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Journal of Banking & Finance Vol. 69 2016

Do corporate policies follow a life-cycle?

Robert W. Faff1; Wing Chun Kwok2; Edward Podolski3; George Wong4

1 The University of Queensland · 2 The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong · 3 Deakin University · 4 Hong Kong Polytechnic University

open access

Abstract

We examine whether corporate investment, financing, and cash policies are interdependent and follow a predictable pattern in line with the firm life-cycle. We find that investments and equity issuance decrease with firm life-cycle, while debt issuance and cash holdings increase in the introduction and growth stages and decrease in the mature and shake-out/decline stages of the firm’s life-cycle. These results are robust after using various proxies for life-cycle and controlling for firm, CEO and board level characteristics. Collectively, our results show that corporate policies follow a firm life-cycle.

DOI
10.1016/j.jbankfin.2016.04.009
Volume
69
Pages
95-107
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib

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