Product Life Cycles in Corporate Finance

We develop a novel 10-K text-based model of product life cycles and examine firm investment policies. Conditioning on the life cycle substantially improves the power of Q to explain investment, and reveals a natural ordering of investments over the life cycle. While R&D and CAPX sensitivity are high early in the cycle, acquisitions arise as firms mature, and divestitures and product extension investments arise as firms decline. Q sensitivities...