The Marginal Profit-to-Q Ratio: Reassessing the Cash-Flow Channel

We study a production-based present-value relation that implies that fluctuations in the marginal profit-to-marginal Q ratio (mq) are driven by variations in the expected growth of marginal profits (cash-flow channel), expected investment return changes (discount-rate channel), or both. We find that in contrast to the aggregate dividend-to-price ratio, mq strongly predicts marginal profits growth at both short and long horizons, but not investment returns. mq also predicts (negatively) the growth rates of aggregate earnings, industrial production, and non-farm payrolls. Our findings can guide modeling in which the expected growth rate of marginal profits (at multiple horizons) is time-varying.