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Many previous studies suggest that agency costs and information asymmetry are signifi-cant factors that affect the relationship between the investment expenditures of firms and the availability of cash from internal operations. Some other studies show that dividing firms in terms of the degree of ownership concentration further explains the relationship. However, the findings of previous studies are not consistent suggesting that other firm characteristics may be affecting the results. We propose that additional attention to the nature of ownership control of firms may explain the inconsistency. In this study, we examine the investment behaviour of family-controlled firms, institu-tion-controlled firms and widely-held firms. We distinguish between these three kinds of firms as they represent different levels of market imperfection. Therefore, we expect diverse investment behaviours among the three groups. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership structures. The greatest weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of control for small shareholders. The existence of at least one large shareholder will reduce the agency costs and asymmetric information. On one hand, enhanced monitoring will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. On the other hand, large shareholders are willing to spend time and effort to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects and thus reduce the information asymmetry. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the point of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group as family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. On the other hand, significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The main disadvantage of owner-managers is that they may lack the expertise to manage their firms although their position in the family may make it natural for them to be the manager. Another advantage of the family-controlled firm is that the family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can all collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Therefore, as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of agency costs may decrease but as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of agency costs may increase again. Although previous studies have noticed the influence of ownership structure, no analysis has been carried out to explore the investment behaviour of firms controlled by the three differ-ent kinds of shareholders. Our first motivation is to fill this gap. Splitting our sample into three representative groups enables us to study the financing constraints and investment behaviour of firms that are family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely held. The focus of this study is on Canadian firms. The Canadian evidence is worth particular attention because the Canadian business environment is similar to the US business environment in terms of legal, regulatory, and market institutions but it is similar to European or Asian firms in terms of ownership structure. Therefore, a study of Canadian firms can provide a useful and rational assessment of the investment behaviour of firms that follow the ownership structures of Europe and Asia but operate in a business environment and institutional setting similar to those of the US. Further, a large number of Canadian firms have controlling shareholders and a large proportion, approximately 60%, of Canadian firms can be categorized as having concentrated ownership structure. Among the firms with concentrated ownership, over 1/3 of them can be dis-tinguished as family-controlled. This dataset provides an ideal setting to study the investment behaviours of firms according to the nature of their controllers. Our results illustrate that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is higher than the intensity of investments of concentrated ownership firms and that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is positively and significantly affected by the availability of funds from internal sources. In contrast, for concentrated ownership firms the intensity is positively and significantly affected by the availability of growth opportunities. These observations suggest that in comparison with the concentrated ownership firms, the widely-held firms face higher levels of financing constraints and exhibit less value maximizing behaviour. However, once we separate the family-controlled firms from the institution-controlled firms, we find that the investment expenditures of the family-controlled firms and the institution-controlled firms are not significantly different in terms of their dependence on internal cash flows or on the market-to-book ratios. We also find that widely-held firms tend to invest in projects that payoff quickly. This preference may be the result of these firms desires to ease their external funding constraints by generating funds internally.

