We use changes in mandatory pension funding to investigate the relation between internal financing constraints and incremental investment. Pension funding relief enacted in 2012 significantly reduced mandatory employer contributions to defined benefit pension plans. Prior to learning of the pension relief, firms disclosed their expected pension contributions under FAS 132R, which allows us to infer changes in investment plans in response to this unanticipated pension relief. Although our setting is pensions, our inferences contribute to the broader literature on how access to finance impacts the firm. We predict and find that pension relief resulted in increased nonpension investment in the year after enactment for financially constrained firms, and is stronger for constrained firms with greater pension underfunding. Our results are consistent with pension relief providing an important means of funding investment for financially constrained firms. Our identification strategy and results provide an important innovation to the literature examining the effect of financing constraints on investment.

中文翻译：

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内部资本和投资：来自 2012 年养老金减免的证据*

我们利用强制性养老基金的变化来研究内部融资约束与增量投资之间的关系。2012 年颁布的养老金资金减免显着减少了雇主对固定福利养老金计划的强制性供款。在获悉养老金减免之前，公司根据 FAS 132R 披露了其预期的养老金缴款，这使我们能够推断出投资计划的变化以应对这种意外的养老金减免。虽然我们的背景是养老金，但我们的推论有助于更广泛的文献，了解融资渠道如何影响公司。我们预测并发现，养老金减免会导致财务受限公司在颁布后一年内的非养老金投资增加，并且对于养老金资金不足的受限制公司而言更为强大。我们的结果与养老金减免一致，为财务受限的公司提供了一种重要的投资融资手段。我们的识别策略和结果为研究融资约束对投资影响的文献提供了重要的创新。