Murillo Campello

The Real Effects of Financial Constraints: Evidence from a Financial Crisis

We survey 1,050 CFOs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia to assess whether their firms are credit constrained during the global credit crisis of 2008. We study whether corporate spending plans differ conditional on this measure of financial constraint. Our evidence indicates that constrained firms planned deeper cuts in tech spending, employment, and capital spending. Constrained firms also burned through more cash, drew more heavily on lines of credit for fear banks would restrict access in the future, and sold more assets to fund their operations. We also find that the inability to borrow externally causes many firms to bypass attractive investment opportunities, with 86% of constrained U.S. CFOs saying their investment in attractive projects was restricted during the credit crisis of 2008. More than half of the respondents say they will cancel or postpone their planned investment. Our results also hold in Europe and Asia, and in many cases are stronger in those economies.

Capital Structure and Product Markets Interactions: Evidence from Business Cycles

This paper provides firm- and industry-level evidence on the effects of capital structure on product market outcomes for a large cross-section of industries. The analysis uses shocks to aggregate demand as surrogates for exogenous changes in the product market environment, dealing with concerns about the endogenous nature of the relation between financial structure and competitive performance. I find that debt financing has a negative impact on firm (relative-to-industry) sales growth in industries where rivals are relatively unlevered during recessions, but not during booms. In contrast, no such effects are observed for firms competing in high-debt industries. At the industry level, I find that markups are more countercyclical when industry debt is high. The cyclical dynamics I find for firm sales growth and for industry markups are consistent with Chevalier and Scharfsteins (1996) prediction that firms that rely more heavily on external financing are more prone to boost short-term profits at the expense of future sales in response to negative shocks to demand, and that the competitive outcomes resulting from such actions depend on the financial structures of their industry rivals.

Financing Frictions and the Substitution Between Internal and External Funds

Ample evidence points to a negative relation between internal funds (profitability) and the demand for external funds (debt issuance). This relation has been interpreted as evidence supporting the pecking order theory. We show, however, that the negative effect of internal funds on the demand for external financing is concentrated among firms that are least likely to face high external financing costs (firms that distribute large amounts of dividends, that are large, and whose debt is rated). For firms on the other end of the spectrum (low payout, small, and unrated), external financing is insensitive to internal funds. These cross-firm differences hold separately for debt and equity, and they are magnified in the aftermath of macroeconomic movements that tighten financing constraints. We argue that the greater complementarity between internal funds and external financing for constrained firms is a consequence of the interdependence of their financing and investment decisions.

Customer Concentration and Loan Contract Terms

We study pricing and non-pricing features of loan contracts to gauge how the credit market evaluates a firm’s customer-base profile and supply-chain relations. Higher customer concentration increases interest rate spreads and the number of restrictive covenants featured in newly initiated as well as renegotiated bank loans. Customer concentration also abbreviates the maturity of those loans as well as the relationship between firms and their banks. These effects are intensified by customers’ financial distress, the level of relationship-specific investments, and the use of trade credit in customer–supplier relations. Our evidence shows that a deeper exposure to a small set of large customers bears negative consequences for a firm’s relations with its creditors, revealing limits to integration along the supply chain.

Bankruptcy and the Cost of Organized Labor: Evidence from Union Elections

Unionized workers are entitled to special treatment in bankruptcy court that can be detrimental to other corporate stakeholders, with unsecured creditors standing to lose the most. Using data on union elections, we employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the effect of worker unionization on bondholders in bankruptcy states. Closely won union elections lead to significant bond value losses, especially when firms approach bankruptcy, have underfunded pension plans, and operate in non-RTW law states. Unionization is associated with longer, more convoluted, and costlier bankruptcy court proceedings. Unions depress bondholders’ recovery values as they are assigned seats on creditors’ committees. Received September 19, 2016; editorial decision September 19, 2017 by Editor David Denis. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University PressWeb site next to the link to the final published paper online.Unionization assigns extraordinary rights to workers in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This shift in workers’ bargaining power is detrimental to senior unsecured creditors in default states. We gather data on union election results from 1977 through 2010 and employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the effect of unions on bondholders’ wealth. Closely-won union elections lead to significant losses in bond values, but do not lead to poorer firm performance or higher default risk. We show that unionization is associated with longer proceedings in bankruptcy court, more bankruptcy emergences and refilings, and higher bankruptcy fees and expenses, all of which aggravate bondholders’ losses. The value effects of unionization are weakened in states where union bargaining power is undermined by the passage of right-to-work laws.

