저부채비율기업의 특성에 관한 연구

Abstract

Recently, a number of studies have been conducted to examine the reasons for maintaining debt ratios lower than the appropriate level suggested by the trade-off theory on capital structure or for not using debt at all. The trade-off theory claims that managers maximize firm value by equating marginal benefits to marginal costs of debt. However, the claim remains as a mystery since many firms do not use debt at all or remain at a much lower level than the debt ratios proposed by the trade-off theory. Recent research has attributed the cause to the conservative borrowing policy, a policy in which risk avoidance, financial flexibility, and strengthening managerial power are more important than the reduction of capital cost resulting from the benefits of debt usage. If this is the case, then the determinants affecting the capital structure of low-leverage firms should be different from those of ordinary firms. In this context, this study seeks to identify the characteristics of domestic low-leverage firms in the period of 2000 to 2016. More concretely, the purpose of this study is to investigate why firms maintain low debt ratios despite the obvious advantages of using debt. It is necessary to distinguish between low-leverage firms and under-leveraged firms. The former means that the debt ratio is relatively low compared to that of other firms and the latter means that the debt ratio is lower than the target debt ratio proposed by the trade-off theory. This study focuses on low-leverage firms. In order to analyze the characteristics of low-leverage firms, the sample is classified into low-leverage group and ordinary-leverage group. We examine the differences in the characteristics of the capital structure between the two groups using logit analysis. In addition, we investigate whether there are any meaningful differences in the determinants of capital structure by employing regression analysis. According to the results of the characteristics analysis through the logit model, the higher the cash holdings, cash flow, foreign ownership, and largest shareholder ownership, the higher the likelihood of belonging to low-leverage firms. On the other hand, the higher the firm size and growth, the lower the probability of belonging to low-leverage firms. In particular, the significance of cash and ownership related variables is higher than that of the traditional leverage determinants. This implies that the main purpose of maintaining low debt ratio is not to reduce the cost of capital but to avoid risk, to secure financial flexibility, and to strengthen management entrenchment through conservative management. In the analysis of the difference in leverage determinants, it is found that the explanatory power of the model is significantly lower in the low-leverage firms than in the matching firms. Differences in the significance of individual determinants are also found between the two groups. For low-leverage firms, cash flow, largest shareholder ownership, firm age, and dividend payout ratio are significant, while other traditional determinants are not significant. This suggests that it is necessary to include variables related with conservative borrowing policy in order to increase the usefulness of low-leverage firms' determinants of capital structure.