The Long-Term Performance of Capital Expenditure from a Fundamental Perspective: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims to identify the effect of capital expenditure on the long-term performance on companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). Fundamental measurements were used as the internal perspective of performance; This study also tries to fill the gap due to the lack of studies that discuss capital expenditure in Indonesia by providing empirical evidence regarding capital expenditure in the context of Indonesia's stock market. Capital expenditure is represented by the growth of fixed assets for the current period. The long-term performance utilizes earnings persistence and is measured using the regression of ROA and ROE for the past six years, and then the coefficients are determined using the lags of ROA and ROE in the three years after capital expenditure. The sample comprises 60 “big cap” companies listed on the IDX at the beginning of the sample period (in 2016) and for four years of the sampling period (2016–2019) with a total of 240 observations. The companies sampled should fulfill the criteria of having complete financial data for the six years before the sampling period. The hypothesis testing proves that capital expenditure impacts long-term performance, with no evidence to the contrary. Additional testing utilizing the control variables generated additional interesting results with important implications.