This paper presents a model of investment in a duopoly with firms that choose the scale and timing of investment. Decision-making flexibility and the costs saved by investing in large steps rather than sequences of small steps determine an incumbent's ability to deter entry by a potential...

We propose the standard neoclassical model of investment under uncertainty with short-run adjustment frictions as a benchmark for earnings-return patterns absent accounting influences. We show that our proposed benchmark generates a wide range of earnings-return patterns documented in accounting...

We show how directors can set the strength of a firm's anti-takeover provisions in order to influence the investment-timing decision of a future empire-building CEO. The prospect of future hostile takeover attempts, which terminate the CEO's control benefits if successful, affects the CEO's...

Firms reduce investment when facing downward wage rigidity (DWR), the inability or unwillingness to adjust wages downward. I construct DWR measures and exploit staggered state-level changes in minimum wage laws as an exogenous variation in DWR to document this fact. Following a one standard...

We propose the standard neoclassical model of investment under uncertainty with short‐run adjustment frictions as a benchmark for earnings‐return patterns absent accounting influences. We show that our proposed benchmark generates a wide range of earnings‐return patterns documented in...

Does corporate finance literature accurately identify firms facing homogeneous financing constraints when studying the impact of financing constraints on corporate investment? The short answer is no. The common practice of using pre-determined percentiles of a financing constraint metric...

We incorporate both labor and capital as production inputs and discuss the effects of labor choice on a firm's optimal investment decision and output dynamics based on real options framework. In particular, we introduce different levels of labor flexibility and examine how it affects the firm's...

Abstract We study the classical relationship between a firm’s investment and Tobin’s q for which unobserved productivity is another factor of a firm’s decision. Besides the potential measurement problem of Tobin’s q, controlling unobserved productivity is a new challenge. We develop an...