Many previous studies suggest that agency costs and information asymmetry are signifi-cant factors that affect the relationship between the investment expenditures of firms and the availability of cash from internal operations. Some other studies show that dividing firms in terms of the degree of ownership concentration further explains the relationship. However, the findings of previous studies are not consistent suggesting that other firm characteristics may be affecting the results. We propose that additional attention to the nature of ownership control of firms may explain the inconsistency. In this study, we examine the investment behaviour of family-controlled firms, institu-tion-controlled firms and widely-held firms. We distinguish between these three kinds of firms as they represent different levels of market imperfection. Therefore, we expect diverse investment behaviours among the three groups. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership structures. The greatest weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of control for small shareholders. The existence of at least one large shareholder will reduce the agency costs and asymmetric information. On one hand, enhanced monitoring will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. On the other hand, large shareholders are willing to spend time and effort to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects and thus reduce the information asymmetry. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the point of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group as family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. On the other hand, significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The main disadvantage of owner-managers is that they may lack the expertise to manage their firms although their position in the family may make it natural for them to be the manager. Another advantage of the family-controlled firm is that the family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can all collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Therefore, as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of agency costs may decrease but as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of agency costs may increase again. Although previous studies have noticed the influence of ownership structure, no analysis has been carried out to explore the investment behaviour of firms controlled by the three differ-ent kinds of shareholders. Our first motivation is to fill this gap. Splitting our sample into three representative groups enables us to study the financing constraints and investment behaviour of firms that are family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely held. The focus of this study is on Canadian firms. The Canadian evidence is worth particular attention because the Canadian business environment is similar to the US business environment in terms of legal, regulatory, and market institutions but it is similar to European or Asian firms in terms of ownership structure. Therefore, a study of Canadian firms can provide a useful and rational assessment of the investment behaviour of firms that follow the ownership structures of Europe and Asia but operate in a business environment and institutional setting similar to those of the US. Further, a large number of Canadian firms have controlling shareholders and a large proportion, approximately 60%, of Canadian firms can be categorized as having concentrated ownership structure. Among the firms with concentrated ownership, over 1/3 of them can be dis-tinguished as family-controlled. This dataset provides an ideal setting to study the investment behaviours of firms according to the nature of their controllers. Our results illustrate that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is higher than the intensity of investments of concentrated ownership firms and that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is positively and significantly affected by the availability of funds from internal sources. In contrast, for concentrated ownership firms the intensity is positively and significantly affected by the availability of growth opportunities. These observations suggest that in comparison with the concentrated ownership firms, the widely-held firms face higher levels of financing constraints and exhibit less value maximizing behaviour. However, once we separate the family-controlled firms from the institution-controlled firms, we find that the investment expenditures of the family-controlled firms and the institution-controlled firms are not significantly different in terms of their dependence on internal cash flows or on the market-to-book ratios. We also find that widely-held firms tend to invest in projects that payoff quickly. This preference may be the result of these firms desires to ease their external funding constraints by generating funds internally.

Yes / Despite a growing literature, the relationship between financing constraints (FC), intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and firm innovation remains unclear within the transitional country context. Drawing on endogenous growth theory and extending the Gorodnichenko and Schnitzer (2013) framework, we hypothesize that in addition to firm-specific factors, country-level variables manifested within FC hamper incremental innovation, albeit in varying degrees due to industry heterogeneity. Secondly, as opposed to previous studies that solely focus on FC affecting firm innovation, we propose that due to resource constraints, firms in transition economies tend to follow an imitational innovation strategy, and therefore, from this perspective, IPR protection can be crucial for firm-level innovation within those economies. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) consisting of information for about 21,960 firms from 27 Eastern European and Central Asian transition countries and employing a two-step probit model with endogenous regressors, we find that adverse effects of FC and IPR on firms' innovation activities are driven from within as well as between industries. Focusing on the differential impacts of FC and IPR protection across industries, we direct potential causal pathways from easing FC and optimal IPR protection to encourage firms' innovation. Based on the findings, while very strict IPR protection is detrimental to firms' product and process innovation in industries with limited resource and skill capabilities, it is nevertheless helpful for research and development (R&D) activities in industries characterised by strong R&D and IP capacities. Our results offer useful insights for policymakers to support incremental innovation as well as boost invention. IPR protection policies require to be customised to the industries and firms, since invariably tight or lax IPR enforcement can be discouraging to both incremental and radical innovation, causing all industries suffering from the same treatment.

