Finance Research Letters, vol.47, 2022 (SSCI)
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.We study the effects of epidemic diseases on corporate investment. Epidemic diseases tend to be unanticipated and exogenous to firms’ decisions. Using difference-in-difference estimation strategy and a firm-level exposure to an epidemic disease measure, we find that corporate investment declines significantly following the onset of an epidemic disease. We also show that the COVID-19 pandemic has the strongest negative impact on investment when compared to the other most recent epidemic diseases.