Corporate diversification and firm value during economic downturns

Nikanor I. Volkov and Garrett C. Smith

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2015, vol. 55, issue C, 160-175

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of corporate diversification on firm value during periods of economic downturns. Analysis of diversified firms’ valuation during recessionary periods reveals a significant increase in relative value of diversified firms. The observed improvement in the relative valuation is only a temporary phenomenon, which disappears in the four quarters following the trough of the recession. We do not find support to the hypothesis that the improvement in relative valuation of diversified firms during economic downturns is attributed to the ability of diversified firms to utilize broader external capital markets. We demonstrate that the improvement in relative valuation is largely driven by diversified firms that are financially constrained, and, therefore, attribute the observed improvement to more efficient internal capital allocation during recessions.

Keywords: Corporate diversification; Recessions; Relative firm value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G01 G30 G32 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062976914000647
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:55:y:2015:i:c:p:160-175

DOI: 10.1016/j.qref.2014.08.002

Access Statistics for this article

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance is currently edited by R. J. Arnould and J. E. Finnerty

More articles in The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().