O presente estudo investiga os impactos da redução nas restrições financeiras para a captação de dívidas no mercado de capitais brasileiro sobre o financiamento e os investimentos de companhias brasileiras de capital aberto e fechado, não financeiras. Empiricamente, o estudo interpreta que a Instrução CVM nº 476, vigente a partir do ano de 2009, que trata das ofertas públicas de valores mobiliários distribuídas com esforços restritos, pode ter reduzido as restrições financeiras enfrentadas por sociedades anônimas brasileiras, dado que tal mudança regulatória, comparativamente ao mecanismo tradicional para o acesso ao mercado de capitais nacional, reduziu os custos de emissão de debêntures (valor mobiliário em foco) no mercado de capitais nacional, tornou o acesso ao capital mais rápido e reduziu uma barreira regulatória para as sociedades anônimas fechadas, impedidas de realizar emissões públicas de debêntures no mercado de capitais nacional antes da CVM 476. Sobre o financiamento, foram propostas as hipóteses de que a CVM 476, isto é, a redução nas restrições financeiras, possibilitou que as companhias aumentassem sua alavancagem total, devido ao aumento da alavancagem de longo prazo. Sobre os investimentos, foram propostas hipóteses relacionadas ao caixa e aos investimentos em ativos de longo prazo. Em relação ao caixa, a hipótese propõe que a CVM 476 possibilitou que as companhias mantivessem menores saldos em caixa, devido à redução no componente de restrição financeira da política de caixa. Sobre os investimentos em ativos de longo prazo, a hipótese propõe que a CVM 476 possibilitou que companhias aumentassem tais investimentos, pois poderiam tornar-se menos dependentes da geração interna de recursos e de outras fontes de capitais. É esperado que tais efeitos sejam maiores para as sociedades anônimas de capital fechado, pois, a priori, espera-se que tais companhias sejam mais restritas financeiramente do que as abertas, especialmente no que se refere ao acesso ao mercado de capitais nacional. Para investigar as hipóteses, foram realizadas duas abordagens empíricas. Na primeira, as emissões de debêntures pela CVM 476 foram adicionadas aos modelos como a variável explicativa de interesse, sendo representada por uma variável binária que indica a emissão das debêntures, no ano da emissão. Na segunda abordagem, a CVM 476 é tratada como um experimento natural que pode ter provocado um choque exógeno nas restrições financeiras, ou seja, uma diminuição nas restrições financeiras enfrentadas pelas sociedades anônimas brasileiras de capital aberto e fechado (as companhias tratadas), de modo que, nesta abordagem, as empresas de responsabilidade limitada são definidas como grupo de controle. Os resultados são compatíveis com as hipóteses relativas ao financiamento, isto é, a CVM 476 possibilitou o aumento da alavancagem total e de longo prazo das companhias, de modo que há evidências que tais efeitos sejam maiores para as sociedades anônimas fechadas. Por outro lado, não foram encontradas evidências robustas que indiquem que a CVM 476 possibilitou, de forma ampla, ajustes no caixa e nos investimentos em ativos de longo prazo de companhias afetadas pela Instrução / This study analyses the effects of reducing financing constraints to debt issuance in Brazilian bond market on financing and investments of Brazilian public and private non-financial companies. Empirically, this study interprets that CVM Act nº 476, in force since 2009, which deals with public issuance of securities issued with restricted efforts, may have reduced financing constraints faced by Brazilian companies, since this Act, compared to the traditional mechanism to access Brazilian bond market, reduced issuance costs of debentures in domestic bond market, made the access to capital faster and reduced a regulatory barrier for private companies, restricted from conducting public issues of debentures in domestic bond market before CVM 476. The hypotheses related to financing propose that CVM 476, that is, the reduction in financing constraints, allowed companies to increase total leverage, due to the increase in long-term leverage. Regarding investments, hypotheses related to cash holdings and investments in long-term assets were proposed. The hypothesis concerning cash proposes that CVM 476 allowed companies to maintain lower cash holdings, due to the reduction in financing constraint component of the cash policy. Regarding investments in long-term assets, the hypothesis proposes that CVM 476 allowed companies to increase their investments, since they could become less dependent on internally generated cash flow and other sources of capital. These effects are expected to be greater for private companies, since these companies are expected to be more financially constrained than public companies, especially with regard to the access to the domestic bond market. Two empirical approaches were employed to investigate the hypotheses. In the first one, debentures issues according to CVM 476 were added to the models as the explanatory variable of interest, and is represented by a dummy variable that indicates the issuance of the debentures, in the year of the issue. In the second approach, CVM 476 is analyzed as a natural experiment that may have caused an exogenous shock in financing constraints, that is, a decrease in financing constraints faced by Brazilian public and private companies (treatment group) and, in this approach, limited liability firms are defined as the control group. The results are compatible with the hypotheses regarding financing, that is, CVM 476 made possible the increase in total and long-term leverage of the companies, and there is evidence that these effects are greater for private companies. On the other hand, no robust evidence was found that indicate the CVM 476 made possible extensive adjustments in cash holdings and investments in long-term assets of the companies treated by CVM 476.

