Does capital market drive corporate investment efficiency? Evidence from equity lending supply

Hsin-Ju Stephie Tsai, Yuliang Wu and Bin Xu

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2021, vol. 69, issue C

Abstract: The increased equity lending supply (ELS) in the equity loan market, available for short sellers to borrow, exposes a firm to greater short selling threats. Considering short sellers' strong incentives to uncover firm-specific information and monitor managers, we hypothesize that short selling threats, proxied by ELS, enhance corporate investment efficiency. We find that ELS significantly reduces managerial tendencies to underinvest (overinvest) especially for firms prone to underinvest (overinvest). The effect of ELS on investment efficiency is stronger for firms with higher information asymmetry and weaker corporate governance, confirming short sellers' role in mitigating information and agency costs. However, short selling risk weakens the effect of ELS. Our evidence is robust to endogeneity checks and suggests that corporate investment can be driven by a particular capital market condition: the amount of lendable shares in the equity loan market.

Keywords: Equity lending supply; Short selling threats; Corporate investment efficiency; Financial constraints (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 G10 G31 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:69:y:2021:i:c:s0929119921001644

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2021.102042

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