Mean reverting financial leverage: theory and evidence from Pakistan

Grounding concepts of the two competing theories of capital structure (trade-off theory, pecking order theory) are quite opposite to each other. Trade-off theory claims that there is an optimal (target) capital structure and firms try to achieve that optimal (target) point. Whereas pecking order theory argues that there is no optimal (target) capital structure but the firms follow a specific pattern of financing. Using the two competing theoretic frameworks, this study applies Fisher-type panel unit root test to an unbalanced panel data of 13 115 firm-year observations of nonfinancial firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange Pakistan spread over 38 years (1973–2010). Overall panel test results, for short-term, long-term, as well as total leverage support trade-off financing behaviour while individual firm results do not. Individual firm results show that only 16% of the firms have short-term target, 25% of the firms have long-term target and 12% of the firms have total target leverage ratio. Further, industry results explain that most of the industries do have target leverage ratios and classification of data into profitable and lossmaking firm-year observations explains that profitable firms clearly follow trade-off financing behaviour while the results for lossmaking firms do not support trade-off financing behaviour. Our study indicates that it is important for the government to ensure policies to develop well-balanced financial markets and to improve accountability systems.     

Board of directors’ quality and firms’ debt financing: the moderating effect of insider ownership – evidence from Omani firms

This study aims to examine the direct effects of board of directors’ quality and insider ownership on firms’ capital structure and the moderating effect of insider ownership on the relationship between board of directors’ quality and firms’ capital structure. The sample of this study consists of the time period 2005–2011. The final sample consists of 535 firm-year observations of public nonfinancial firms listed on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM). The hypotheses are tested using a random effects model. The results reveal that the coefficient sign on the board of directors’ quality is as predicted, but the coefficient sign is insignificant. Further, the results show that insider ownership is positively associated with leverage at the significant level of 10%, suggesting that the inside substantial shareholders employ higher leverage. With regard to the moderating effect of insider ownership, the findings show that the effect of the board of directors’ quality-leverage relationship becomes negative and stronger with increasing insider ownership.     

产品市场竞争与资本结构动态调整

本文利用中国上市公司1999—2004年的数据,对产品市场竞争及其变化与资本结构动态调整之间的关系进行了探讨。实证研究的结果表明,无论是从静态角度还是动态角度,产品市场竞争对公司资本结构偏离目标资本结构水平都产生了显著影响,公司所在的产品市场竞争越激烈,公司资本结构偏离目标资本结构的幅度越小;同时,在产品市场竞争强度趋向更加激烈时,资本结构表现出向目标资本结构接近的趋势。但是,产品市场竞争的动态变化与资本结构调整速度的调整状况是相互独立的,互不影响的。     

Capital structure in South Korea: a quantile regression approach

Knowledge of how South Korean firms choose their capital structures has particular value due to the country's specific corporate structure and the role of leverage in the evolution of its financial crisis of 1997 and recovery. Using a large panel for the years 1992–2001, we investigate the evolution and determinants of Korean firms' capital structure and focus on differences between firms in different quantiles of the debt–capital distribution. Conditional quantile regressions show that while variables associated with standard models of asymmetric information costs are significant throughout the distribution, there are considerable differences, including differences in sign, in their impact on firms with different degrees of leverage. Those observed nonlinearities in the determinants of capital structure are consistent with a model of capital structure that includes both costs resulting from asymmetric information and an upper bound on the debt–capital ratio.     

AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE HANGOVER EFFECT OF IRREVERSIBILITY ON INVESTMENT

Irreversibility does not only raise the user cost of capital and discourage new investment but also hinders disinvestment because of the hangover effect. This paper derives a theoretical model that separates the impact of conventional convex adjustment costs from the impact of irreversibility, based on which we test the hangover effect of irreversibility by using a panel of Dutch listed firms during 1985–2000. We find that the sample firms cut both the capital stock and the inventory stock facing shocks to sales and cash flow, but they cut the inventory stock by a larger magnitude than they cut the capital stock. Given that fixed investment is more irreversible than inventory investment, the result suggests that the diminished impact of irreversibility provides the firm with more flexibility in responding to uncertainty, which lends support for the hangover effect of irreversibility on investment.     

Do cash flow imbalances facilitate leverage adjustments of Chinese listed firms? Evidence from a dynamic panel threshold model

This paper investigates the asymmetric impact of cash flow on firms’ leverage adjustments. We use a dynamic panel threshold model and estimate it with a newly-developed first-difference GMM approach, which allows endogeneity in both threshold variable and regressors. Employing data of 1054 Chinese listed firms during 2004–2016, we show that Chinese listed firms have leverage targets, towards which they adjust at an average speed of 25.9%. Moreover, firms with larger absolute cash flow adjust towards their leverage targets significantly faster than those with smaller absolute cash flow. This finding is robust to a post-financial crisis sample period, alternative measures of leverage and cash flow, and the incorporation of an additional control variable. We find evidence that cash flow imbalances facilitate leverage adjustments by reducing adjustment costs, and Chinese listed firms rely more on debt issues. These findings provide new insights on firms’ leverage adjustment and cash flow management.     

