Product Market Threats, Payouts, and Financial Flexibility
研究了产品市场威胁如何影响企业的支付政策和现金持有，发现竞争威胁增加时企业减少分红或回购、增加现金持有，尤其对融资受限企业更明显。
ABSTRACT We examine how product market threats influence firm payout policy and cash holdings. Using firms' product text descriptions, we develop new measures of competitive threats. Our primary measure, product market fluidity, captures changes in rival firms' products relative to the firm's products. We show that fluidity decreases firm propensity to make payouts via dividends or repurchases and increases the cash held by firms, especially for firms with less access to financial markets. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that firms' financial policies are significantly shaped by product market threats and dynamics.