Financing of research and development, as an important component of innovation, has attracted a renewed attention in academic financing literature. This paper examines the effect of financing constraints on R&D investments of high-tech Swedish companies over the period of 2010 to 2016. Accordingly, balance sheet data related to 49 companies, which has the smaller amount of employees in comparison with the rest of high-tech publicly listed companies is collected. Moreover, a dynamic model based on previous literature about financing constrained is developed to study the relation of both internal and external resources of financing with R&D investments of the selected companies. The result of this study shows that internal resources of financing such as cash holdings have a positive correlation with R&D investments. The coefficient of this financial variable is large enough to conclude that selected firms are financially constrained. However, based on other factors such as consideration of age and occurrence of global financial recession in the period that this study is accomplished, I concluded that dependence of companies to their internal resources for financing their R&D investments is an outcome of the characteristics of their environment.

在不完美的資本市場下，廠商的內外部融資彼此間為不完美的替代品，此時即使廠商有淨現值大於零的投資計畫，若外部資金因成本過高而無法取得，而其內部資金也已使用完畢，則廠商只好放棄此項投資計畫．此種因為資金不足而使投資計畫所受到的限制，我們稱為融資限制(Financing Constraints)． 對於面臨融資限制的廠商而言，由於其投資較依賴內部資金，故我們在其投資方程式中加入流動性變數時，此變數之係數應顯著．而對於未面臨融資限制的廠商而言，由於其投資較不依賴內部資金，故其投資方程式中流動性變數之係數應不顯著． 本研究即是使用八種廠商屬性，將廠商分成兩組，一組有面臨融資限制，一組未面臨融資限制，分別估計兩者加入流動性變數後的投資方程式，再觀察兩組廠商其流動性變數之係數是否有所差異，如此便可明瞭融資限制的存在是否能影響台灣廠商的投資．本研究使用的八種廠商屬性如下：(1)是否屬於集團．(2)所有權結構．(3)上市時間．(4)公司規模．(5)是否發放現金股利．(6)是否為製造業．(7)是否發行可轉換公司債．(8)是否發行商業本票．在實證結果上，雖然只有所有權結構

<p>The costs and constraints to financing, and the factors that influence them, play critical roles in the determination of corporate capital structures.</p> <p>Chapter 1 estimates firm-specific marginal cost of debt functions for a large panel of companies between 1980 and 2007. The marginal cost curves are identified by exogenous variation in the marginal tax benefits of debt. The location of a given company's cost of debt function varies with characteristics such as asset collateral, size, book-to-market, intangible assets, cash flows, and whether the firm pays dividends. Quantifying, the total cost of debt is on average 7.9% of asset value at observed levels, reaching as high as 17.8%. Expected default costs constitute approximately half of the total ex ante cost of debt.</p> <p>Chapter 2 uses the intersection between marginal cost of debt functions and marginal benefit of debt functions to examine optimal capital structure. By integrating the area between benefit and cost functions, net benefit of debt at equilibrium levels of leverage is calculated to be 3.5% of asset value, resulting from an estimated gross benefit of debt of 10.4% of asset value and an estimated cost of debt of 6.9%. Furthermore, the cost of being overlevered is asymmetrically higher than the cost of being underlevered. Case studies of several firms reveal that, for some firms, the cost of being suboptimally levered is small while, for other firms, this cost is large, suggesting firms face differing sensitivities to the capital structure choice.</p> <p>Finally, Chapter 3 examines the role of financing constraints on intertemporal capital structure choices of the firm via a structural model of capital investment. In the model, firms maximize value by choosing the amount of capital to invest and the amount of debt to issue. Firms face a dividend non-negativity constraint that restricts them from issuing equity and a debt capacity constraint that restricts them from issuing non-secured debt. The Lagrange multipliers on the two constraints capture the shadow values of being constrained from equity and debt financing, respectively. The two financing constraint measures are parameterized using firm characteristics and are estimated using GMM. The results indicate that these measures capture observed corporate financing behaviors and describe financially constrained firms. Finally, between the two financing constraints, the limiting constraint is the debt restriction, suggesting that firms care about preserving financial slack.</p> / Dissertation

