Although firm financial policies were affected by a credit contraction during the recent financial crisis, the impact of increased uncertainty and decreased growth opportunities was stronger than that of the credit contraction per se. From the start of the financial crisis (third quarter of...

The real options framework has been used extensively to analyze the timing of investment under uncertainty. While standard real options models assume that agents possess a constant rate of time preference, there is substantial evidence that agents are very impatient about choices in the...

Are fluctuations in firms' profitability risk a major cause of regular business cycles? We study this question within the framework of a heterogeneous-firm dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with fixed capital adjustment costs. In such a model, surprise increases of risk lead to a...

We provide a theoretical model linking firm characteristics and expected returns. The key ingredient of our model is technological shocks embodied in new capital (IST shocks), which affect the profitability of new investments. Firms' exposure to IST shocks is endogenously determined by the...

We analyze the short and long-run performance of firms that were differentially affected by a new tax on dividends in the lead-up to the Global Financial Crisis. We use exogenous policy variation for firms with different legal statuses and financial year-end dates to causally identify the policy...

Abstract U.S. firms have reduced their investment in scientific research ("R") compared to product development ("D"), raising questions about the returns to each type of investment, and about the reasons for this shift. We use Census data that disaggregates "R" from "D" to study how US firms...

We document that monetary policy has a substantial impact on innovation activities. After a tightening shock of 100 basis points, research and development (R&D) spending declines by about 1 to 3 percent and venture capital (VC) investment declines by about 25 percent in the following 1 to 3...

Forward-looking investments determine the resilience of firms' supply chains. Such investments confer externalities on other firms in the production network. We compare the equilibrium and optimal allocations in a general equilibrium model with an arbitrary number of vertical production tiers....

We evaluate the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Combining reduced-form estimates from tax data with a global investment model, we estimate responses, identify parameters, and conduct counterfactuals. Domestic investment of firms with the mean tax change increases 20% versus a no-change baseline. Due...

We show that firms' nominal required returns to capital (i.e., their discount rates) are sticky with respect to expected inflation. Such nominally sticky discount rates imply that increases in expected inflation directly lower firms' real discount rates and thereby raise real investment. We...