The Stock Market and Corporate Investment: A Test of Catering Theory

Christopher Polk and Paola Sapienza

The Review of Financial Studies, 2009, vol. 22, issue 1, 187-217

Abstract: We test a catering theory describing how stock market mispricing might influence individual firms' investment decisions. We use discretionary accruals as our proxy for mispricing. We find a positive relation between abnormal investment and discretionary accruals; that abnormal investment is more sensitive to discretionary accruals for firms with higher R&D intensity (opaque firms) or share turnover (firms with shorter shareholder horizons); that firms with high abnormal investment subsequently have low stock returns; and that the larger the relative price premium, the stronger the abnormal return predictability. We show that patterns in abnormal returns are stronger for firms with higher R&D intensity or share turnover. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2009
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