Le financement des entreprises biotechnologiques (EB) est abordé selon deux axes principaux de recherche, les contraintes financières (CFI) et les structures financières (SF). Notre objectif est d'examiner, dans une perspective internationale, l'existence de CFI et d'une SF particulière pour ce type de firmes qui appartiennent à la catégorie des entreprises technologiquement innovantes (ETI). Pour ce faire, nous scindons les pays de notre échantillon en modèles de capitalisme, avec d'un côté, les EB des pays « néo- ou ultra-libéraux » (PL) et de l'autre, « intermédiés » (PI). Ce découpage nous permet de révéler les différences « systémiques ». Par ailleurs, des considérations individuelles (caractéristiques des EB) et conjoncturelles (prise en compte du krach boursier du printemps 2000) sont intégrées en tant qu'autres déterminants des conditions de financement des EB. Il ressort de cette triple approche (structurelle, conjoncturelle et individuelle) (abordée selon les données de panel) que des différences s'observent au niveau agrégé entre PL et PI, et entre PL (hors USA et USA seuls) que ce soient dans les CFI ou les SF. Néanmoins, il semblerait que les émissions publiques d'actions soient partout très importantes en termes de CFI et de SF. Mais, en revanche, le coût du capital des EB n'est pas apparu significatif. / We approached the financing of the biotech firms (BF) according to two mainstreams of research, the financing constraints (FC) and the capital structures (CS). Our objective was to look for the existence of the FC and a particular CS for high tech firms from an international point of view. To do so, we placed the countries of our sample into models of capitalism. On the one hand, we had the BF of the “neo- or ultra-liberal” countries (LC), and on the other hand, the BF of the “intermediate” countries (IC). Comparison of the models then allowed us to observe “systemic” differences in terms of our objective. Individual factors (the characteristics of the BF) and cyclical factors (taken into account by the stock market crash of spring 2000) were integrated as other determinants of BF's financing conditions. From this triple approach (structural, cyclical and individual) it emerges (according to panel data) that some differences can be observed at the aggregated level between LC and IC, and within LC (between USA alone and USA excluded) which are in the FC or CS. Nevertheless, the data indicate that the public stock issues are very important everywhere in our sample in terms of FC and CS but that the BF's cost of capital is not significant.

Several research studies in finance have investigated the effect of financial factors on investment decisions of firms. More recently, researchers have extended conventional models of firm-investment by incorporating a role for financing constraints in determining the firm's investment decision. Empirical work points to overwhelming evidence that in the presence of market imperfections, firm investments become sensitive to the availability of internal cash flows. However, the evidence regarding the patterns of these observed investment-cash flow sensitivities has been ambiguous. In this study we examine the impact of financial development on the sensitivity of firm-level investment to internal cash flow. Using international data from 31 countries over the 1987-1997 period, we find that after controlling for growth opportunities (as measured by Tobin's Q), investment is more sensitive to cash flow for firms in less financially developed countries, indicating higher costs of information problems and lower availability of external capital in such countries. The results are robust to six different measures of financial development. We also find a strong negative relationship between investment cash-flow sensitivity and size (as measured by log of total assets) across countries, though our results are mixed when we investigate this size effect within 6 OECD countries. Overall, these findings are consistent with the notion that smaller firms face greater information costs and are therefore more dependent on internally generated capital for making their investment outlays. Furthermore, we establish a direct connection between the investment cash flow sensitivity studies and a parallel literature on the allocational efficiency of capital markets. We also document important distortionary impacts of using log specifications in the empirical estimation, and of including negative cash flow observations in the sample, which explain the qualitative difference between our results and those of some earlier studies. Finally, our results have important policy implications. Firms that are based in countries with poor standards of financial accounting and information disclosure are found to face greater challenges in accessing external capital markets. These firms are likely to experience high under-investment costs that, at a macro level, would translate into slower economic growth for the country. / Ph. D.