Conglomerate investment under various capital market conditions

This paper studies the investment of diversified and focused firms under various capital market conditions. When external capital becomes more costly at the aggregate level, investment declines in focused firms but remains unchanged in diversified firms. This investment advantage enjoyed by diversified firms could attribute to both their easy access to external capital and their ability to substitute internal capital markets for costly external markets. Consistent with the internal capital market argument, our findings show that the investment advantage exists for diversified firms even after we control for their easy access to external markets. We also find that the role of internal markets in financing investment is more important for diversified firms that are more financially constrained in external markets. Finally, we find that the segment-level investment becomes more efficient in conglomerates' internal capital markets under depressed external capital market conditions. Overall, our findings suggest that internal capital allocation functions as a valuable and efficient substitute for diversified firms in a tightened external capital market. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.