شرکتهای چندملیتی بهتر آن را انجام می دهند: شواهد درباره بهره وری بودجه بندی سرمایه ای شرکت های

With U.S. multinational enterprises playing increasingly important roles in the global economy, it is important to understand the efficiency of their capital budgeting decisions. We examine an unbalanced panel of 332 U.S. firms from 1992–2000. Using the deviation of a firm's estimated marginal Tobin's q from a benchmark as an indicator of effective resource allocation, we find that widespread multinationals make more efficient capital budgeting decisions. We also test whether this reflects the MNEs' investment locations, but do not obtain support for the hypotheses that they might be monitored by more agents or more successfully resist pressures from interest groups and governments.

Multinational firms have become an important conduit in the global allocation of investment funds. The United States has consistently been the single largest source of outward FDI flows, generating about one-fifth of total global outward FDI flows in recent years (UNCTAD, 2006). In the 1990s global FDI grew rapidly (from US$233 bn in 1990 to US$1379 bn in 2000), and the total stock of U.S. direct investment abroad nearly tripled (from $2.2 trillion in 1990 to $6.3 trillion in 2000) as American multinational enterprises (MNEs) generated an increasingly large share of world GDP (6.8% in 1994 and 8.6% in 2000) (Mataloni, 2002 and Mataloni and Yorgason, 2002). Feldstein (1995) argued that FDI circumvents segmented national capital markets. Inflows of foreign capital, including FDI, are associated with improvements in the capital market efficiency of the host countries (e.g., Bekaert and Harvey, 2000, Henry, 2000a, Henry, 2000b, Morck et al., 2000a, Morck et al., 2000b, Rajan and Zingales, 2003 and Li et al., 2004). With U.S. MNEs playing an increasingly large and important role in the global economy, it is important to understand if these firms are able to allocate capital efficiently. Accordingly, we investigate whether U.S.-headquartered MNEs and purely domestic U.S. enterprises (PDEs) differ significantly in the efficiency of their capital budgeting decisions. We use the deviation of marginal Tobin's q, which is the ratio of the marginal change in market value to the unexpected marginal change in assets, from the appropriate benchmark as an indicator of the quality of a firm's capital budgeting decisions. For example, if the theoretical benchmark marginal q is 1.0, firms with estimated marginal q's above (below) this level can be classified as under-(over-) investing. This two-stage economic methodology was developed by Durnev et al. (2004). We improve this methodology in two ways. First, we use a random coefficients methodology to estimate marginal q (instead of OLS as in Durnev et al. (2004)) to incorporate explicitly firm heterogeneity. Second, in a second-stage regression, marginal q, an estimated coefficient, is used in modified form as a dependent variable to analyze the relationship between the efficacy of the firm's capital budgeting decisions and multinationality after controlling for other firm characteristics. In this second stage, we correct for potential heteroscedasticity by using a weighted generalized least squares methodology (e.g., Saxonhouse, 1976) instead of a general White correction for heteroscedasticity as in Durnev et al. (2004). Moreover, in our second-stage analysis we estimate the benchmark marginal q for MNEs and PDEs, and then use the difference between the estimated firm-specific marginal q's and the benchmark marginal q's to form the dependent variable. We examine whether effective capital budgeting is associated with a firm's multinationality, firm characteristics such as corporate governance, or characteristics of the countries in which the firm invests. Our sample is an unbalanced panel dataset of 332 U.S. manufacturing firms from 1992–2000 for which we have reliable data as to their multinational presence. Manufacturing industries represent the bulk of U.S. FDI — both in terms of the dollar stock of outstanding FDI and in terms of new FDI made in the 1990s (Mataloni, 2002 and Mataloni and Yorgason, 2002). Within our sample, as has been observed repeatedly in many other empirical studies, MNEs and PDEs differ markedly. Consistent with the international business literature, we find that MNEs are larger, invest more in research and development, are more diversified, and that MNEs and PDEs differ significantly with regards to measures of internal corporate governance. MNEs inherently differ from PDEs in that they have operations in multiple countries. We therefore examine the relationship between a company's capital budgeting decisions and the protection of creditors' rights in the countries where it locates. The presumption is that financial communities in these locations augment home financial communities' monitoring. Also, for U.S. MNEs, investing in less developed countries could raise their bargaining power against special interest groups, including the local governments. However, we find no support for the monitoring or bargaining hypotheses. The most important finding is that more effective capital budgeting is positively associated with multinationality even after controlling for the influences just described, and this effect is most pronounced for firms that are present in ten or more foreign countries. Moreover, this result appears to reflect greater restraints on over-investment and not reduced liquidity constraints that may reflect MNEs' being able to access multiple capital markets. Thus, we conclude that MNEs may well be intrinsically more capable at making firm value-enhancing capital budgeting decisions. We are unable to comment on whether capital budgeting efficiency causes multinationality or vice versa; rather, we simply investigate whether capital budgeting efficiency and multinationality are associated with one another, and we find that they are indeed significantly related. In Section 2 we delineate the theoretical rationale for why MNEs and PDEs might differ in their ability to invest effectively. Section 3 introduces the method for measuring investment efficiency. The data are described in Section 4. Section 5 presents and analyzes the results from empirical testing, and their implications. Section 6 concludes.

