한국 재벌기업의 자본조달순위이론 검증

The problem of explaining firms’ capital structure is intensely debated in corporate finance. One of the most popular models of corporate financing decisions in the literature is the pecking order theory of Myers(1984). It is based on the argument in Myers and Majluf(1984) that asymmetric information problems drive the capital structure of firms. We test whether information asymmetry is an important determinant of capital structure decisions in Korean Chaebol firms, as suggested by the pecking order theory, using a novel information asymmetry index based on measures of adverse selection developed by the market microstructure literature. The empirical results are as follows. Firstly, we find that information asymmetry and pecking order theory affect the capital structure decisions of Korean Chaebol and non-Chaebol firms over the sample period 2001-2011. Our findings are robust to controlling for conventional leverage factors(financing deficit, tangibility, MB ratio, size, profitability, ownership structure). Secondary, we find a non-linear inverse U-shaped relation between leverage and information asymmetry in non-Chaebol firms, but can not find effective relationship in Chaebol firms. As the information asymmetry increases from a low level, non-Chaebol firms has incentive to increase leverage. However, when information asymmetry increases a significant level, non-Chaebol firms' managers have incentive to decrease the debt level.