Three Essays on Investment Under Uncertainty

Three Essays on Investment Under Uncertainty
Author: Gaurav Atreyi Kankanhalli
Publisher:
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

In this dissertation, I explore how economic agents conduct their investment decisions under uncertainty. Each of the three chapters empirically tests predictions from real-options frameworks of investment under uncertainty, shedding light on novel dimensions of agents' investment responses to uncertainty. In the first chapter, I study how the startup ecosystem responds to uncertainty. In the second chapter, I empirically measure the international transmission of uncertainty by examining US firms' investment responses to uncertainty induced by the 2016 Brexit Referendum. In the third chapter, I examine how uncertainty affects not only the level, but also the composition, of firms' capital stock using data on global shipping firms' investment and disinvestment decisions. Chapter 1 shows that economic uncertainty boosts dynamism among US startups. I introduce news- and survey-based measures of startup-relevant uncertainty and find that uncertainty is associated with net firm creation, and net job creation among young firms. I identify the channel by demonstrating, in a real-options framework, that venture capitalists (VCs) adjust their portfolios to take advantage of uncertainty. In contrast to mature firms delaying investment when facing uncertainty, VCs increase their investment spending during periods of heightened uncertainty, but do so by funding a large number of startups at low valuations. Critically, these dynamics play out solely at the earliest funding stages, implying greater experimentation by VCs. Buoyed by increased VC funding, startups accelerate their investment in technology and labor, producing more innovation and gaining greater traction. Looking at eventual outcomes, I provide evidence that startups receiving funding during high uncertainty periods are more likely to either fail or have exits with high multiples. My results point to uncertainty playing an important role in spurring "creative destruction" by stimulating risky startup activity in the economy. Chapter 2 (joint with Murillo Campello, Gustavo S. Cortes, and Fabricio D'Almeida) shows that the 2016 Brexit Referendum led American corporations to cut jobs and investment within US borders. Using establishment-level data, we document that these effects were modulated by the degree of reversibility of capital and labor. American job losses were particularly pronounced in industries with less skilled and more unionized workers. UK-exposed firms with less redeployable capital and high input-offshoring dependence cut investment the most. Data on the near-universe of US establishments also point to measurable, negative effects on establishment turnover (openings and closings). Our results demonstrate how foreign-born political uncertainty is transmitted across international borders, shaping domestic capital formation and labor allocation. Chapter 3 (joint with Murillo Campello and Hyunseob Kim) studies how economic uncertainty affects corporate asset composition and productivity using near-universe data on shipping firms' new orders, secondary-market transactions, and demolition of ships. Using a real-options framework, we show that shipping firms curtail both the acquisition and disposal of ships in response to heightened uncertainty. Critically, this mechanism operates primarily through cuts in new ship orders and demolition of older vessels -- decisions that are harder to reverse vis-a-vis deals in the used ship market. We use the escalation in Somali pirate attacks from 2009-2011 as a plausibly exogenous shock to uncertainty and find consistent results. The dynamics we identify are more pronounced when secondary ship markets are less liquid, as firms face stronger incentives to delay their decisions. Our results are novel in showing that uncertainty hampers "creative destruction" among mature firms in which these firms adopt technological innovation emobdied in newer capital and dispose of old-vintage capital.

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

Risk, Uncertainty and Profit
Author: Frank H. Knight
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2006-11-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1602060053

A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

Three Essays on Risk, Uncertainty, and Expected Returns

Three Essays on Risk, Uncertainty, and Expected Returns
Author: Sina Ehsani
Publisher:
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2015
Genre:
ISBN: 9781321734911

The first chapter of this dissertation explores the effects of the recent rise of passive investing on the U.S. stock market. The analysis establishes a strong relation between passive investment and aggregate price dynamics such as systematic volatility, idiosyncratic volatility, and price synchronicity, suggesting that investors should consider trading activity of passive products in decision making. The second chapter examines the pricing of characteristics and betas in the cross-section of expected corporate loan returns. Despite the increasing popularity of the secondary loan market among institutional investors, this market is unexplored in the context of empirical asset pricing literature. This comprehensive study takes the first step to fill the gap by investigating the sources of risk and predictability of corporate loan returns. We find that one loan specific characteristic, momentum, and one covariance-based characteristic, default beta, explain the cross-section of loan expected returns. The final chapter first introduces a measure of model uncertainty regarding the future return distribution of the U.S. stock market and then examines the pricing of model uncertainty in the cross-section of stock returns.

The Theory of Money and Financial Institutions

The Theory of Money and Financial Institutions
Author: Martin Shubik
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 472
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262693110

This first volume in a three-volume exposition of Shubik's vision of "mathematical institutional economics" explores a one-period approach to economic exchange with money, debt, and bankruptcy. This is the first volume in a three-volume exposition of Martin Shubik's vision of "mathematical institutional economics"--a term he coined in 1959 to describe the theoretical underpinnings needed for the construction of an economic dynamics. The goal is to develop a process-oriented theory of money and financial institutions that reconciles micro- and macroeconomics, using as a prime tool the theory of games in strategic and extensive form. The approach involves a search for minimal financial institutions that appear as a logical, technological, and institutional necessity, as part of the "rules of the game." Money and financial institutions are assumed to be the basic elements of the network that transmits the sociopolitical imperatives to the economy. Volume 1 deals with a one-period approach to economic exchange with money, debt, and bankruptcy. Volume 2 explores the new economic features that arise when we consider multi-period finite and infinite horizon economies. Volume 3 will consider the specific role of financial institutions and government, and formulate the economic financial control problem linking micro- and macroeconomics.