In this paper we examined the relationship between the quality of a firm's capital budgeting and multinationality. This is an important topic because of the role that MNEs play in allocating capital globally, and the rapid growth of U.S. FDI outflows in recent years. By their sheer size and presence in multiple markets, MNEs likely face reduced liquidity constraints as compared with the constraints faced by purely domestic firms. Yet, compared to purely domestic firms, MNEs could have greater agency and information asymmetry problems. At the same time, they may be subject to close scrutiny by institutional investors and investors in multiple capital markets. Finally, MNEs are more “footloose” than are purely domestic firms, and are therefore more able to resist pressures from special interest groups in pursuing firm value maximization. In our empirical investigation, we therefore explicitly control for corporate governance measures such as managerial entrenchment, insider ownership, and institutional investment. We also explicitly link the quality of capital budgeting decisions with the creditor protection system of the countries in which a multinational invests. We find that more effective capital budgeting decisions are associated with managerial entrenchment as measured using the Bebchuk index but less so with staggered boards. Insider ownership generally is linked to restraints on investment. Institutional ownership is not related to more effective capital budgeting decisions. After controlling for these corporate governance factors, we still find that MNEs make more value-enhancing capital budgeting decisions than do purely domestic firms. Moreover, their better capital budgeting decisions are not due to just their likely lower liquidity constraints. Relative to purely domestic firms, MNEs exhibit not just less under-investment, but also less over-investment. Moreover, MNEs that are present in ten or more foreign countries appear to make the most efficient capital budgeting decisions. The remaining puzzle is what may explain the greater efficacy of multinationals' capital budgeting decisions. We could not find support for the idea that the advantage stems from the possibility that multinationals are monitored by agents in countries with strong creditor rights. Nor can we find any support for the idea that multinationals are more footloose and better able to hold special interest groups at bay, thus enabling the corporation better to pursue firm value maximization. Our results thus suggest that multinationals may be intrinsically better-managed firms. These results are consistent with a number of previous findings:23 Most directly, Bloom and Van Reenen, 2007a and Bloom and Van Reenen, 2007b find that multinational firms have stronger managerial skills; this is true both in general and when examined in the context of corporate informational technology practices. In addition, Rajan and Wulf (2006) show that senior corporate management are now responsible for overseeing more personnel and lines of business than before. Further, Brown and Medoff (1989) found that larger, more complex firms may be able to recruit and retain higher quality employees. And MNEs are significantly larger and more complex than are PDEs, as we find in our sample and as Buckley and Casson (1976) found far earlier. The implication is that MNEs are good conduits for directing international real investment flows. In light of the increasingly important role that U.S. MNEs play globally, this appears to be a positive finding as FDI is associated with improved capital market efficiency in host countries (e.g., Bekaert and Harvey, 2000). Still, future research may allow us and/or others to explore further whether multinationals are intrinsically better-managed firms and whether the implication is justified.