یکپارچه سازی مالی و ساختار سرمایه بازارهای نوظهور

This paper investigates the impact of country-level financial integration on corporate financing choices in emerging economies. Examining 4477 public firms from 24 countries, we find that corporate leverage is positively related to credit market integration and negatively related to equity market integration. As integration proceeds to higher levels, high-growth firms seem to obtain more debt than low-growth firms; large firms seem to obtain more debt – especially long-term debt – and issue more equity than small firms. Also, there is evidence that firms are able to borrow more funds in countries with more efficient legal systems during integration process.

Since the late 1980s, the openness of domestic financial markets to foreign investors and institutions is a key structural change in emerging economies. The economic implications of this integration have attracted substantial research efforts. Many papers have documented the positive impact of financial integration at the country level, such as decreased cost of capital (Bekaert and Harvey, 2000, Henry, 2000a and Kim and Singal, 2000), higher economic growth (Bekaert et al., 2001a and Bekaert et al., 2001b) and greater private investments (Henry, 2000b). The factors that drive these macro-level changes could also affect various metrics of emerging market firms. Among others, a group of literature has shown the relation between financial integration and capital structure decisions. Mitton (2006) shows that firm-specific openness to foreign equity investors is associated with lower leverage. Schmukler and Vesperoni (2006) find that by accessing international equity and bond markets, firms increase their long-term debt and extend their debt maturity. However, market liberalization at the country level decreases the use of long-term debt, and debt maturity shifts to shorter term. Ağca et al. (2007) show that credit market integration results in higher leverage but shorter debt maturity in developing countries. Focusing on Eastern European firms, Giannetti and Ongena (2009) find that foreign bank lending stimulates the use of financial debt although the effect is dampened for small firms. In this paper, we study the effect of financial integration on corporate leverage and debt maturity in emerging markets. Our study is complementary to the ones cited above but differs from them in several aspects. First, our empirical models emphasize the effects of both credit market integration and equity market integration. Doing this matches the debt and equity component of capital structure. Prior works tend to account for either credit or equity. The studies conducted by Ağca et al. and Giannetti and Ongena focus on the credit side, while the study by Mitton only looks at the equity side. Ignoring either side risks a misinterpretation of estimation results. For instance, if one finds that increased credit market integration does not impact leverage, this could be due to the fact that the level of equity market integration increases as well, offsetting the effect of credit market integration. Alternatively, although the expected effect of one type of integration (either credit or equity market) might be found, completeness suggests that both types be incorporated in the model. The reason is that different types of financial integration can proceed simultaneously and therefore interact with each other. Hence, both credit and equity sides should be accounted for to obtain a complete picture. Second, apart from financial integration, we consider a wide range of firm- and country-level determinants of financing choices. Third, we propose a number of interactive effects of financial integration with firm and country characteristics. Interaction analysis allows us to assess whether integration has facilitated the financing of firms in need of capital. Also, we are able to see under what conditions the expected effects of financial integration would be either strengthened or attenuated. Last, in comparison with others, we construct a relatively large sample having more than 4000 public firms from 24 emerging economies during the period 1995–2007. Our results show that higher levels of credit market integration result in higher leverage and that greater equity market integration leads to lower leverage. The evidence on debt maturity is relatively unclear. Particularly, we find that when the degree of financial integration increases, firms with high growth opportunities seem to borrow more funds than low-growth firms; from integration, large firms are likely to obtain more debt – especially long-term debt – and issue more equity than small firms. There is also evidence showing that firms are able to borrow more funds in countries with more efficient legal systems during the integration process. Thus, our work demonstrates that financial integration does have an impact on the capital structure of emerging markets by affecting factors related to corporate financing. More importantly, different firm and institutional characteristics can lead to different significance and magnitude of the effects. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses theoretical underpinnings and develops the hypotheses. Section 3 describes the sample and variables. Section 4 presents the regression results. The concluding remarks are given in the final section.

In this paper, we aim to better understand how international financial integration affects corporate leverage and debt maturity structures in emerging economies. For the purpose, we attempt to address empirical shortcomings of previous studies on financial integration and corporate financing. We consider both credit market integration and equity market integration over time, and we control for a variety of determining factors. We construct a large panel set containing 4477 public firms from 24 countries during 1995–2007. We find that increased credit and equity market integration lead to greater use of debt and equity financing, respectively. The results reflect the economic benefits brought by financial integration, such as expanded financing options and decreased costs of capital. These channels may individually or collectively work on corporate financing choices. The economic magnitude of the effect is reasonably high as well. On top of the impact of financial integration, we also confirm the effects of some well-known determining factors, which is an important by-product of the paper. Furthermore, the effect seems to be more pronounced for high-growth firms than for low-growth firms on the credit side. In this sense, policy makers should encourage financial integration because it will help local firms raise external funds for their investment projects and contributes to the growth of these firms in the long run. It is equally noteworthy that the alleged benefits of financial integration do not seem to be a “free lunch”. Specifically, during the financial integration process, large firms seem to obtain more debt (especially long-term debt) and issue more equity than small firms, and creditors lend more to firms in countries with more efficient legal systems. The results present a clear picture of how financial integration generates good outcomes. Lower monitoring costs, more transparent information and better creditor and shareholder protection enable companies to better enjoy financial integration. In this regard, our results have useful implications to corporate managers and policy makers. The results reported in this paper leave a few unanswered questions for future research. One question is: How long before the opening of a country market affects corporate financing behavior. For example, financial integration might not function immediately after the official market opening. The panel analysis in this paper may only provide implications about the overall integration process, without addressing the timing of financial integration taking effect. Future works could start by searching for effective opening dates and then examining how capital structure responds to the change. Another related question is to ask at what stage of integration the corporate financing behavior is impacted. Indeed, integration of a country may keep at a relatively high level in some periods, while drop to a low level in other periods. For example, some countries reinstated capital controls after the 1998 Asian financial crisis to stabilize domestic markets. Hence, we would expect that the effect of financial integration on capital structure is less significant and smaller in magnitude in the post-crisis period. Future studies could also shed more light on firm-level financial integration, which would offer us a closer look at integration effects. Relevant integration measures could be calculated using foreign assets, foreign sales, commercial loans from non-resident banks and cross-listing data.