We use social network data from Facebook to show that institutional investors are more likely to invest in firms from regions to which they have stronger social ties. This effect of social proximity on investment behavior is distinct from the effect of geographic proximity. Social connections...

We construct a new measure of firm-level uncertainty from analyzing the text of mandatory reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Using firm and establishment level panel data on investment margins and employment dynamics, we find our uncertainty measure has large effects...

We develop a dynamic model of firm investment under uncertainty that captures firms' risk attitude using quantile preferences. The firm maximizes its present value, defined as current profits and investment plus the discounted value of the τ-quantile of its value next period. In our framework,...

This paper provides a model of investment timing by managers in a decentralized firm in the presence of agency conflicts and information asymmetries. When investment decisions are delegated to managers, contracts must be designed to provide incentives for managers to both extend effort and...

In this article we develop a model to analyze patent-protected R&D investment projects when there is (imperfect) competition in the development and marketing of the resulting product. The competitive interactions that occur substantially complicate the solution of the problem since the decision...

We develop a real options model of R&D valuation, which takes into account the uncertainty in the quality of the research output, the time and cost to completion, and the market demand for the R&D output. The model is then applied to study the problem of pharmaceutical under-investment in R&D...

We show how the value of a real option depends on corporate income taxes and the option's "debt capacity," defined as the amount of debt supported or displaced by the option. The value of the underlying asset must be an adjusted present value (APV). The risk-free rate of interest must be...

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...

We analyse the importance of climate-related investment using a large economy-wide survey of UK firms. Over half of firms expect climate change to have a positive impact on their investment in the medium term, with around a quarter expecting a large impact of over 10%. Around two-thirds of these...

We use a unique design feature of a survey of Italian firms to study the causal effect of inflation expectations on firms' economic decisions. In the survey, a randomly chosen subset of firms is repeatedly treated with information about recent inflation whereas other firms are not. This...