earticle

영어

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.

한국어

자본구조에 관한 상충이론이 제시하는 적정 수준보다 낮은 부채비율을 유지하는 이유 또는 전혀 부채사용을 하지 않는 이유에 대해 최근 많은 연구가 수행되어 왔다. 본 연구도 이러한 맥락에서 2000년부터 2016년까지 국내 상장 제조업체를 대상으로 저부채비율 기업의 특성을 규명하고자 하였다. 로짓모형을 통한 특성분석의 결과에 따르면 현금보유, 현금흐름, 외국인지분율, 최대주주지분율이 높을수록 저부채기업군에 속할 확률이 높아지고 있었다. 반면에 기업규모와 성장성이 높을수록 저부채기업군에 속할 확률은 낮아지고 있었다. 특히 현금 및 지분율 관련변수들의 유의성이 전통적인 자본구조 결정요인보다 더 높게 나타나고 있다. 이는 저부채비율을 유지하는 주된 목적이 자본비용의 감소보다는 보수적 차입정책을 통한 위험회피, 재무적 유연성 확보, 경영권 강화에 있음을 의미한다. 결정요인의 차이분석에서는 일반기업군과 달리 저부채기업군에서는 부채비율결정모형의 설명력이 상당히 낮아지는 것을 발견하였다. 또한 양 그룹간에 개별 결정요인의 유의성 차이도 발견되었다. 저부채기업을 대상으로 했을 때 현금흐름, 최대주주지분율, 기업연령, 배당지급률 등만이 유의했고 나머지 전통적인 결정요인은 유의성이 없었다. 이는 저부채기업을 대상으로 할 때는 보수적 경영과 관련된 변수를 결정모형에 포함시켜야할 필요성을 시사한다.