투자자 심리가 기업의 적정투자에 미치는 영향

Since Baker and Wurgler(2004)’s Catering theory was proposed, it has been revealed that managers are making decisions conforming to investor sentiment in the capital market. This study verified whether investor sentiment is reflected in corporate investment decisions from the perspective of catering theory. Unlike previous studies that expected managers to respond to optimistic and pessimistic investor sentiment consistently, we considered the possibility that managers may respond to optimistic and pessimistic investor sentiment differently due to managers’ traits such as overconfidence. Using 5,114 non-financial KOSPI-listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as a sample, we provide the following findings: First, the more optimistic the investor sentiment is, the higher the level of investment companies, which is consistent with Baker and Wurgler(2004)’s catering theory. Second, managers do not reduce the investment size in order to reflect pessimistic investor sentiment. Unlike management decisions that strengthen optimistic investor sentiment clearly providing managers with benefits such as market performance improvement through stock price increment, we interpret these results due to relatively weak or unclear benefits that managers can obtain through decision-making that conforming pessimistic investor sentiment. The empirical results of this study expand existing research by verifying whether catering theory is supported based on investment decision-making while providing clues that support may differ depending on the level of investment formed in the capital market.