.
    7. Doguhan Sundal, 2021. "Not your average firm: a quantile regression approach to the firm level investment," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2021_02, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    8. Coad, Alex & Rao, Rekha & Tamagni, Federico, 2011. "Growth processes of Italian manufacturing firms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 54-70, February.
    9. Segarra Blasco, Agustí, 1958- & Teruel, Mercedes, 2010. "Are small firms more sensitive to financial variables?," Working Papers 2072/151623, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    10. Alexander Coad, 2007. "Firm Growth: A Survey," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2007-03, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    11. Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Potì, 2014. "The Impact of Public Support Intensity on Business R&D: Evidence from a Dose-Response Approach," ERSA conference papers ersa14p625, European Regional Science Association.
    12. Peng Bin & Xiaolan Chen & Andrea Fracasso & Chiara Tomasi, 2020. "Firm employment growth in China: The role of marketization and regional economic factors," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 402-439, March.
    13. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2012. "Measuring Firms’ Financial Constraints: A Rough Guide," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 36, pages 23-46, December.
    14. Giovanni Cerulli & Bianca Poti', 2016. "Explaining firm sensitivity to R&D subsidies within a dose-response model: The role of financial constraints, real cost of investment, and strategic value of R&D," DEM Working Papers 2016/09, Department of Economics and Management.
    15. Silva Filipe & Carreira Carlos, 2017. "Financial Constraints: Do They Matter to Allocate R&D Subsidies?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 1-26, October.
    16. Cattaruzzo, Sebastiano & Teruel, Mercedes, 2022. "On the heterogeneity of the long-term leverage-growth relationship: A cross-country analysis of manufacturing firms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 552-565.
    17. Mina, Andrea & Minin, Alberto Di & Martelli, Irene & Testa, Giuseppina & Santoleri, Pietro, 2021. "Public funding of innovation: Exploring applications and allocations of the European SME Instrument," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    18. Daria Ciriaci & Pietro Moncada-Paterno-Castello & Peter Voigt, 2012. "Does size or age of innovative firms affect their growth persistence? Evidence from a panel of innovative Spanish firms," JRC Research Reports JRC74052, Joint Research Centre.
    19. Nina Ponikvar & Katja Zajc Kejžar & Darja Peljhan, 2018. "The role of financial constraints for alternative firm exit modes," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 85-103, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    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:cesptp:halshs-00144415. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.