Using comprehensive firm- and aggregate-level data, this paper studies the real and financial implications of capital market imperfections. We first examine whether financially constrained firms' business fundamentals (capital spending and operating earnings) are more sensitive to macroeconomic movements than unconstrained firms' fundamentals. We then examine whether financial constraint quot;return factorsquot; respond to macroeconomic shocks in tandem with the responses from business fundamentals. The evidence in this paper points to financial constraints affecting both fundamental quantities and asset returns.

Theories of capital market imperfections have strong cross-sectional implications not only for corporate investment, but also for asset prices. Motivated by these theories, we develop a hypothesis about a differential effect of debt capacity on stock returns across financially constrained and unconstrained firms, based on a model of corporate investment under collateral constraints. The findings strongly support the hypothesis. Debt capacity is positively associated with stock returns in the cross section of financially constrained firms, after controlling for theoretical and empirical risk proxies such as beta, size, book-to-market, and momentum. The positive marginal impact of debt capacity is also economically significant. In contrast, debt capacity has no systematic relation with the cross section of financially unconstrained firms' stock returns. The results are robust to the way in which firms are classified into constrained and unconstrained groups and to the way in which debt capacity is measured. The findings suggest that cross-sectional differences in corporate investment behavior arising from financial constraints, predicted by theories of imperfect capital markets and supported by empirical evidence, are reflected in the stock returns of manufacturing firms.

Firms often cite financing constraints as one of their primary obstacles to investment. Global capital flows, by bringing in scarce capital, may ease host-country firms' financing constraints. However, if incoming foreign investors borrow heavily from domestic basnks, direct foreign investment (DFI) may exacerbate financing constraints by crowding host country firms out of domestic capital markets. Combininb a unique cross-country firm-level panel with time-series data on restrictions on international transactions and capital flows, we find that different measures of global flows are associated with a reduction in firm-level financing constraints. First, we show that one type of capital inflow--DFI--is associated with a reduction in financing constraints. Second, we test whether restrictions on international transactions affect firms' financing constraints. Our results suggest that only one type of restriction--those on capital account transactions--negatively affect firms' financing constraints. We also show that multinational firms are not financially constrained and do not appear to be sensitive to the level of DFI. This implies that DFI eases financing constraints for non-multinational firms. Finally, we show that DFI only eases financing constraints in the non-G7 countries.

This paper examines the impact of financial liberalization on fixed investment in Mexico, using establishment-level data from the manufacturing sector. It analyzes changes in cash-flow sensitivities and uses an innovative approach to explore the role of real estate as collateral and deal with a potential censoring problem. The results suggest that financial constraints were eased for small firms but not for large ones. However, banks’ reliance on collateral in their lending operations increased the importance of real estate. The results provide microeconomic evidence consistent with the role attributed to “financial accelerator” mechanisms during lending booms and during recessions that stem from financial crises.

Specialists in various aspects of the Japanese financial industry describe, analyze, and evaluate the crisis that began with bursting real east bubbles in the early 1990s and resulting non-performing loans, delay by regulatory authorities and the banks themselves, a decompressive deregulation in 1996, major reforms in 1998 and early 1999 that made $500 billion of government funds available, and the resulting lack of regulatory control. In the context of the transition from a bank-centered and relationship-based system to market-based and competitive, they investigate why the banks got into such serious trouble, why the Ministry of Finance lost its immense power, how financial regulation will further change the industry and the huge government financial institutions and postal savings, and what some broader implications are of the transitions. Most of the 12 studies are revised from presentations at an October 1998 conference in New York. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR