Author: Igal Enrique Hendel

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13:

I show how these effects can be distinguished from each other empirically. I use individual-level Nielsen data to analyze the effects of tune-in ads for television shows. I find that the consideration set effect of advertising is significant and large in my data, while other effects of advertising are minor, with important implications for firms' advertising strategies. In the third essay (joint with Bharat Anand), we focus on systematic heterogeneity in firms' valuations. We decompose overall variation in firms' excess values into diversification discount, systematic heterogeneity (firm random effects) and temporary shocks. We find that the magnitude of systematic heterogeneity is large in absolute terms, and large relative to the mean diversification discount. This highlights the importance of understanding the fundamental drivers of such systematic differences in performance, and suggests that the value consequences of diversification (which have attracted a lot of attention in the literature) are relatively minor compared to other systematic determinants of firm value.