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The cost of financial flexibility: Evidence from share repurchases

Over the last two decades, share repurchases have emerged as the dominant payout channel, offering a more flexible means of returning excess cash to investors. However, little is known about the costs associated with payout-related financial flexibility. Using a unique identification strategy, we document a significant cost. We find that actual repurchase investments underperform hypothetical investments that mechanically smooth repurchase dollars through time by approximately two percentage points per year on average. This cost of financial flexibility is correlated with earnings management, managerial entrenchment, and less institutional monitoring. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/617196
Date06 1900
CreatorsBonaimé, Alice A., Hankins, Kristine W., Jordan, Bradford D.
ContributorsUniv Arizona, Eller Coll Management
PublisherELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle
Rights© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Relationhttp://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0929119916300189

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