The Impact of Corporate Capitial Structure on Research & Development: Analysis of the Recent United States Experience

这个项目是一项关于公司资本结构变化对公司长期投资策略的影响的实证调查，其动机是对上市公司是否是针对经济长期增长的投资融资的最佳媒介这一普遍问题感兴趣。在这个项目的过程中，将更新一个大型制造公司面板数据集，数据从86到88。这增加了制造业合并的样本(76-85年间约有600家)与86、87和88年间发生的合并。该项目使用新的样本来复制和扩展之前关于并购对研发投资影响的研究结果，特别关注较长期的影响以及杠杆变化对公司战略的影响。最后，构建并估计了一个包含税收差异、信息不对称和交易成本的企业融资与投资联合选择模型。该模型被用来研究这样一种假设，即研发投资更容易从留存收益中融资，而不是通过新债或新股融资(相对于其他类型的投资)。如果这是真的，债务/股权比率的变化可能会使投资动机从研发倾斜。该项目有助于我们对研发的理解。D有更好的数据，改进的理论和实证研究。原始数据集是研究美国制造企业研发支出的重要资源。该项目的实证研究解决了一个非常及时的问题，即合并对美国技术的影响。调查人员的初步结果提出了一种令人不安的可能性，即某些类型的合并削弱了美国的研发努力。

This project is an empirical investigation into the effects of changes in corporate capital structure on the long term investment strategies of firms, motivated by an interest in the general question of whether publicly traded corporations are the best medium for the financing of investment directed toward long term growth of the economy. In the course of this project, a large panel data set of manufacturing firms with data from 86 through 88 will be updated. This augments the sample of manufacturing mergers (about 600 from 76-85) with those which occurred during 86, 87, and 88. The project uses the new sample to replicate and extend previous findings on the effects of mergers on R&D investment, paying particular attention to the longer term effects and to the effects of changing leverage on the firm's strategies. Finally, the project builds and estimates a model of the joint choice of financing and investment by the firm which incorporates tax differences, asymmetric information, and transactions costs. The model is used to investigate the hypothesis that R&D investment is more easily financed out of retained earnings than out of new debt or equity (relative to other kinds of investment). If this is true, changes in debt/equity ratios may tilt the incentives for investment away from R&D. The project contributes to our understanding of R&D with better data, improved theory and empirical studies. The original data set is an important resource for studies of R&D expenditures by U.S. manufacturing firms. The empirical research by this project addresses an extremely timely issue, the effects of mergers on U.S. technology. Preliminary results by the investigator raise the disturbing possibility that certain types of mergers weaken U.S. R&D efforts.