Inalienable Customer Capital, Corporate Liquidity, and Stock Returns

作者：Winston Wei Dou, Yan Ji, David J. Reibstein, Wei Wu · 发表于：The Journal of Finance · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1111/jofi.12960 · 被引用次数：94 · 研究领域：Corporate Finance and Governance、Financial Markets and Investment Strategies、Firm Innovation and Growth

ABSTRACT We develop a model in which customer capital depends on key talents' contribution and pure brand recognition. Customer capital guarantees stable demand but is fragile to financial constraints risk if retained mainly by talents, who tend to quit financially constrained firms, damaging customer capital. Using a proprietary, granular brand‐perception survey, we construct a firm‐level measure of the inalienability of customer capital (ICC) that captures the degree to which customer capital depends on talents. Firms with higher ICC have higher average returns, higher talent turnover, and more precautionary financial policies. The ICC‐sorted long‐short portfolio's spread comoves with financial constraints factor.