企业资本结构与产品市场战略

Capital Structure and Product Market Strategy

直到20世纪80年代,企业资本结构对产品市场竞争的影响才引起经济学家的广泛关注。对于这一问题的研究,存在着两种截然不同的理论结论:一种观点认为企业债务水平的提高会使其在产品市场竞争中更为强硬,增强其竞争力;另一种观点则恰好相反。事实上,企业的融资决策具有两种不同的间接效应:代理效应和策略效应。企业的融资决策在其代理效应和策略效应的平衡点达到最优。企业的融资决策与其产品市场策略之间的关系依赖于代理问题的性质、不确定性的来源及产品市场的特征等因素,企业的最优资本结构应该随这些因素的变化而变化。

The effect of company capital structure on product market competition did not get economists' extensive concern until the 80's of the last century. There are two completely different conclusions in theory on this subject. One reckons that the increase of a firm's debt will make itself tougher in the product market competition and then strengthen its competition ability. The other is just on the opposite. Based on these theories, this paper tries to set up a more general analysis framework in theory and provide a new direction for the future studies in this field.In order to analyze comprehensively the effects of the firms' capital structures on their product market competition, we must consider the following two aspects. First, the effects of the firms' capital structures on their product market competition are influenced by many factors including the nature of uncertainty (whether demands or costs are uncertain), the nature of the competition (Cournot competition versus Bertrand competition, Nash game versus Stackelberg game) and the characteristics of the product (whether the product is substitute or complement, whether or not the quality of the product is observable pre-purchase). Secondly, the firms' capital structures have two different effects on their product market competition, agency effect and strategy effect. Any neglect of these two aspects may lead to unilateral conclusions.Because of the separation between ownership and operation, the conflicts of their utility function will bring about certain agency costs. Firms' capital structure has a great influence on these agency costs. This is the agency effect. Moreover, a firm's financial decision will significantly influence its product market competition through its effect on the product market rivals' strategy. This is the indirect strategy effect. It is the tradeoff between these two different effects that determines the firms' optimal capital structure. The interaction between firms' capital structure and their product market competition depends on the nature of agency problem, the source of uncertainty, the characteristic of the product market, etc. 