We examine how firm and country heterogeneity shape the response of corporate investment in emerging markets to changes in global interest rates and volatility. We test for the presence of (i) a financing channel originating from changes in the costs of external borrowing and (ii) a real options...

We provide novel evidence linking the level of creditor protection provided by law to the degree of usage of technologically older, vintage capital in the airline industry. Using a panel of aircraft-level data around the world, we find that better creditor rights are associated with both...

We survey 1,050 CFOs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia to assess whether their firms are credit constrained during the global credit crisis of 2008. We study whether corporate spending plans differ conditional on this measure of financial constraint. Our evidence indicates that constrained firms...

We present new data on effective corporate income tax rates in 85 countries in 2004. The data come from a survey, conducted jointly with PricewaterhouseCoopers, of all taxes imposed on "the same" standardized mid-size domestic firm. In a cross-section of countries, our estimates of the effective...

Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Defining the Issues -- Chapter 3. Short-Termism, An Evolving Concern? -- Chapter 4. What Has Been Done to Correct Short-Termism? -- Chapter 5. Is There A Short-Termism Problem At All? -- Chapter 6. Short-Termism Transmission Mechanisms -- Chapter 7. What Are...

Chapter 1: Why Finance Matters for Economics: The Story of Financing the Railroad -- Chapter 2: The Story of the Original Boom and Bust in Western Finance: The Mississippi Bubble -- Chapter 3: Price Determination in a Multi Sector Global Economy -- Chapter 4: Credit Allocation and the Role of...

The best predictor of current investment at the firm level is lagged investment. This lagged-investment effect is empirically more important than the cash-flow and Q effects combined. We show that the specification of investment adjustment costs proposed by Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans...