한국 기업금융시장에서 기업간신용의 이론적 분석

Trade credit is a non-bank financing offered by a supplier to finance the purchase of its product. Trade credit is one of the important sources of debt financing which can substitute bank loan. Trade credit is prevailing among riskier borrowers, competing with bank loan in corporate loan market. The prevalence of trade credit implies that there exist mutual economic benefits for both suppliers and buyers from transacting trade credits even though the default rate of trade credits is much higher than that of bank loans. This paper models the economic incentive for product suppliers to offer trade credits to riskier borrowing firms which might not be able to obtain financing from conventional and specialized financial institutions such as banks. When the product market is imperfect, a product supplier can obtain additional price-cost margin by increasing the sale of products. That is, there is a gain to offering trade credits to facilitate the purchase of inputs to riskier borrowing firms who cannot obtain bank financing. Therefore, trade credits service riskier borrowing firms than bank loans in the corporate loan market. Trade credit model is mainly based on the imperfect structure of product market in that suppliers would otherwise have no incentive to sell its product on trade credit. Borrowing firms would be indifferent between different financing sources if there exist perfect substitutes in the corporate loan market. In such an economy, the suppliers achieve no benefits by offering trade credits while firms can borrow at competitive interest rates from conventional financial institutions (banks) in the corporate loan market. Thus, the economic investigation of trade credits needs to be based on the imperfectness either in the financial market or in the product market or both. Incorporating the analytical and empirical outcomes of the previous studies, this paper provides a unique theoretical model where trade credits service riskier borrowers than bank loans in the corporate loan market. This paper models the equilibrium in the monopolistically competitive market where firms need to buy inputs to conduct business projects. Then, the model in this paper links the monopolistically competitive input market and the perfectly competitive loan market to characterize the prominence and features of trade credit when a firm’s purchase of input requires financing. Further, this paper applies the model to corporate loan market in Korea to investigate the effect of trade credit and internal transfer price on tunneling in Korean business groups(chaebols). This paper shows that the internal transaction between the firms within a chaebol can transfer the value of a firm to another firm through the high interest rate on trade credit combined with high transfer price of the product. In this tunneling, the firm on which owner-managers and/or controlling shareholders have dominant cash flow rights exploits the value of minority shareholders of the firm which purchases the product at high internal transfer price on trade credit with high interest rate. As a consequence, the controlling shareholders of chaebols in Korea can obtain private benefits through internal transactions on trade credits. This theoretical prediction is appropriate to explain possible agency conflict between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders of chaebol firms in Korea. The model in this paper provides a simple tool that can be used to investigate a unique corporate governance arrangements and resulting tunneling in Korean chaebols. As another extension for corporate finance practice in Korea, this paper models that the introduction of credit insurance increases the availability of trade credits for small businesses while improving profitability of product suppliers. It is widely known that financial markets in Korea are not developed enough to allocate funds efficiently to small businesses, which can easily be caught into financial distress and resulting default in debt obligations. In these environments, trade credit has been a critical source for corporate financing substantially substituting bank loans. However, higher credit risk of small businesses than large firms and chaebol-affiliated firms restricted available trade credits for small businesses. Therefore, Korean government has been actively establishing and supporting credit insurance arrangements on trade credits especially for small business. The outcome is more widespread use of trade credits for small businesses while both suppliers and buyers of the products enjoy increased sales, profits, and financial stability. Reflecting these environments in corporate financial markets for small businesses in Korea, this paper models the effect of credit insurance on trade credits and resulting sales activity of product suppliers.