IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed009/671.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Organization Capital and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns

Author

Listed:
  • Dimitris Papanikolaou

    (Northwestern University)

  • Andrea Eisfeldt

    (Northwestern University)

Abstract

This paper studies the unique risk characteristics of organization capital. Using a stock measure of organization capital based on readily available accounting data, we find that firms with more organization capital relative to their industry peers outperform firms with less organization capital by 4.7% per year. A long short portfolio based on the ratio of the stock of organization capital to total assets within industries has a Sharpe ratio of 0.57. We construct a model featuring what we argue are the two most salient features of organization capital, namely that it is firm specific and that it is partially embodied in firms' labor input and thus cannot be wholly owned by shareholders. The model economy illustrates the sensitivity of organization capital to economic restructuring and the resulting risk premia required for high organization capital firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimitris Papanikolaou & Andrea Eisfeldt, 2009. "Organization Capital and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," 2009 Meeting Papers 671, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed009:671
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2009/paper_671.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ricardo J. Caballero, 2007. "Specificity and the Macroeconomics of Restructuring," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033623, December.
    2. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "The Stock Market and Capital Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1185-1202, December.
    3. Ricardo J. Caballero & Mohamad L. Hammour, 2005. "The Cost of Recessions Revisited: A Reverse-Liquidationist View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 313-341.
    4. Chowdhry, Bhagwan & Garmaise, Mark J., 2003. "Organization Capital and Intrafirm Communication," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt8j01z46g, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    5. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2008. "Specific Capital and Technological Variety," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 129-152.
    6. Sherwin Rosen, 1972. "Learning by Experience as Joint Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 86(3), pages 366-382.
    7. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2005. "Measuring Organizational Capital in the New Economy," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Capital in the New Economy, pages 205-236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Ricardo Caballero & Mohamad Hammour, 2001. "Institutions, Restructuring and Macroeconomic Performance," International Economic Association Series, in: Jacques Drèze (ed.), Advances in Macroeconomic Theory, chapter 9, pages 171-193, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2000. "Vintage organization capital," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Apr.
    10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    11. Robert E. Hall, 2000. "E-Capital: The Link between the Stock Market and the Labor Market in the 1990s," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(2), pages 73-118.
    12. Richard Ericson & Ariel Pakes, 1995. "Markov-Perfect Industry Dynamics: A Framework for Empirical Work," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82.
    13. Lucia Foster & John C. Haltiwanger & C. J. Krizan, 2001. "Aggregate Productivity Growth: Lessons from Microeconomic Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 303-372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Dimitris Papanikolaou, 2008. "Investment-Specific Technological Change and Asset Prices," 2008 Meeting Papers 637, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Vojislav Maksimovic & Gordon Phillips, 2001. "The Market for Corporate Assets: Who Engages in Mergers and Asset Sales and Are There Efficiency Gains?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2019-2065, December.
    16. Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2005. "Modeling and Measuring Organization Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1026-1053, October.
    17. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    18. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Chad Syverson & Hanno Lustig, 2008. "IT, Corporate Payouts, and the Growing Inequality in Managerial Compensation," 2008 Meeting Papers 265, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Prescott, Edward C & Visscher, Michael, 1980. "Organization Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 446-461, June.
    20. Eisfeldt, Andrea L. & Rampini, Adriano A., 2006. "Capital reallocation and liquidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 369-399, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Habib, Michel A. & Mella-Barral, Pierre, 2013. "Skills, core capabilities, and the choice between merging, allying, and trading assets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 31-48.
    2. Katsuya Takii, 2008. "The Persistence of Differences in Productivity, Wages, Skill Mixes and Profits Between Firms in a Rapidly Changing Environment," OSIPP Discussion Paper 08E003, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    3. Katsuya Takii, 2007. "The Persistence of Differences in Productivity, Wages, Skill Mixes and Profits Between Firms," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 07-10, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    4. Faria, Andre L., 2008. "Mergers and the market for organization capital," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 71-100, January.
    5. Qiu, Buhui & Wang, Teng, 2018. "Does Knowledge Protection Benefit Shareholders? Evidence from Stock Market Reaction and Firm Investment in Knowledge Assets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 1341-1370, June.
    6. Zheng Song & Kaiji Chen, 2007. "Capital Reallocation, Productivity, and Expectation-Driven Business Cycles," 2007 Meeting Papers 512, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Baruch Lev & Suresh Radhakrishnan, 2003. "The Measurement of Firm-Specific Organization Capital," NBER Working Papers 9581, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2008. "Specific Capital and Technological Variety," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 129-152.
    9. Fransisco M. Ganzalez & Alok Johri, 2002. "Asymmetric Labor Adjustment, Organizational Capital and Aggregate Job Flows," Department of Economics Working Papers 2002-03, McMaster University.
    10. van Rens, Thijs & Vukotic, Marija, 2020. "Delayed Adjustment and Persistence in Macroeconomic Models," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1245, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    11. Talukdar Bidyut, 2014. "Organizational learning and optimal fiscal and monetary policy," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-31, January.
    12. Andrea L. Eisfeldt & Yu Shi, 2018. "Capital Reallocation," NBER Working Papers 25085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Konan Chan & Mei‐Xuan Li & Chu‐Bin Lin & Yanzhi Wang, 2022. "Organization capital effect in stock returns—The role of R&D," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7-8), pages 1237-1263, July.
    14. Borovička, Jaroslav & Hansen, Lars Peter, 2014. "Examining macroeconomic models through the lens of asset pricing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(1), pages 67-90.
    15. Mahmut Yasar & Roderick M. Rejesus & Ilhami Mintemur, 2006. "Plant-level dynamics and aggregate productivity growth in the Turkish meat-processing industry: Evidence from longitudinal data," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 91-107.
    16. Alok Johri & Muhebullah Karimzada, 2021. "Learning efficiency shocks, knowledge capital and the business cycle: A Bayesian evaluation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 1314-1360, November.
    17. Sakellaris, Plutarchos, 2004. "Patterns of plant adjustment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 425-450, March.
    18. Philip Auerswald, 2010. "Entry and Schumpeterian profits," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 553-582, August.
    19. Otsu, Keisuke & Saito, Masashi, 2013. "Organizational dynamics and aggregate fluctuations: The role of financial relationships," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 3044-3058.
    20. Lucia Foster & Cheryl Grim & John Haltiwanger, 2016. "Reallocation in the Great Recession: Cleansing or Not?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 293-331.

    More about this item

    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:red:sed009:671. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    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.