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Journal of Banking & Finance Vol. 97 2018

Rivals’ competitive activities, capital constraints, and firm growth

Mikael C. Bergbrant1; Delroy M. Hunter2; Patrick J. Kelly3

1 St. John's University · 2 University of South Florida · 3 The University of Melbourne

Abstract

We examine the impact of rivals’ competitive activities on firms’ quantity-of-capital constraints in 60 countries. Prior work shows that competition increases the costs of debt and equity, which reduce the economic profit from investment. Capital constraints, however, may prevent firms from exploiting all positive NPV projects. Using unique survey data and several econometric techniques, we address endogeneity problems that affect both capital constraints and rivals’ competitive activities. We find that rivals’ competitive activities are positively associated with firms’ capital constraints and are more strongly correlated with capital constraints than banking sector competition. We also show that quantity-of-capital constraints are negatively related to firm growth, incremental to the cost of capital.

DOI
10.1016/j.jbankfin.2018.09.020
Volume
97
Pages
87-108
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib

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