Policy Heterogeneity in Empirical Corporate Finance

Standard econometric methods can overlook the issue of heterogeneity in corporate policy making, generating biased estimates. We propose ways to identify and address the firm policy heterogeneity bias in practice. In doing so, we introduce a new test determining whether standard firm-fixed effects estimations are subject to heterogeneity biases in corporate applications. Examining investment models to showcase our approach, we show that heterogeneity bias-robust methods identify cash flow as a more important driver of investment than previously reported. Our study demonstrates analytically, via simulations, and empirically the importance of carefully accounting for firm heterogeneity in drawing conclusions about corporate policy.

More on the Performance of Higher Order Moment Estimators in Investment Equations

Almeida, Campello, and Galvao (2010) [ACG] use Monte Carlo simulations and real data to assess the performance of estimators that deal with measurement errors in investment models. ACG are the first to provide an independent assessment of alternative methods, showing when they work properly and discussing the assumptions embedded in them. Erickson and Whited (2010) review ACGs study focusing exclusively on tests involving the Erickson and Whited (2000, 2002) [EW] estimator. While casting doubt on the usefulness of the ACG analysis, Erickson and Whited (2010) develop a number of ex-post fixes for the problems uncovered by ACG. The authors argue that the ACG tests would place the EW estimator in a more positive light had they used those fixes. This paper evaluates the new fixes proposed by Erickson and Whited and clarifies their implications for the debate about measurement error. The analysis provides further support for ACGs main conclusion: the presence of measurement error does not justify the use of the EW estimator in lieu of more robust, simpler alternatives.

Testing for Slope Heterogeneity Bias in Panel Data Models

ABSTRACT Standard econometric methods can overlook individual heterogeneity in empirical work, generating inconsistent parameter estimates in panel data models. We propose the use of methods that allow researchers to easily identify, quantify, and address estimation issues arising from individual slope heterogeneity. We first characterize the bias in the standard fixed effects estimator when the true econometric model allows for heterogeneous slope coefficients. We then introduce a new test to check whether the fixed effects estimation is subject to heterogeneity bias. The procedure tests the population moment conditions required for fixed effects to consistently estimate the relevant parameters in the model. We establish the limiting distribution of the test and show that it is very simple to implement in practice. Examining firm investment models to showcase our approach, we show that heterogeneity bias-robust methods identify cash flow as a more important driver of investment than previously reported. Our study demonstrates analytically, via simulations, and empirically the importance of carefully accounting for individual specific slope heterogeneity in drawing conclusions about economic behavior.

Whistleblowers on the Board? The Role of Independent Directors in Cartel Prosecutions

Stock market reactions to news of cartel prosecutions are muted when indicted firms have a high proportion of independent directors serving on their boards. This finding is robust to self-selection and is more pronounced when those directors hold more outside directorships and have fewer stock options — when they have fewer economic ties to the indicted firms. Results are stronger when independent directors’ appointments were attributable to SOX, preceded the CEO’s appointment, or followed class action suits — when they have fewer direct ties to indicted CEOs. Independent directors serving on indicted firms are penalized by losing board seats and vote support across their directorships in other firms. Moreover, firms with more independent directors are more likely to cooperate with antitrust authorities through leniency programs and to dismiss CEOs after cartel indictments. Our results show that cartel prosecution imposes significant personal costs onto independent directors and that they take actions to reduce those costs. Understanding these incentives is key for antitrust authorities in designing strategies for cartel prosecution.

Assessing the performance of estimators dealing with measurement errors

We describe different procedures to deal with measurement error in linear models and assess their performance in finite samples using Monte Carlo simulations and data on corporate investment. We consider the standard instrumental variable approach proposed by Griliches and Hausman (Journal of Econometrics 31:93–118, 1986) as extended by Biorn (Econometric Reviews 19:391–424, 2000) [OLS-IV], the Arellano and Bond (Review of Economic Studies 58:277–297, 1991) instrumental variable estimator, and the higher-order moment estimator proposed by Erickson and Whited (Journal of Political Economy 108:1027–1057, 2000, Econometric Theory 18:776–799, 2002). Our analysis focuses on characterizing the conditions under which each of these estimators produce unbiased and efficient estimates in a standard “errors-invariables” setting. In the presence of fixed effects, under heteroscedasticity, or in the absence of a very high degree of skewness in the data, the EW estimator is inefficient and returns biased estimates for mismeasured and perfectly measured regressors. In contrast to the EW estimator, IV-type estimators (OLS-IV and AB-GMM) easily handle individual effects, heteroscedastic errors, and different degrees of data skewness. The IV approach, however, requires assumptions about the autocorrelation structure of the mismeasured regressor and the measurement error. We illustrate the application of the different estimators using empirical investment models. Our results show that the EW estimator produces inconsistent results when applied to real-world investment data, while the IV estimators tend to return results that are consistent with theoretical priors.