외국간접투자자본이 국민경제에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

The restriction on foreign investments in the Korean capital market had been relaxed from 1992 gradually until 1998 when the limit was entirely abolished under the guidance of IMF in the moment of economic crisis. Since then, foreign investments have been going up all the time to occupy 40.1% and 14.1% of total market value of the Stock Market and the Kosdaq Market in KRX, respectively, as of February, 2006. As much as fifty eight companies out of total six hundred companies listed in the Stock Market have foreign ownership which is greater than the largest domestic ownership. A number of companies, has been gradually increased, which have foreign shareholders with more than five percent of equity of a company for the right of management. It has been advocated that foreign investments contribute greatly to the stock market development of Korea. An inflow of foreign capital and oversea funds amplifies the liquidity of the Korean stock market. Foreign investors raise the global competitiveness of the Korean stock market by providing the opportunity of introducing advanced foreign investment techniques as well as long-term investment patterns. In addition, it has been emphasized that foreign investors rendered great services to enhancing management transparencies and consolidating minor shareholders’ rights by improving the corporate governance structure and lowering the possibility of agency problem. On the other hand, foreign investors have been criticized severely for demanding high dividend payouts rather than plowing back the profits into the enterprises resulting in contraction of investments in plant and equipment. Foreign investors are perceived to a short-term performance seekers impairing the Korean company’s potential growth opportunities. Nevertheless, there is no concrete evidence that foreign investors used their influences to enforce the management decide high dividends and low capital expenditures. We study the influences of foreign investors who hold more than five percent of a company’s equities on capital expenditures and dividend payouts. We focus on foreign large shareholders rather than foreign investors in general because it may be large shareholders who pressure a management into paying high dividends and cutting back on capital expenditures. We also examine that whether foreign large shareholders have positive influences on corporate governance structures and corporate values. We further investigate that whether the role of foreign large shareholders varies according to the company-specific characteristics. The “foreign major ownership” variables are measured by the total foreign large shareholder equities, the ratio of domestic large shareholder equities to foreign large shareholder equities, and the ratio of the domestic largest shareholder equities to foreign large shareholder equities. We conduct the panel data analysis with instrumental variables considering the company-specific characteristics like governance structure scores as well as the endogeneity between the foreign equity ownership and dividends, capital expenditures, corporate values, respectively. Our samples cover the five-year period from 1999 to 2004 after the moment of economic crisis to investigate the influences of foreign investors as insiders on dividends, capital expenditures, and corporate values. We obtain 2,817 observations of total 894 companies after excluding companies of which we couldn’t find data regarding dividends, capital expenditures, corporate values, and governance structure scores. We also exclude companies with a negative book value of equity capital. The final samples are consist of companies that have major shareholders who hold more than five percent of a company’s equities. We utilize all data from 1999 to 2004 when we analyze the influences of foreign major shareholders on dividends, capital expenditures, and corporate values. An analysis of corporate governance used the data after 2001 since when the corporate governance scores have been available. The financial data and stock price data are obtained from FnGuide and WiseFN and corporate ownership-related data are obtained from KLCA’s TS2000 database. The foreign large investors’ ownership data are obtained from a regular business report, internet public disclosure data, and newspapers based on the ownership of TS2000 database. There are no obvious mutual causalities between the foreign equity ownership and dividends, capital expenditures, corporate values, respectively. For example, foreign investors might prefer investments on companies with high profits and dividend payout ratios or high corporate values. This problem is not resolved throughly by taking ownership variables with one-year lag behind. In fact, the previous year’s ownership structure could not explain this year's dividend-related decision making, and foreign ownership structures change often even during the year. Therefore, we include the current changes in foreign ownership as well as the previous foreign ownership in independent variables. The empirical results are as follows. The dividend payout ratios increased significantly as foreign large shareholders’ ownership increased, especially in ‘chaebol’ companies and companies with high corporate values and good governance structures. These findings imply that the influences of foreign major shareholder ownership on the company’s decision making vary according to the company-specific characteristics. However, we could not find the evidence that foreign large shareholders reduce capital expenditures. ‘Chabol’ companies tend to increase capital expenditures to some extent while companies with low corporate values and poor governance structures tend to decrease capital expenditures, but both results are statistically insignificant. It wouldn’t seem that foreign large shareholders enhance corporate values through the improvement of governance structures. Instead, it may be inferred from the data that they become influential shareholders of a company with poor governance structures to enjoy the private benefit of control, resulting in its corporate values impaired. In conclusion, foreign major shareholders tend to claim high dividend payouts, especially in ‘chaebol’ companies, companies with good governance structures or high corporate values while they do not shrink capital expenditures in general. Finally, we could not find the evidence that foreign major shareholders ascend corporate values through the improvement of corporate governance structures.