Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities are Useful: A Comment on Kaplan and Zingales
反驳了Kaplan和Zingales对投资-现金流敏感性衡量融资约束有效性的批评，指出其理论模型和实证分类存在缺陷，结论不成立。
A recent paper in this Journal by Kaplan and Zingales reexamines a subset of �rms from work of Fazzari, Hubbard, and Petersen and criticizes the usefulness of investment-cash �ow sensitivities for detecting �nancing constraints. We show that the Kaplan and Zingales theoretical model fails to capture the approach employed in the literature and thus does not provide an effective critique. Moreover, we describe why their empirical classi�cation system is �awed in identifying both whether �rms are constrained and the relative degree of constraints across �rm groups. We conclude that their results do not support their conclusions about the usefulness of investment-cash �ow sensitivities. In a recent paper in this Journal Kaplan and Zingales {1997, hereinafter KZ} argue that investment-cash �ow sensitivities do not provide useful evidence about the presence of �nancing constraints. Because KZ use a subset of the same �rms and the same regressions as Fazzari, Hubbard, and Petersen {1988, hereinafter FHP} and claim {page 176} that FHP ‘‘can legitimately