سرمایه گذاری شرکت های بزرگ در بازار آسیا: شرایط مالی، توسعه مالی و محدودیت های مالی

This paper explores the mechanisms through which finance affects corporate investments and capital accumulation. We separate the effects of financial conditions from those of financial development. Based on a sample of firms from five Asian emerging economies, we find that (i) financial conditions affect firms’ growth opportunities and investment demand, while financial development primarily affects firms’ external financing constraints; (ii) large firms benefit more from improved financial conditions, while small firms benefit more from financial development; and (iii) these effects are asymmetric—in general, stronger when the global financial crisis was unfolding and weaker during the subsequent rebound.

Following seminal papers by King and Levine, 1993a and King and Levine, 1993b, there has been a large body of evidence showing a causal effect from financial development to economic growth.1 Countries with well-developed financial systems, e.g., large banks and active financial markets, have higher future growth. The theoretical underpinning of the finance–growth nexus goes back to Schumpeter (1912), who argues that banks play an important role in the adoption of new technologies. Levine (1997) provides a comprehensive discussion in which financial systems promote economic growth through facilitating capital accumulation and technological innovation. Subsequent studies have explored the empirical link from financial systems to capital accumulation and technological innovation. Rajan and Zingales (1998) provide evidence that industries that are more reliant on external finance grow faster in countries with more developed financial markets. Demirgüç-Kunt and Maksimovic (1998) document a similar effect at the firm level. Fisman and Love (2003) show that trade credit is a substitute for bank credit: industries with heavy reliance on trade credit grow faster in countries with weaker financial institutions. Love (2003) finds that financial development reduces the reliance of corporate investments on internal funds, thus promoting capital accumulation and growth. Several studies, e.g., Claessens and Laeven (2005), and Love and Peria (2012), explore the impact of bank competition on firms’ financing constraint.

Motivated by the literature on the finance–growth nexus, this paper explores the mechanisms through which finance affects corporate investments and capital accumulation. A key feature of our study is the separation of the effects of financial conditions from those of financial development. Financial development in our paper pertains to the level of sophistication and depth of the domestic financial sector whereas financial conditions pertain to the concurrent state of the financial sector relative to its average historical state. We show that financial conditions and financial development affect corporate investments through different channels. The most important finding is that financial conditions affect firms’ growth opportunities and investment demand, whereas financial development primarily affects firms’ external financing constraints. Financial conditions and financial development have different impacts on small and large firms. Their impact is asymmetric with respect to economic and financial conditions. To some extent, the inclusion or exclusion of stock market capitalization in the FDI measure matters as to asymmetric effect on large versus small firms. When the FDI measure excludes stock market capitalization, the results show that it is only small firms that face significant external financing constraints, as in the earlier case when only the ratio of domestic bank credit to the private sector is used for FDI. However, this result shifts to large firms when the FDI measure includes stock market capitalization. We surmise that this is because in many Asian economies except developed ones such as Singapore, the stock market is not a relevant source of finance for small firms.