The Role of Long-Term Finance: Theory and Evidence

Improving the supply of long-term credit to industrial firmsis considered a priority for growth in developing countries.A World Bank multicountry study looks at whether a long-termcredit shortage exists and, if so, whether it has had an impacton investment, productivity, and growth. The study finds thateven after controlling for the characteristics of individualfirms,businesses in developing countries use significantly less long-termdebt than their counterparts in industrial countries. Researchersare able to explain the difference in debt composition betweenindustrial and developing countries by firm characteristics;by macroeconomic factors; and, most importantly, by financialdevelopment, government subsidies, and legal and institutionalfactors. The analysis concludes that long-term finance tends to be associatedwith higher productivity. An active stock market and an abilityto enter into long-term contracts also allow firms to grow atfaster rates than they could attain by relying on internal sourcesof funads and short-term credit alone. Importantly, althoughgovernment-subsidized credit markets have increased the long-termindebtedness of firms, there is no evidence that these subsidiesare associated with the ability of firms to grow faster. Indeed,in some cases subsidies are associated with lower productivity.      

土地财政抑制了企业创新吗?——基于信贷错配视角的分析

基于一般均衡框架,考量房价、土地财政与企业创新之间的关系。研究发现：金融市场存在摩擦时,土地作为重要的抵押资产,房价波动和土地财政会扭曲创新资源的配置,在短期和长期对创新产生不同的影响。短期房价上升通过土地财政推动政府支出增加和总产出扩张,同时带动了企业的研发投入。当面临新的投资机会时,企业可以通过出售房产,缓解流动性约束。但在长期,土地财政引致的政府债务挤出了企业信贷,部门间信贷错配抑制了企业研发投入,同时高房价会导致企业转移部分资源投资房产,部门内资源错配进一步抑制了企业创新,从而降低了长期经济增长率,政府增加土地供给,则会弱化政府债务对企业创新要素的挤出效应。     

Is the relationship between investment and conditional cash flow volatility ambiguous,asymmetric or both?

We investigate the effect of cash flow volatility on investment. Our evidence suggests that financially constrained firms decrease investment (i) when experiencing persistently high volatility; (ii) when experiencing both high volatility and negative cash flow growth realisations; and (iii) when holding low cash levels and experiencing both high volatility and a negative cash flow growth realisations. In financially unconstrained firms, the above effects are either not found or are of relatively low economic importance. Overall, our findings lend support to the financial flexibility literature and tend to contradict predictions of the real options literature.     

The impact of firm size on dynamic incentives and investment

Recent studies conclude that small firms have higher but more variable growth rates than large firms. To explore how this empirical regularity affects moral hazard and investment, we develop an agency model with a firm size process having two features: the drift is controlled by the agent's effort and the principal's investment decision, and the volatility is proportional to the square root of size. The firm improves on production efficiency as it grows, and wages are back‐loaded when size is small but front‐loaded when it is large. Furthermore, there is underinvestment in a small firm but overinvestment in a large firm.     

Private firms' financial constraints and share pledging by controlling shareholders of publicly listed firms: Evidence from China

Private firms face significant financial constraints that limit their investment and growth. Recognizing the fact that many private firms belong to business groups that contain at least one publicly listed firm, we hypothesize that private firms can partially relieve their financial constraints through the cash proceeds from share pledging of publicly listed firms by the common controlling shareholder. Using data from publicly listed Chinese firms, we find results consistent with this hypothesis, especially for private firms facing greater financial constraints. However, such share pledging also creates a negative spillover on shareholder value of publicly listed firms under common ownership.     

Coinsurance effect and bank lines of credit

The coinsurance effect hypothesis predicts that firm diversification reduces financial constraints through imperfectly correlated cash flows among segments. We empirically test the hypothesis by studying the relation between coinsurance effect and bank lines of credit. We find that coinsurance effect is associated with a higher availability of bank lines of credit, and that diversified firms hold a higher level of bank lines of credit if they have higher investment opportunities and if they are bank-dependent. We find that diversified firms hold a higher fraction of corporate liquidity in the form of bank lines of credit due to the coinsurance effect. The findings are consistent with the coinsurance effect hypothesis and contribute to the debate on the value consequence of firm diversification by disclosing a specific channel through which firm diversification affects financial constraints.     

Exchange rate volatility and productivity growth: The role of financial development

The vast empirical exchange rate literature finds the effect of exchange rate volatility on real activity to be small or insignificant. In contrast, this paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on productivity growth. However, the effect depends critically on a country's level of financial development. The results appear robust to time window, alternative measures of financial development and exchange rate volatility, and outliers. We also offer a simple monetary growth model in which real exchange rate uncertainty exacerbates the negative investment effects of domestic credit market constraints.     

Credit ratings and IPO pricing

We examine the effects of credit ratings on IPO pricing. The evidence from U.S. common share IPOs during 1986–2004 shows that when firms go public, those with credit ratings are underpriced significantly less than firms without credit ratings. Credit rating levels, however, do not have a significant effect on IPO underpricing. The existence of credit rating reduces uncertainty about firm value. It is the value certainty that matters, not the value per se. Credit ratings also reduce the degree of price revision during the bookbuilding process and the aftermarket volatility in the post-IPO period. The evidence suggests that credit ratings convey useful information in reducing value uncertainty of the issuing firms as well as information asymmetry in the IPO markets.     

Comparative advantages of regional versus national banks in alleviating SME's financial constraints

This paper provides new evidence on the impact of local banking market structure on SME's access to credit and emphasize the comparative advantages of regional versus national banks in alleviating SME's financial constraints. Matching a unique dataset on bank branch-level and firm-level information for a sample of 33,165 French manufacturing firms over the 2005–2013 period, we rely on two alternative indicators to capture different dimensions of SMEs financial constraints and find significant differences in the drivers of these constraints. While higher market share of regional banks or stronger presence of geographically-focused banks helps to alleviate SMEs' short-term credit constraint, higher market share of national banks or stronger presence of geographically-diversified banks is beneficial to reduce SMEs investment cash-flow sensitivity. Moreover, in both cases, SMEs' financial constraints are strengthened in functionally-distant markets. In addition, during crisis times, the benefits of relationship banking on short-term credit constraint remain and, in some cases, are reinforced. We also find that these benefits differ according to SMEs pre-crisis financial health. Regional banks facilitate access to short term credit for firms which were more profitable before the global financial crisis and particularly those who experienced a sharp decline in profitability in troubled times, supporting the hypothesis of continuation lending by relationship banks during economic downturns.     

How does long-term finance affect economic volatility?

In an approach analogous to Rajan and Zingales (1998), we examine how the ability to access long-term debt affects firm-level growth volatility. We find that firms in industries with stronger preference to use long-term finance relative to short-term finance experience lower growth volatility in countries with better-developed financial systems, as these firms may benefit from reduced refinancing risk. Institutions that facilitate the availability of credit information and contract enforcement mitigate refinancing risk and therefore growth volatility associated with short-term financing. Increased availability of long-term finance reduces growth volatility in crisis as well as non-crisis periods.