Firms' Investment Decisions in Response to Demand and Price Uncertainty

We estimate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms’ investment decisions from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms’ subjective qualitative expectations. They are close to their theoretical counterparts, the variances of future demand and price shocks. We find that demand uncertainty depresses planned and realized investment, while price uncertainty is insignificant. This is consistent with the behavior of monopolistic firms with irreversible capital (Caballero, 1991). Further, firms revise their investment plans very little. They may do so in response to new information on sales growth, but not as a result of reduced uncertainty

The Response of Firms' Investment and Financing to Adverse Cash Flow Shocks: The Role of Bank Relationships

We test whether firms with a single bank are better shielded from loss of credit and investment cuts in periods of adverse cash flow shocks than firms with multiple bank relationships. Our estimates of the cash flow sensitivity of investment show that both types of firms are equally subject to financing constraints that bind only in the event of adverse cash flow shocks. In these periods, firms incur lower cuts in investment expenditures when they can obtain extra credit. In periods of adverse cash flow shocks, the probability of obtaining extra bank debt becomes more sensitive to the size and leverage of the firm

Exploring the CDS-Bond Basis

Markets for credit default swaps (CDS) and bonds of the same reference entity and maturity are bound by no-arbitrage conditions. Indeed, using a large data set we show that CDS premia and par asset swap spreads are mostly cointegrated. Nonetheless, the average CDS-bond basis (i.e. the difference between both measures) is positive in the period 2004-2005. We detect fourteen different economic basis drivers, which make the basis firm-specific and time-dependent. Furthermore, we describe the basis smile, and illustrate that the average basis is the lowest for five year maturities of corporate credits denominated in euro