Investment and Research and Development at the Firm Level: Does the Source of Financing Matter?

   (1152 K)

The elasticity of investment and R&D investment with respect to cash flow is unambiguously positive in a large panel of U.S. manufacturing firms from 1973 to 1987. even with proper controls for permanent differences across firms and for simultaneity. I argue that the evidence favors liquidity constraints rather than just demand effects as the cause of this finding. Other results are that debt is not favored as a form of finance for R&D-intensive firms; leverage ratios and R&D investment are strongly negatively correlated across firms and this is not accounted for by differences in corporate taxation. Finally, the contemporaneous relationship between changes in debt levels and investment which I have previously documented (Hall 1990b and Hall 1991) is one of simultaneity, and apparently transitory, unlike the relationship between cash flow and investment.

This paper is available as PDF (1152 K) or via email.

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX