The paper studies empirically how relative supply and demand conditions on the capital market affected US firm-level investment over the business cycles from 1977 to 2011. A dynamic econometric specification of capital accumulation including sales growth, Tobin's q, the cash flow-capital ratio...

Multiple dimensional shifts related to firm-level multinationalization spill over to the aggregate realm as an unusually large mass of US firms multinationalized in the late-1990s. Firms become considerably different in many aspects as they transform into multinational enterprises (MNEs),...

Firm-level investment paths are commonly characterised by periods of low or zero investment punctuated by large investment ‘spikes’. We document that such spikes are important for understanding firm and aggregate level investment in the UK. We show that annual variation in aggregate...

The process of globalization encompasses economic and financial integration. The abolition of capital controls and the dismantling of barriers of different kinds will expose previously sheltered companies to shocks on the global economic arena. Policy-makers in already globalized countries have...

This paper investigates the microeconomic origins of aggregate economic fluctuations inEurope. It examines the relevance of idiosyncratic shocks at the top 100 large firms (thegranular shocks) in explaining aggregate macroeconomic fluctuations. The paper alsoassesses the strength of spillovers...

We find that capital renting makes up one-fifth of US capital expenditures, and it increases during downturns. Further, we present cross-country evidence that output losses after financial crises are smaller where renting is more prevalent. To understand these findings, we build a general...

How does government borrowing affect corporate financing and investment? This paper focuses on the role that government debt plays in providing a safe and liquid store of value to the private sector. In the data, I show that firms interact with the market for government debt in two ways: first,...

We study the impact of the concentration and complexity of the banking sector on firms' financing and investment behavior over the business cycle. We find that, after the late 1990s, while debt issuance remained procyclical for US firms of all sizes, equity issuance and liquidity accumulation...

We find that capital renting makes up one fifth of US capital expenditures, and it increases during downturns. Further, we present cross-country evidence that output losses after financial crises are smaller where renting is more prevalent. To understand these findings, we build a general...

Our paper provides the first cross-country evidence on the distinct dynamics of tangible and intangible investments during and after the global financial crisis. The pre-crisis rise of intangible-to-tangible capital ratio was reversed outside the U.S. due to a greater decline of intangible...