不同成长机会下资本结构与经营绩效之关系研究

本文从委托代理理论出发,在考虑公司成长机会差异的情况下,采用门槛面板模型对上市公司资本结构与经营绩效间的关系进行了研究.结果表明,负债率与经营绩效间会因为公司所拥有的成长机会的多寡而呈现出显著的区间效应,表现为当成长机会较少时,资本结构与经营绩效负相关,而成长机会较多时,二者正相关.这与国外经典代理理论的预期结果完全相悖,我们从我国上市公司的代理成本入手对上述结果进行了分析,并提出了一些政策建议.     

Regional variation in the capital structure adjustment speed of listed firms: Evidence from China

This paper investigates whether in China, a country large in size, geographically diverse and imbalanced in regional economic development, variation in firm capital structure¹ is systematically related to regional economic environment. In addition, we examine whether during macroeconomic recovery there is significant difference in the speed of adjustment in capital structure of firms located in different regions. The empirical analyses are based on 783 firms listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges during a sample period of year 2000 through 2014. Using GMM and Logit QMLE, we found strong evidence that the regional variation in the capital structure of listed firms is linked to growth indicator (the Market-to-Book value, MB), EBIT ratio, size of the firm and tangible assets (the value of Net Property, Plant and Equipment, PPE). In the process of economic recovery, there was apparent regional variation in the speed of adjustment in capital structure, i.e. the fastest adjustment in capital structure was found in East China while that of West China followed and that of Mid China the slowest, that is to say within a given period the leverage ratio of listed firms in East China rises or falls faster than in the other two regions.     

Effect Of Liquidity On Firms' R&D Spending

The effect of firms financial condition on their R&D investment is explored using a relatively long panel data set for five high-technology industries. We find that financial condition, whether measured as cash flow, the stock of liquid assets or the ratio of liquid assets to current liabilities, does affect the R&D spending of small firms. The effect persists after controlling for unobserved permanent firm effects, and the pattern of significance of lagged effects supports the interpretation of causality running from liquidity to R&D. For larger firms, there is no evidence of such an effect. Using these data, we cannot say whether the absence of an effect in larger firms results from better access to capital markets or from higher adjustment costs in R&D.     

Regulation,renegotiation and capital structure: theory and evidence from Latin American transport concessions

We examine the capital structure of regulated infrastructure firms. We develop a model showing that leverage, the ratio of liabilities to assets, is lower under high-powered regulation and that firms operating under high-powered regulation make proportionally larger reductions in leverage when the cost of debt increases. We test the predictions of the model using an original panel dataset of 124 transport concessions in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru over 1992–2011. For each concession we have data on the regulatory regime, annual financial performance and contract renegotiations. We begin by demonstrating that, although pervasive, contract renegotiations do not fundamentally alter the regulatory regime. Importantly, firms are not systematically able to renegotiate when in financial difficulty, implying that price cap contracts remain high-powered in practice. We use this result for our main empirical work, where we find broad support for our theoretical predictions: when the cost of debt increases, firms operating under high-powered regulation make proportionally larger reductions in leverage.     

INVENTORIES AND FIXED INVESTMENT

We model fixed investment incorporating the inventory decision of the firm. Using Dutch listed nonfinancial firms during 1985–2000, we find that the inventory stock is negatively associated with fixed investment. The results suggest that the inventory stock may be used by the firm as a buffer in response to unexpectedly high demand. In addition, the firm may hold the inventory stock as a contingency substitute for the financial source of fixed investment.     

家族企业资本结构对经营绩效影响的实证研究——以深圳市上市家族企业为例

上市家族企业资本结构与企业经营绩效之间存在复杂关系,基于我国深圳市上市家族企业相关数据,借助回归分析法及相关系数法,本文分析得出以下结论:深圳市上市家族企业资本结构与每股收益之间存在负相关关系;资本结构与摊薄净资产收益率之间存在强的正相关关系;资本结构与每股经营现金流之间存在负相关关系但不明显。同时根据深圳市上市家族企业的实际情况及实证结论,完善家族企业公司治理结构,应该从金融体系的建立、融资结构的安排及融资期限的协调等方面入手。     

公司资本结构动态调整的实证研究

由于交易成本的存在,公司资本结构的调整应是一个动态过程。以我国上市公司数据为样本,采用动态面板数据的系统GMM估计。实证分析我国上市公司资本结构动态调整的成本和影响因素。实证结果表明,我国公司资本结构调整的成本较低,主要归因于中国企业债券市场极其不发达,企业债务绝大部分是由商业信用和银行贷款等私债组成,因此,大力发展资本市场,完善资本市场法律制度建设对我国上市公司资本结构调整有重大意义。     

