Booms, Busts, and Mismatch in Capital Markets: Evidence from the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Vreugdenhil, Nicholas
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/739827
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: fluctuations; reallocation; INFORMATION; EFFICIENCY; frictions

摘要

How efficiently do markets reallocate capital in booms and busts? Using a novel dataset of offshore drilling contracts, I examine the role of matching in shaping industry reallocation. Oil companies search and match with capital (rigs) in a decentralized market. I find that oil and gas booms increase the option value of searching, which leads agents to avoid bad matches, reducing mismatch through a sorting effect. I provide an identification strategy to disentangle unobserved demand changes from the sorting effect. Estimating a model, I find substantial benefits to the sorting effect and an intermediary, but I find that demand-smoothing policies are ineffective.