환대기업의 자발적 공시수준이 타인자본비용에 미치는 영향

This study examined the effect of voluntary disclosure level on the cost of debt using a sample of hospitality firms listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ market. Total voluntary disclosure level as an independent variable is regarded as the total sum of three disclosure types’ frequency: fair disclosure, investor relations held and discretionary disclosure. Cost of debt as a dependent variable is defined and adopted as interest bearing debt cost and average borrowing rate. The empirical results are summarized as follows. Total voluntary disclosure level, the number of fair disclosure, and investor relations held showed significantly negative coefficient on the cost of debt respectively. This result indicates that the hospitality firm’s frequent voluntary disclosure activity contributes to lessening the cost of debt. This empirical finding supports the information asymmetry hypothesis and signalling hypothesis that enlarging voluntary disclosure can lead to cutting down the information searching cost and agency cost of investors caused by adverse selection problem. Even though discretionary disclosure is pre-determinedly expected the role as voluntary disclosure because of the similarity between discretionary disclosure and voluntary disclosure in korean language, discretionary disclosure did not relate significantly with the cost of debt. This result implies that investors recognize and consider discretionary disclosure as mandatory disclosure type in korea capital market law system. This study makes several contributions. First, this research empirically investigated the eufunctional role of voluntary disclosure. Second, the empirical findings of this research can broaden the hospitality manager’s understanding of disclosure effect, and can provide useful and helpful information to them when formulating and executing disclosure policy.