According to F. A. Hayek, Keynes' General Theory neglects an analysis of the production structure. As a contribution to this research gap, we look at companies' decisions to finance investments and at their agility to adjust their capital structure. We thus study the relationship between capital structure to finance corporate production and shifts in aggregate demand. Target capital structure determinants and speeds of adjustment to these target capital structures will be analyzed for a geographically comprehensive sample of 2,706 companies listed in Asia, Europe and the U.S.A. in the period 1995 - 2009. Aggregate demand turns out to be the coordinating force which determines managers' choices of target capital structures. The speed of adjustments towards target capital structures indicate that firms are agile in adapting to their targets. Our results provide evidence on Keynes' General Theory from a firm level perspective: Firms respond quickly to shifts in aggregate demand by adjusting capital and production structure correspondingly.
Using a sample of firms matched with their suppliers, we study the use of trade credit as firms approach a default event. We show that, in the extensive margin, around one third of suppliers exit the relationship well ahead of default, but the rest continue the relationship. Relationships are more likely to continue when suppliers sell differentiated goods, are located close to their distressed clients, sell large proportions to the distressed clients, or when the distressed client is in a concentrated market, suggesting that dependent suppliers are held up in distressed relationships. Firms with suppliers that continue the relationship continue purchasing the same amounts from their suppliers and have larger increases in accounts payable, suggesting that held-up suppliers trade-off the potential benefits of granting concessions to their clients during bad times with the risk of increasing their exposure to a distressed firm.
Using a supplier-client matched sample, we study the effect of the 2007-2008 financial crisis on between-firm liquidity provision. Consistent with a causal effect of a negative shock to bank credit, we find that firms with high pre-crisis liquidity levels increased the trade credit extended to other corporations and subsequently experienced better performance as compared to ex-ante cash-poor firms. Trade credit taken by constrained firms increased during this period. These findings are consistent with firms providing liquidity insurance to their clients when bank credit is scarce and provide an important precautionary savings motive for accumulating cash reserves.
We analyze the relationship between contracts and returns in private equity (PE) investments. Contractual control in the form of covenants tends to be employed to identify good deals. Better quality fi?rms are more likely to have covenant-rich contracts, as they are less concerned by the constraints imposed by the covenants. PE investors appoint closer associates of the fund in deals that are performing poorly but tend to outsource board governance in better deals. Collectively, our evidence suggests that PE investors operate along two dimensions, choosing covenants and board seats di¤erently, based on the ex-ante quality of the company.
In this paper I analyze whether the higher financing costs following the distress or bankruptcy of one firm affect the real investment decisions of non-distressed industry competitors. To achieve identification of the causal effect of contagion on investment, I use a difference-in-differences approach that compares within-firm changes in investment around the industry distress for non-distressed competitors with large proportions of their debt maturing immediately after the industry distress, relative to other non-distressed competitors in the same industry but that did not have debt maturing immediately after the industry distress. Results suggest that the former firms, which are more affected by the higher costs of financing due to contagion, reduce their capital expenditures to capital ratio by around 10% more than the less-sensitive firms. Further results show that contagion effects are milder in concentrated and low-leveraged industries, as well as in industries that do not rely too heavily on external financing.
