Low adjustment cost for inventory implies that firms can optimally substitute inventory investment for fixed investment by weighing incremental gains against total costs of adjusting the two types of capital. I empirically show that such inventory dependence—arising due to adjustment-cost difference and substitutability—renders firms’ fixed investment significantly less responsive to various measures of investment demand. An analysis from the allocation-of-funds standpoint reveals that in response to one additional dollar available, a high inventory-dependence firm spends 14 cents more (8 cents less) on inventory investment (fixed investment) than does a low dependence firm although the total allocation to investing activities is similar across the two types of firms. Overall, this article uncovers substantial firm heterogeneity in inventory dependence and its impact, there providing empirical guidance for accounting for it in one’s analysis of corporate policy.

We document important links between targets’ institutional ownership and takeover-bid outcomes. Firms’ institutional ownership increases the likelihood of receiving stock-for-stock bids. The impact becomes stronger when information asymmetries are higher, whereas we find little support for alternative channels, such as bidder misvaluation or target-side adverse selection. The information channel is further buttressed in our analyses of institutions’ share-retention decisions, targets’ demand for top-tier advisors, collar provisions, and targets’ share of expected synergies. Our findings suggest that institutions’ information advantage facilitates rational payment design and targets’ bargaining power gains, alleviating deadweight losses associated with stock-for-stock offers.

We study how employment protection laws (EPLs) affect corporate cash-holding decision. By exploiting within-country changes in EPLs across 20 OECD countries as a source of variation in labor adjustment costs, we show that following an increase in the stringency of EPLs, firms’ cash holdings increase significantly. This relationship is stronger for firms with high labor turnover, no multinational presence, or financial constraints, indicating that labor adjustment cost raising distress risk is the mechanism in play. Cash buffers created by firms faced with stricter EPLs help them mitigate the underinvestment problem in subsequent episodes of industry-wide distress. Consistent with this precautionary motive, the market's valuation of excess cash is positively associated with the EPL strictness. We further demonstrate that the response of cash policy to changes in EPLs is distinct from that of debt policy or investment policy. Our evidence highlights the role of interaction between labor-market and financial frictions in determining the level and the value of corporate cash.

We study a novel mechanism through which real options play a prominent role in inducing the skewness of stock returns. Building on the investment-based asset pricing framework, we show that firms’ real options to contract (expand) their businesses when productivity is low (high) can increase return skewness. Consequently, return skewness represents a U-shaped function of firm productivity. Furthermore, the real-options effect is stronger for more flexible firms, characterized by lower scale-adjustment frictions. Employing a large sample of U.S. firms during 1972–2018, we provide a battery of robust empirical evidence consistent with the model predictions. Our findings demonstrate that firm-level real flexibility can impact investors and managers’ decision making.