Investment Decisions by European Firms and Financing Constraints

Abstract

We reinvestigate the question of whether corporate investment during the financial crisis depended to a significant extent, and differently than in the pre-crisis period, on firms’ short-term liquidity and indebtedness. Using data on listed firms in the euro area and the United Kingdom, we employ a correlated random coefficient panel data model estimated with instrumental variables in order to address potential endogeneity concerns. First, we find that to attain plausible identification, we must allow for the possibility that the unobserved firm-specific component of investment changed with the onset of the financial crisis. Second, our results suggest that neither cash reserves nor short-term debt, considered separately, were significant determinants of investment. However, we do find evidence of a negative conditional dependence between corporate investment and short-term debt net of cash reserves.