Does the stock market make firms more productive?

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Financial Economics
Year: 2020
Volume: 136
Issue: 2
Pages: 281-306

Authors (3)

Bennett, Benjamin (not in RePEc) Stulz, René (Ohio State University) Wang, Zexi (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Management, directly or indirectly, learns from its firm's stock price, so a more informative stock price should make the firm more productive. We show that stock price informativeness increases firm productivity. We provide direct evidence of one channel through which stock price informativeness affects productivity; specifically, we find that CEO turnover is less sensitive to Tobin's q when informativeness is lower. We predict and confirm that the productivity of smaller and younger firms, better governed firms, more specialized firms, and firms with more competition is more strongly related to the informativeness of their stock price. We further address endogeneity concerns with the use of brokerage closures, S&P 500 additions, and mutual fund redemptions as plausibly exogenous events.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jfinec:v:136:y:2020:i:2:p:281-306
Journal Field
Finance
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-29