Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2022
In theory, financial markets promote innovation by selectively allocating capital to high-quality projects. In this article, I show that equity markets can also inhibit innovation. In public firms, I find that short-term equity market declines cause pharmaceutical companies to abandon early-stage drug developments, irrespective of drug quality or changes in a firm’s stock price. I show that financing constraints drive this behavior, highlighting that even short-term market fluctuations can have long-term effects on pharmaceutical innovation and prevent potentially life-saving drugs from progressing to the market.
I thank Mariassunta Giannetti, Itay Goldstein, Umit Gurun, Jarrad Harford (the editor), Davidson Heath, Gerard Hoberg, Ben Iverson, Jiacui Li, Elena Patel, Matthew Ringgenberg, Nathan Seegert, Richard Thakor (the referee), and the seminar participants at Brigham Young University, the University of Iowa, the University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Utah, Michigan State University, Tulane University, and the 2019 FMA Doctoral Student Consortium for their helpful comments and suggestions.