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We provide evidence that the positive relation between firm‐level stock returns and firm‐level return volatility is due to firms’ real options. Consistent with real option theory, we find that the positive volatility‐return relation is much stronger for firms with more real options and that the sensitivity of firm value to changes in volatility declines significantly after firms exercise their real options. We reconcile the evidence at the aggregate and firm levels by showing that the negative relation at the aggregate level may be due to aggregate market conditions that simultaneously affect both market returns and return volatility.

We demonstrate theoretically and empirically that strategic considerations are important in shaping cash policies of innovative firms. In our model, firms decide whether to invest in innovation while facing uncertainty regarding the structure of ensuing product markets. Cash holdings reduce innovative firms' dependence on external financing and, therefore, serve as a commitment device for future investment. We show that firms' equilibrium cash holdings are related to expected intensity of competition in future product markets and that this relation is affected by the degree of financial constraints that firms face. We test our model using a sample of firms that are direct competitors in innovation. Consistent with the strategic motive for hoarding cash, we show that firms' cash holdings are negatively affected by their rivals' cash holding choices, more so when competition is expected to be intense. In addition, we examine two instances of exogenous shocks to firms' costs of external financing and show that financial constrains influence the relation between firms' cash holdings and expected competition intensity in ways consistent with the model's predictions.

This paper examines how competition among suppliers affects their willingness to provide trade credit financing. Trade credit extended by a supplier to a cash constrained retailer allows the latter to increase cash purchases from its other suppliers, leading to a free rider problem. A supplier that represents a smaller share of the retailer's purchases internalizes a smaller part of the benefit from increased spending by the retailer and, as a result, extends less trade credit relative to its sales. In consequence, retailers with dispersed suppliers obtain less trade credit than those whose suppliers are more concentrated. The free rider problem is especially detrimental to a trade creditor when the free-riding suppliers are its product market competitors, leading to a negative relation between product substitutability among suppliers to a given retailer and trade credit that the former provide to the latter. We test the model using both simulated and real data. The estimated relations are consistent with the model's predictions and are statistically and economically significant.

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