한국 대규모기업집단에서 내부자본시장과 대리인 문제 : 그룹 현금보유의 역할 (Internal Capital Markets and Agency Problems in Korean Business Groups : The Role of Group Cash Holdings)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국금융학회
· 수록지 정보 : 금융연구 / 28권 / 2호 / 101 ~ 135페이지
· 저자명 : 강형철, 장하성

초록

본 논문은 한국 대규모기업집단에 속한 모든 계열사들의 자료를 사용하여 그룹의 현금보유가내부자본시장을 효율화하는지 아니면 대리인 문제를 심화시키는지를 분석한다. 그룹의 높은현금보유 수준은 상호보조기능을 통해 내부자본시장을 효율적으로 작동하게 하는 매개체 역할을할 수 있는 반면, 지배주주의 사적 이익을 위해 활용되어 터널링(tunneling), 프로핑(propping)과같은 대리인 문제를 유발할 수도 있다. 본 연구는 기업의 재무적 제약 수준을 기업연령과 상장여부로, 대리인 문제를 지배주주의 소유권(cash flow rights)으로 측정하고 이러한 가설을 검증한다.분석 결과, 첫째, 그룹의 현금보유 수준이 높을수록 재무제약 기업의 수익성은 높아지지만 이는투자효율성 개선으로 인한 것이 아닌 것으로 나타난다. 둘째, 현금보유 수준이 높은 그룹에 속한재무제약 기업의 투자-현금흐름 민감도가 상대적으로 낮지만 성장성은 투자에 유의미한 영향을미치지 않아 내부자본시장이 작동하지만 그 기능은 비효율적임을 나타낸다. 셋째, 그룹의 현금보유가 매우 큰 경우에는 소유구조에 기인한 대리인 문제가 발생할 수 있으며, 금융위기 이후내부자본시장 기능이 약화된다는 증거를 제시한다. 이상의 결과는 그룹의 높은 현금보유 수준은재무제약 기업에 도움을 주지만 이러한 내부자본시장 기능은 대리인 문제로 인해 비효율적으로작동하게 됨을 시사한다. 본 연구는 내부자본시장 또는 대리인 문제를 개별기업 특성에 초점을두고 분석하는 기존 연구와는 달리 그룹의 현금보유 수준이 중요한 매개요인이라는 점을확인했다는 학술적 의의를 지닌다.

영어초록

Corporate cash holdings in major developed countries have increased sharply because of the heightened economic uncertainty since the 2008 global financial crisis. In Korea, corporate cash holdings increased rapidly after the country went through two major crises in 1997 and 2008. In 2010, cash and cash equivalents (hereafter, ‘cash assets’) held by non-financial listed firms exceeded 100 trillion won (9.2% of total assets). The level of cash assets held by listed firms of the top 10 chaebol groups is especially noteworthy as it increased rapidly from 28 trillion won in 2006 to 124 trillion won in 2012. In the first quarter of 2014, the top 10 chaebols’ cash assets accounted for about 75% of the top 500 firms of Korea. It is clear that most of the cash assets in Korea are held by chaebols. However, media reports often raise the problem that chaebols do not invest as much as their cash holdings increase.
This paper investigates the trade-off and effects that a group’ cash holdings has towards making internal capital markets more efficient or deepening agency problems. The high level of a group’s cash holdings can facilitate internal capital markets operations through cross-subsidization. On the other hand, it can trigger agency problems such as tunneling and propping if it is misused for the private benefit of controlling shareholders.
Group-level cash holdings are meaningful and have important implications in terms of internal capital markets and agency problems. If a firm within a group is financially constrained, the group’s abundant cash holdings can help the firm overcome financial constraints. However, if a group’s cash is limited, the firm will be constrained. Following the free cash flow hypothesis of Jensen (1986), agency problems in the business group also can be more likely to appear when the group’s cash is abundant. Although many existing literature have focused on firm-level cash holdings and the difference in the functioning of internal capital markets between chaebols and non-chaebols, they do not consider group-level cash holdings. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to directly intro-duce group-level cash holdings. This study intends to answer the following questions.
First, are a group’s high cash holdings helpful to financially constrained firms within the group that have higher funding needs? Second, are the internal capital markets of business groups efficient? Third, do high cash assets cause agency problems such as tunneling and propping? Our sample firms are all affiliates of Korean large business groups (chaebols) in which a family is the controlling shareholder over the period of 2001 to 2010. Financially constrained firms are defined as firms below the median age within a group or unlisted firms that have low accessibility to capital markets. We use cash flow rights (hereafter, ‘CFR’) of controlling shareholders as a proxy of agency problem. The main results of this paper are as follows.
First, controlling for other factors to explain firms’ profitability, financially constrained firms in a group have higher profitability than financially unconstrained firms as the level of the group’s cash holdings is higher. This result supports the claim that internal capital markets operate well in groups with high cash holdings.
Second, a group’s high cash holdings lower financially constrained firms’ investment efficiency, which is estimated as the positive effect of investments on performance. In turn, this means a group’s abundant surplus resources can lead to agency problems such as overinvestment and also supports Jensen (1986)’s free cash flow hypothesis in the group-level.
Third, only when the level of a group’s cash holdings is high is the investment-cash flow sensitivity of financially constrained firms lower than the sensitivity of financially unconstrained firms. This result shows that a group’s cash holdings can be a means for firms to overcome financial constraints. However, we do not find any evidence that fast-growing firms invest more actively. This means that internal capital markets within Korean business groups are not efficient.
Fourth, when the level of a group’s cash holdings is clearly excessive, the investment-cash flow sensitivity of financially constrained firms is insignificant but the sensitivity of firms with low CFR is significantly positive. This implies that when a group holds too much cash assets, internal capital markets do not function well and agency problems based on ownership structure can occur.
Fifth, before the 2008 financial crisis, the investment-cash flow sensitivity of financially constrained firms was significantly lower than the sensitivity of financially unconstrained firms when the level of the group’s cash holdings was high. However, this difference between financially constrained firms and unconstrained firms disappeared after the crisis. This means that the functioning of internal capital markets in chaebols has weakened after the crisis and supports Lee et al.(2009).
Overall, the results of this paper suggest that the high level of groups’ cash holdings can be helpful to financially constrained firms but the functioning of internal capital markets contains inefficiency due to agency problems.

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