Is real investment fully determined by fundamentals or is it sometimes affected by stock market misvaluation? We introduce three new tests that: measure the reaction of investment to sales shocks for firms that may be overvalued; use Fama-MacBeth regressions to determine whether "overinvestment"...

Many economists believe that the stock market plays an important role in efficiently allocating capital to its most productive uses. This standard story of the stock market was called into question by events in the late 1990s, when some observers believed that stock market overvaluation – or a...

Many economists believe that the stock market plays an important role in efficiently allocating capital to its most productive uses. This standard story of the stock market was called into question by events in the late 1990s, when some observers believed that stock market overvaluation – or a...

This paper contributes to the GDP-consumption co-movement puzzle literature investigating the role of tax evasion in explaining the consumption path after a Marginal Efficiency of Investment shock. We use an otherwise standard medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model combining tax evasion with...

Is real investment fully determined by fundamentals or is it sometimes affected by stock market misvaluation? We introduce three new tests that: measure the reaction of investment to sales shocks for firms that may be overvalued; use Fama-MacBeth regressions to determine whether overinvestment...

This paper studies loan activity in a context where banks must follow Basel Accord-type rules and acquire financing from households. Loan activity typically decreases when entrepreneurs’ investment returns decline, and we study which type of policy could revigorate an economy in a trough. We...

This paper studies loan activity in a context where banks must follow Basel Accord-type rules and acquire financing from households. Loan activity typically decreases when entrepreneurs' investment returns decline, and we study which type of policy could revigorate an economy in a trough. We...

We test whether adverse changes to banks' market valuations during the financial and sovereign debt crises, and the associated increase in banks' cost of funding, affected firms' real decisions. Using new data linking over 3,000 non-financial Italian firms to their bank(s), we find that...

When investment is irreversible, theory suggests that firms will be “reluctant to invest.” This reluctance creates a wedge between the discount rate guiding investment decisions and the standard Jorgensonian user cost (adjusted for risk). We use the intertemporal tradeoff between the...

Turnovsky (1995) derives in a continuous-time model of a decentralized economy that the correct specification of the firm’s objective function is to maximize the initial value of its outstanding securities. The firm value is the discounted flow of real earnings. For the discrete-time version...