Sudipto Sarkar

The effect of operating flexibility on leverage ratio is not clear, with papers pointing to both positive and negative relationships. Using production switching cost as a measure of operating flexibility, we show that it has two opposing effects: it increases firm value (positive) and increases cost of debt (negative), thus the overall effect is ambiguous. In general, however, the overall effect is negative and small in magnitude. It is stronger when profit margin, growth rate, tax rate, and bankruptcy cost are small, and when volatility is large. Our results help reconcile conflicting predictions in the theoretical literature with empirical findings.

Finished-good inventory is very common under market uncertainty. We build a continuous-time model to study how the inventory will impact firm value and investment decisions. Our model shows that the value of a company following the optimal inventory policy can be significantly higher than the traditional non-inventory company, particularly if the inventory-holding cost is not large. This premium becomes small as holding cost is increased, and large when demand is volatile, and when price elasticity is large. We also show that the optimal investment size can be significantly larger than the traditional no-inventory firm, particularly when the inventory-holding cost is low, demand volatility is high, and price elasticity is low. This paper develops a simulation algorithm to solve iterative optimization problem in a path-dependent economy.

We use a real‐option model to study the effect of input supplier's market power on a firm's capital structure, and identify the Nash equilibrium outcome (firm's investment and financing policies and its supplier's pricing policy). When its supplier has market power, the firm will reduce leverage ratio and delay investment. This can help explain why observed leverage ratios are lower than in traditional capital‐structure models (without supplier market power). Firm value can be increased by the vertical acquisition of the supplier, which would also result in a higher leverage ratio. This helps explain the observed increase in leverage ratios after acquisitions.

We model the relationship between operating and financial leverage. When operating leverage is exogenously specified, financial leverage is a monotonically decreasing function of operating leverage. When financial leverage is exogenously specified, operating leverage is initially increasing and subsequently decreasing in financial leverage. Finally, when both operating and financial leverage are chosen by the firm, they can be positively related, negatively related or unrelated, depending on which underlying parameter is driving the changes. Thus, operating leverage and financial leverage do not always behave as substitutes, as argued in the traditional literature. The relationship is complex, possibly non‐monotonic and dependent on the circumstances; empirical tests need to take this reality into account.