We examine interactions between investment and financing decisions in a dynamic model where the firm can alter the mix of debt and equity financing and exercise a randomly arriving and potentially short lived growth option. The firm will typically finance the exercise of the growth option with...

We measure ex-ante expectation errors by identifying sporadic versus persistent total asset growth ex-ante. Corporate profitability of high (low) asset-growth firms remains inferior (superior) after temporary asset expansion (contraction), hence ex-ante expectation errors are high. Corporate...

We find that business cycles drive productive economic churn. During recessions, firms with high previous abnormal investment scale back while firms with low abnormal investment scale up. These findings are consistent with an improvement in investment efficiency over the business cycle. Our...

I develop a model of mergers in which M&A deals are used to reallocate investment opportunities. In equilibrium, acquirers lack internal growth options and seek out projects from targets in the M&A market. The model is able to reconcile many features of the merger data that I document, including...