产业资本向金融资本渗透的路径和影响——基于资本市场“举牌”的研究

随着金融市场化的进一步推进,资本市场发挥着产业资本向金融资本渗透的重要作用。文章选取以举牌为核心的产业资本向金融资本渗透的微观案例,分析了产业资本通过金融市场向金融资本渗透的途径和结果。研究显示,产业资本渗透金融资本后被举牌公司的经营业绩得到提高,产品市场份额增强,说明通过产业资本对被举牌企业实施经营管理提高了被举牌企业的经营效率,实现了产业调整。这也说明金融手段能够有效支持产业资本的扩张和结构调整,显示了资本市场在两者转换过程中所起到的关键作用。     

Measuring the financial soundness of U.S. firms, 1926–2012

We measure the distribution of firms’ financial soundness over most of the last century for a broad cross section of firms. We highlight three main findings for this key aggregate state variable. First, the three worst recessions between 1926 and 2012 coincided with sharp deteriorations in the financial soundness of all firms, but other recessions did not. Second, fluctuations in total asset volatility, rather than fluctuations in leverage, appear to drive most of the variation in the distribution of firms’ financial soundness. Finally, the distribution of financial soundness for large financial firms 1962–2007 largely resembles that for large nonfinancial firms.     

Financial sector opening and financial constraints: an empirical study based on China’s experiences

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the effect of financial sector opening on financial constraints based on the experiences in China. We firstly review the policy of China’s financial sector opening and set up exogenous policy measures. Then based on the panel data of listed firms from 2010 to 2015, we calculate four indices to measure China’s firm-level financial constraints through internal and external finance channels. We find that China’s financial sector opening alleviates financial constraints and upgrades the financing structure for China’s listed firms. Financial sector opening also eliminates ownership discrimination and promotes financing efficiency, to alleviate financial constraints of private enterprises and profitable enterprises. The mechanism of the effects of financial sector opening on financial constrain is mainly through the collateral channels and the elimination of information asymmetry.     

The impact of cross‐ownership on the reaction of corporate investment and financing constraints: A panel threshold model

This paper studies whether or not investment decisions are financially constrained in a cross‐ownership system of Taiwan. Different from the financial structure in the USA, subsidiaries in Taiwan are allowed to buy stocks of the parent companies. Hence, the conventional debt‐to‐equity ratio is inappropriate to divide firms into high and low‐debt firms. Instead, a new threshold variable?–?the adjusted debt–equity ratio (ADE)?–?is employed to divide the sample into high‐debt firms and low‐debt firms. A panel of 115 Taiwan‐listed firms for the period 1991–1997 is used. Evidence supports the cash flow hypothesis and ADE has a notable significant influence on the financial constraints.     

Corporate Finance in Africa: The Interactive Impact of Firm Nationality and Characteristics

Using a balance panel data of 351 publicly quoted firms in eleven major African stock exchanges, I investigated the impact of the differences in the internal structures of domestic and foreign firms on corporate financial decisions in Africa. I also analyzed the sensitivity of the impact of the internal firm characteristic on changes in the level of exogenous factors such as marginal tax structure and financial system development. The arising results showed that among the selected key internal characteristics of firms, only the impact of profitability and tangibility on financial structure was significantly sensitive to the proportion of domestic/foreign shareholding and that, consistent with capital structure theories, corporate financing decisions in Africa were significantly sensitive to marginal tax policies and the degree of financial system development prevailing in a country. The results suggest that by investing in assets that are acceptable to lenders and investors as collaterals and maintaining reasonable stability in their cash flow positions, domestic firms can in practice enhance their access to strategic investment capital.     

银行竞争与僵尸企业去杠杆

本文将银监会公布的金融许可证信息与中国工业企业数据库相匹配,考察了银行竞争对僵尸企业资本结构动态调整的影响机理。研究发现,银行竞争通过提高僵尸企业的融资成本显著加快了其资本结构调整速度,尤其是降杠杆的幅度。进一步研究表明,在货币政策宽松期,银行竞争对僵尸企业降杠杆的促进效果会更明显。此外,预算软约束小、外部融资依赖程度高、规模小的僵尸企业去杠杆的速度更快。本文立足于中国金融体系深化开放的现实情境,聚焦于僵尸企业这一特定主体的资本结构决策,为金融市场的竞争机制如何助力僵尸企业去杠杆提供了一定经验证据。     

融资约束视角下的运营资本对中国企业全要素生产率的贡献*

金融危机后中国经济增长缓慢，产业和总需求分析框架失灵。本文从供给侧动力和非正规金融入手，研究中国企业全要素生产率与运营资本的关系。本文利用1999—2013年非上市企业的动态面板数据，采用系统GMM的方法进行回归分析，研究发现运营资本对中国企业的全要素生产率有显著的影响，而且这种影响是非线性的。但是，这种关系只在民营企业和外资企业中成立，对国有企业并不成立。本文进一步引入融资约束机制，论证了运营资本是中国非国有企业突破融资困境、促进企业全要素生产率提高的重要金融中介。