Running on Empty? Financial Leverage and Product Quality in the Supermarket Industry
研究债务融资如何削弱超市企业提供产品质量的激励，利用美国CPI微观数据追踪库存短缺，发现高财务杠杆会增加缺货率，企业为偿债而牺牲质量。
This paper examines whether debt financing can undermine a supermarket firm's incentive to provide product quality. In the supermarket industry, product availability is an important measure of a retailer's quality. Using US consumer price index microdata to track inventory shortfalls, I find that taking on high financial leverage increases shortfalls. Highly leveraged firms appear to be degrading their products' quality in order to preserve current cash flow for debt service. Although reducing quality can erode both current sales and customer loyalty, firms appear to be willing to risk these outcomes in order to achieve benefits associated with debt finance.