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Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 35 2015

Corporate innovation, default risk, and bond pricing

Po-Hsuan Hsu1; Hsiao-Hui Lee1; Alfred Z. Liu2; Zhipeng Zhang3

1 University of Hong Kong · 2 University at Albany, State University of New York · 3 BlackRock (United States)

Abstract

We propose firm-level innovation performance to be an important determinant of corporate creditworthiness and examine this relation from the perspective of bond investors. We find that firms' default probabilities are negatively related to the quantity, impact, originality, and generality of their patent portfolios. Moreover, bonds issued by more innovative firms have lower issuance premiums and lower realized excess returns. Our findings are further supported by instrumental regressions that use monetary and time costs of innovation, and by difference-in-differences tests based on exogenous shocks from state-level R&D tax credits.

DOI
10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2015.09.005
Volume
35
Pages
329-344
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib

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