Financing Asset Sales and Business Cycles

Abstract

Using a dynamic model of financing, investment, and macroeconomic risk, we investigate when firms sell assets to fund investments (financing asset sales) across the business cycle. The model reveals that financing asset sales entail a lower wealth transfer from equity to debt than otherwise identical but equity financed investments. Exploring the dynamics of this motive across business cycles helps explain novel stylized facts about asset sales and their business cycle patterns that cannot be rationalized by traditional motives for selling assets.