We quantify the impact of merger activity on productive efficiency. We develop and calibrate a dynamic industry-equilibrium model that features mergers, entry, and exit by heterogeneous firms. Mergers affect productivity directly through realized synergies, and indirectly through firms'...

This paper presents a tractable model of a firm that chooses both the scale and timing of its investment. The value-maximizing investment policy is lumpy, and sensitivity analysis shows that greater demand volatility is associated with the firm choosing to invest in larger increments, less...

We use our numerical technique to explore the optimality of risk-taking under financial distress. In our model, cash reserves are represented by a Brownian processes that includes an innovation parameter. When this innovation parameter goes to zero, our results show that risk-taking is optimal...

Using a large panel of about 6,946 French manufacturing firms, this paper investigates the effect of monetary policy from 1990 to 1999 on investment through the cost of capital and the cash-flow channels. We compare several specifications of the neo-classical demand for capital, taking into...

We estimate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms' investment decisions from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms' subjective qualitative expectations. They are close to their theoretical counterparts, the variances of future demand and price...

We question a deep-ingrained doctrine in asset pricing: if an empirical characteristic-return relation is consistent with investor “rationality,” the relation must be “explained” by a risk factor model. The investment approach changes the big picture of asset pricing. Factors formed on...

The importance of temporary activities is growing and projects are proliferating in most businesses, non-profit and public organizations. This trend has been treated by different authors and on different levels - organizational, societal and personal, but mainly on a single level - and under...

A neoclassical factor demand model for structures, equipment and labour is analyzed. It incorporates a variety of dynamic specifications, such as a multi-period time-to-build for structures, internal adjustment costs for each production factor, and external investment adjustment costs....

R&D components are investigated in dynamic factor demand models using pooled Japanese data. Models without R&D, with R&D (double or) wrongly counted and (once or) correctly counted are compared by means of GMM estimates, (non-)nested GMM tests and residual analyses. The results indicate that R&D...

This paper shows how scale economies affect welfare-maximizing regulation and regulated firms' investment behavior. Price-regulated firms take less advantage of scale economies than social planners, with greater investment distortions for greater economies of scale. Price caps should be below...