We present evidence consistent with operational constraints leading firms to use high discount rates that average twice the firms’ cost of financial capital. Based on a survey of Chief Financial Officers matched to archival data, we find that firms with abundant access to capital but limited qualified management or manpower appear to forgo profitable projects in preparation for more profitable future investment opportunities. Consistent with this explanation, firms that use high discount rates have strong balance sheets, low leverage, and large cash holdings. In addition, firms appear to increase discount rates to account for idiosyncratic risk.

This paper examines the financing decisions of firms in response to changes in investments and profits. We find that information frictions play important roles in firms' financing decisions. However, we find no evidence that asymmetric information about the value of a firm's assets causes equity to be used only as a last resort. Indeed equity is the predominant source of finance in situations, such as profit shortfalls, investment in intangible assets, and internally generated growth opportunities, where informational asymmetries and agency costs are likely to be high. We also find that firms respond asymmetrically to positive and negative profit shocks. In financing fixed assets, high asymmetric information firms use more short-term debt and less long-term debt, whereas firms with high potential agency problems use significantly more equity and less long-term debt and cash.

ABSTRACT We develop a dynamic multiequation model where firms make financing and investment decisions jointly subject to the constraint that sources must equal uses of cash. We argue that static models of financial decisions produce inconsistent coefficient estimates, and that models that do not acknowledge the interdependence among decision variables produce inefficient estimates and provide an incomplete and potentially misleading view of financial behavior. We use our model to examine whether firms are constrained from accessing capital markets. Unlike static single‐equation studies that find firms underinvest given cash flow shortfalls, we conclude that firms maintain investment by borrowing.