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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 28 No. 5 2015

Redefining Financial Constraints: A Text-Based Analysis

Gerard Hoberg; Vojislav Maksimovic

Abstract

We score 10-K text to obtain annual measures of financial constraints, with separate measures for firms reporting equity and debt financing issues. Equity market constraints are associated with firms funding growth opportunities, have more severe consequences for the firm following large unexpected negative shocks, and are likely driven by informational asymmetries. A significant population of firms reporting equity market constraints also declare that they possess material undisclosed proprietary information. Constraints in the debt markets are distinct and are linked to covenant violations. Our measures outperform others used in the literature in predicting investment cuts following negative shocks.

Volume
28
Issue
5
Pages
1312-1352
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib

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