How Valuable Is Financial Flexibility when Revenue Stops? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis
研究发现，行业内财务灵活性高的公司在COVID-19冲击下股价跌幅比灵活性低的公司低26%（9.7个百分点），且现金持有对受冲击更大的公司更有帮助。
Abstract Firms with greater financial flexibility should be better able to fund a revenue shortfall resulting from the COVID-19 shock and benefit less from policy responses. We find that firms with high financial flexibility within an industry experience a stock price drop that is 26$\%$, or 9.7 percentage points, lower than those with low financial flexibility. This differential return persists as stock prices rebound. Firms more exposed to the COVID-19 shock benefit more from cash holdings. No evidence suggests that recent payouts worsened the average firm’s drop in stock price. Our results cannot be explained by a leverage effect.