We argue that management sells assets when doing so provides the cheapest funds to pursue its objectives rather than for operating efficiency reasons alone. This hypothesis suggests that (1) firms selling assets have high leverage and/or poor performance, (2) a successful asset sale is good news...

We argue that management sells assets when doing so provides the cheapest funds to pursue its objectives rather than for operating efficiency reasons alone. This hypothesis suggests that (1) firms selling assets have high leverage and/or poor performance, (2) a successful asset sale is good news...

High Tobin's q industries receive more funding from capital markets than low Tobin's q industries from 1971 to 1996. Since then, the opposite is true. The key to understanding this shift is that large firms for which q is more a proxy for rents than for investment opportunities have become more...