财务弹性对企业投资水平和投资效率的影响

The impact of Financial Flexibility on Investment and Investment Efficiency

目前，关于财务弹性的研究集中在财务弹性对企业现金持有、资本结构选择和股利发放等财务决策的影响方面，关于财务弹性对企业投资的影响研究尚不充分。本文以中国A股1998～2011年上市企业为样本，基于财务弹性两个主要来源：内部现金和借债，从企业现金持有和财务杠杆（表示举债能力）双重视角，对财务弹性做出界定。以企业融资成本为切入点，不仅研究了财务弹性对企业投资水平的影响，而且研究了财务弹性对不同融资约束企业投资水平影响的差异，最终考虑到委托代理问题，将财务弹性对企业投资的影响研究深入到对投资效率的影响。结果表明，财务弹性能显著提高企业投资水平；财务弹性对融资约束企业投资水平提升尤为显著；由于委托代理问题，财务弹性企业投资效率显著低于无弹性企业投资效率。该研究为企业建立财务弹性的意义提供了证据，有助于全面认识财务弹性的价值。

Chinese enterprises are facing dramatically changing operational environment with economic opening and progress, technological advancement, and heightened competition. China capital market is not advanced, finance frictions is large, especially to private enterprises or Small and medium - sized firms. To cope with negative shocks, avoid falling into financial crises and seize investment opportunities, firms have to maintain financial flexibility in an uncertain environment in order to maximize the firm value. The value of Financial Flexibility is improved, financial researchers have focused their attention and interest on corporate financial flexibility in the past few years. Existing literature about Financial Flexibility mainly examines the effect of financial flexibility on corporate cash holding, capital structure choices, and dividend payouts. Yet, the effect of financial flexibility on corporate in- vestment is under - studied, especially to china firms. We have not found the research about the effect of Financial Flexibility on corporate investment efficiency. Because of Measuring financial flexibility either by corporate cash holding or debt capacity, previous studies fail to fully explain whether financial flexibility helps to improve the level of firm investment. Questions remain unanswered. Too many questions need to be researched, Does the effect of fi- nancial flexibility on investment vary among different types of firms？ What is the underlying mechanism thorough which financial flexibility affects firm investment？ The management team of financial flexibility firms may take ad- vantage of the slack financial environment overinvestment or excessive luxury consumption, does financial flexibility improve or decrease firms＇ investment efficiency？ This paper makes a first attempt to address these questions. The paper measures financial flexibility by incorporating cash holding and leverage, the two sources that could impact financial flexibility. Using a sample of Chinese public companies that are listed in the A - share market over the period of 1998--2011, this paper investigates how financial flexibility affects the level and efficiency of corporate investment. It makes three contributions to the extant literature. First, from the perspective of financial constraints and financing costs, the paper takes a clear and logic approach to examine the effect of financial flexibility on corpo- rate investment. The result shows that Financial Flexibility can improve a firm＇ s investment. Second, the paper en- riches the research on financial flexibility by investigating its differential effects on investment between constrained versus unconstrained firms. The papers finds that financial flexibility better helps financially constrained firms to boost their investment. Third, from the agency perspective, the paper further investigates how financial flexibility af- fects investment efficiency. The result shows that, while improving the level of firm investment, financial flexibility decreases investment efficiency. The empirical study finds the evidence of overinvestment and underinvestment of Financial Flexibility firms. This suggests that financial flexibility could aggravate the agency problem. Taking the perspective of financing costs and financing constrain, the paper contributes to consummating the framework of research on financial flexibility. This research gives some evidence that Financial Flexibility can im- prove the investment ability of companies and induced agency problem. The paper＇ s empirical findings broaden our understanding on the value of financial flexibility, and lay a foundation for future research on the effect of financial flexibility on investment efficiency and firm performance.