Three Essays on Corporate Governance: The Keiretsu Impact on R&D Investment, Moral Hazards, and Cash Holdings

Autor: Chih-Sean Chen, 陳志祥
Rok vydání: 2009
Druh dokumentu: 學位論文 ; thesis
Popis: 97
This dissertation examines how Japanese keiretsu-style main banks affect R&D investment, moral hazards, and cash holdings. The empirical database included 35,990 observations from 3,499 Japanese listed companies during 1994 to 2004. Furthermore, also adopt to sort influence of different keiretsu groups by a four-point scale in our database. In first essay examines how Japanese keiretsu-style main banks affect the interrelationships among R&D investment, leverage, and firm value with Simultaneous Equations Model (SEM). The finding is R&D investment positively affects firm value. Adding the keiretsu influential power test, our evidence also shows that R&D investment is monotonically increasing with the keiretsu influential power; firms with closer relationships to the core of its main bank are experiencing higher R&D, and therefore, create the highest firm value. The second study analyzes the ways in which the Japanese main bank plays a role as a monitor to lower agency costs when faced with conflicts between shareholders and liability holders. Literature reveals that the agency cost between shareholders and debt-holders stems from asset substitution, under-investment, dividend payout, and long claim dilution. Employing Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation and quantile regression are the methodologies, In sum, the findings are that the keiretsu firms have asset substitution, under-investment, and long claim dilution problems in OLS estimation. However, in quantile regression, the main bank can certainly mitigate this moral hazard of asset substitution, when member firms’ quantiles are high. In third essay examines the tunnel function of horizontal keiretsu amidst changing economics and the regulatory climate that existed in Japan between 1994 and 2004. The affiliated firms that form a business group known as a keiretsu access unique capital support from their core financial institutions and form their own internal capital market. This paper demonstrates that the closer the relationship between the affiliated firms and their keiretsu core banks, the less cash they hoard. Using Tobit regression and finding that the keiretsu main banks significantly reduce corporate cash holdings, given that the main bank in keiretsu can be viewed as an internal funding channel.
Databáze: Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations