We compare pricing and exit decisions of discounters across the business cycle. Cities containing high debt and/or low efficiency firms display higher prices during non-recession years. During recessions, prices increase in cities with less efficient incumbents, but decrease in cities with a mix of high and low debt firms. High debt firms are more likely to exit cities with lower prices, and high debt exiting firms are more likely to be efficient. Apparently, low debt firms strategically lower prices during recessions to force exit of efficient, financially constrained rivals. Weaker competitors face another cost. New entrants locate closer.

We study whether differences in access to credit cause focused firms to perform differently from diversified firms in the product market. Prior work has identified binding credit constraints for bank-dependent firms during recessions. We assess whether corporate diversification alleviates these constraints. We find that during recessions sales growth rates drop more for bank-dependent focused firms than for rival segments of bank-dependent diversified firms. We also find that during recessions inventory growth rates drop more for bank-dependent focused firms than for bank-dependent diversified firms even after we control for contemporaneous sales growth. Consistent with a credit constraint explanation, we find no difference in the sensitivities to recessions of bank-independent focused and bank-independent diversified firms.

We examine how certain firm- and market-specific characteristics affect incumbent firms' responses to new entry into their local markets. Data comes from the discount department store industry where Wal-Mart entered a large number of markets in a short period of time. Consistent with existing research, larger and more profitable incumbents respond more aggressively to Wal-Mart's entry, while more highly levered incumbents respond less aggressively. Also, there is evidence that incumbent managers fight harder (possibly overinvest) when their job is at greater risk and high managerial ownership appears to reduce this agency problem. Incumbent firms behave differently in markets under attack by Wal-Mart than in markets not yet threatened, suggesting that some of the documented responses are specific to Wal-Mart's entry.

We examine how certain firm- and market-specific characteristics affect incumbent firms' responses to new entry into their local markets. Data comes from the discount department store industry where Wal-Mart entered a large number of markets in a short period of time. Consistent with existing research, larger and more profitable incumbents respond more aggressively to Wal-Mart's entry, while more highly levered incumbents respond less aggressively. Also, there is evidence that incumbent managers fight harder (possibly overinvest) when their job is at greater risk and high managerial ownership appears to reduce this agency problem. Incumbent firms behave differently in markets under attack by Wal-Mart than in markets not yet threatened, suggesting that some of the documented responses are specific to Wal-Mart's entry.

We examine capital expenditure decisions of discount firms in response to WalMart's entry into their markets. Before WalMart's entry, focused incumbents and discount divisions of diversified incumbents are similar in size, geographic dispersion, and firm debt levels. However, discount divisions of diversified firms are significantly more productive. After WalMart's entry, diversified firms are quicker to either exit the discount business or stay and fight. Also, their capital expenditures are more sensitive to the productivity of their discount business. Internal capital markets function well, as transfers are away from the worsening discount divisions. It appears diversified firms make better investment decisions.

We study whether differences in access to credit cause focused firms to perform differently from diversified firms in the product market. Prior work has identified binding credit constraints for bank-dependent firms during recessions. We assess whether corporate diversification alleviates these constraints. We find that during recessions sales growth rates drop more for bank-dependent focused firms than for rival segments of bank-dependent diversified firms. We also find that during recessions inventory growth rates drop more for bank-dependent focused firms than for bank-dependent diversified firms even after we control for contemporaneous sales growth. Consistent with a credit constraint explanation, we find no difference in the sensitivities to recessions of bank-independent focused and bank-independent diversified firms.

The diversification discount (multiple segment firm value below the value imputed using single segment firm multiples) is commonly thought to be generated by agency problems, a lack of transparency, or lackluster future prospects for diversified firms. If multiple segment firms have lower uncertainty about mean profitability than single segment firms, rational learning about mean profitability provides an alternative explanation for the diversification discount that does not rely on suboptimal managerial decisions or a poor firm outlook. Empirical tests which examine changes in firm value across the business cycle and idiosyncratic volatility are consistent with lower uncertainty about mean profitability for multiple segment firms.

We aim to tackle the longstanding debate on whether stock liquidity enhances or impedes firm innovation. This topic is of interest because innovation is crucial for firm‐ and national‐level competitiveness and stock liquidity can be altered by financial market regulations. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach that relies on the exogenous variation in liquidity generated by regulatory changes, we find that an increase in liquidity causes a reduction in future innovation. We identify two possible mechanisms through which liquidity impedes innovation: increased exposure to hostile takeovers and higher presence of institutional investors who do not actively gather information or monitor.

This paper investigates the relation between stock liquidity and firm performance. The study shows that firms with liquid stocks have better performance as measured by the firm market-to-book ratio. This result is robust to the inclusion of industry or firm fixed effects, a control for idiosyncratic risk, a control for endogenous liquidity using two-stage least squares, and the use of alternative measures of liquidity. To identify the causal effect of liquidity on firm performance, we study an exogenous shock to liquidity—the decimalization of stock trading—and show that the increase in liquidity around decimalization improves firm performance. The causes of liquidity's beneficial effect are investigated: Liquidity increases the information content of market prices and of performance-sensitive managerial compensation. Finally, momentum trading, analyst coverage, investor overreaction, and the effect of liquidity on discount rates or expected returns do not appear to drive the results.

Miller [1977. Risk, uncertainty, and divergence of opinion. Journal of Finance 32, 1151–1168] hypothesizes that prices of stocks subject to high differences of opinion and short-sales constraints are biased upward. We expect earnings announcements to reduce differences of opinion among investors, and consequently, these announcements should reduce overvaluation. Using five distinct proxies for differences of opinion, we find that high differences of opinion stocks earn significantly lower returns around earnings announcements than low differences of opinion stocks. In addition, the returns on high differences of opinion stocks are more negative within the subsample of stocks that are most difficult for investors to sell short. These results are robust when we control for the size effect and the market-to-book effect and when we examine alternative explanations such as financial leverage, earnings announcement premium, post-earnings announcement drift, return momentum, and potential biases in analysts’ forecasts. Also consistent with Miller's theory, we find that stocks subject to high differences of opinion and more binding short-sales constraints have a price run-up just prior to earnings announcements that is followed by an even larger decline after the announcements.