企业融资的理论与实践：从现场的证据

1、the theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field abstractwe survey 392 cfos about the cost of capital, capital budgeting, and capital structure. large firms rely heavily on present value techniques and the capital asset pricing model, while small firms are relatively likely to u

2、se the payback criterion. a surprising number of firms use firm risk rather than project risk in evaluating new investments. firms are concerned about financial flexibility and credit ratings when issuing debt, and earnings per share dilution and recent stock price appreciation when issuing equity.

3、we find some support for the pecking-order and trade-off capital structure hypotheses but little evidence that executives are concerned about asset substitution, asymmetric information, transactions costs, free cash flows, or personal taxes.in this paper, we conduct a comprehensive survey that descr

4、ibes the current practice of corporate finance. perhaps the best-known field study in this area is john lintner's (1956) path-breaking analysis of dividend policy. the results of that study are still quoted today and have deeply affected the way that dividend policy research is conducted. in man

5、y respects, our goals are similar to lintner's. we hope that researchers will use our results to develop new theories and potentially modify or abandon existing views. we also hope that practitioners will learn from our analysis by noting how other firms operate and by identifying areas where ac

6、ademic recommendations have not been fully implemented.our survey differs from previous surveys in a number of dimensions.1 first, the scope of our survey is broad. we examine capital budgeting, cost of capital, and capital structure. this allows us to link responses across areas. for example, we in

7、vestigate whether firms that consider financial flexibility to be a capital structure priority are also likely to value real options in capital budgeting decisions. we explore each category in depth, asking more than 100 total questions in total.second, we sample a large cross-section of approximate

8、ly 4,440 firms. in total, 392 chief financial officers responded to the survey, for a response rate of 9%. the next largest survey that we know of is moore and reichert (1983) who study 298 large firms. we investigate for possible nonresponse bias and conclude that our sample is representative of th

9、e population.third, we analyze the responses conditional on firm characteristics. we examine the relation between the executives responses and firm size, p/e ratio, leverage, credit rating, dividend policy, industry, management ownership, ceo age, ceo tenure, and the education of the ceo. by testing

10、 whether responses differ across these characteristics, we shed light on the implications of various corporate finance theories related to firm size, risk, investment opportunities, transaction costs, informational asymmetry, and managerial incentives. this analysis allows for a deeper investigation

11、 of corporate finance theories. for example, we go beyond asking whether firms follow a financial pecking order (myers and majluf, 1984). we investigate whether the firms that most strongly support the implications of the pecking-order theory are also the firms most affected by informational asymmet

12、ries, as suggested by the theory.survey-based analysis complements other research based on large samples and clinical studies. large sample studies are the most common type of empirical analysis, and have several advantages over other approaches. most large-sample studies offer, among other things,

13、statistical power and cross-sectional variation. however, large-sample studies often have weaknesses related to variable specification and the inability to ask qualitative questions. clinical studies are less common but offer excellent detail and are unlikely to “average away” unique aspects of corp

14、orate behavior. however, clinical studies use small samples and their results are often sample-specific.the survey approach offers a balance between large sample analyses and clinical studies. our survey analysis is based on a moderately large sample and a broad cross-section of firms. at the same t

15、ime, we are able to ask very specific and qualitative questions. the survey approach is not without potential problems, however. surveys measure beliefs and not necessarily actions. survey analysis faces the risk that the respondents are not representative of the population of firms, or that the sur

16、vey questions are misunderstood. overall, survey analysis is seldom used in corporate financial research, so we feel that our paper provides unique information to aid our understanding of how firms operate.the results of our survey are both reassuring and surprising. on one hand, most firms use pres

17、ent value techniques to evaluate new projects. on the other hand, a large number of firms use company-wide discount rates to evaluate these projects rather than a project-specific discount rate. interestingly, the survey indicates that firm size significantly affects the practice of corporate financ

18、e. for example, large firms are significantly more likely to use net present value techniques and the capital asset pricing model for project evaluation than are small firms, while small firms are more likely to use the payback criterion. a majority of large firms have a tight or somewhat tight targ

19、et debt ratio, in contrast to only one-third of small firms.executives rely heavily on practical, informal rules when choosing capital structure. the most important factors affecting debt policy are financial flexibility and a good credit rating. when issuing equity, respondents are concerned about

20、earnings per share dilution and recent stock price appreciation. we find very little evidence that executives are concerned about asset substitution, asymmetric information, transactions costs, free cash flows, or personal taxes. we acknowledge but do not investigate the possibility that these deepe

21、r implications are, for example, impounded into prices and credit ratings, and so executives react to them indirectly.the paper is organized as follows. in the second section, we present the survey design, the sampling methodology, and discuss some caveats of survey research. in the third section we

22、 study capital budgeting. we analyze the cost of capital in the fourth section. in the fifth section we examine capital structurewe offer some concluding remarks in the final section.2. methodology2.1. designour survey focuses on three areas: capital budgeting, cost of capital, and capital structure

23、. based on a careful review of the existing literature, we developed a draft survey that was circulated to a group of prominent academics for feedback. we incorporated their suggestions and revised the survey. we then sought the advice of marketing research experts on the survey design and execution

24、. we made changes to the format of the questions and overall survey design with the goal of minimizing biases induced by the questionnaire and maximizing the response rate.the survey project is a joint effort with the financial executives institute (fei). fei has approximately 14,000 members that ho

25、ld policy-making positions as cfos, treasurers, and controllers at 8,000 companies throughout the u.s. and canada. every quarter, duke university and the fei poll these financial officers with a one-page survey on important topical issues (graham (1999a) and graham (1999b). the usual respo

26、nse rate for the quarterly survey is 810%.using the penultimate version of the survey, we conducted beta tests at both fei and duke university. this involved having graduating mba students and financial executives fill out the survey, note the required time, and provide feedback. our beta testers to

27、ok, on average, 17 minutes to complete the survey. based on this and other feedback, we made final changes to the wording on some questions. the final version of the survey contained 15 questions, most with subparts, and was three pages long. one section collected demographic information about

28、the sample firms.the survey instrument appears on the internet at the address /charvey/research/indexr.htm. we sent out two different versions with questions 1114 and questions 14 interchanged. we were concerned that the respondents might fill in the first page or two of the survey

29、 but leave the last page blank. if this were the case, we would expect to see a higher proportion of respondents answering the questions that appear at the beginning of either version of the survey. we find no evidence that the response rate differs depending on whether the questions are at beginnin

30、g or the end of the survey.2.2. delivery and responsewe used two mechanisms to deliver the survey. we sent a mailing from duke university on february 10, 1999 to each cfo in the 1998 fortune 500 list. independently, the fei faxed out 4,440 surveys to their member firms on february 16, 1999. three hu

31、ndred thirteen of the fortune 500 cfos belong to the fei, so these firms received both a fax and a mailed version. we requested that the surveys be returned by february 23, 1999. to encourage the executives to respond, we offered an advanced copy of the results to interested parties.we employed a te

32、am of 10 mba students to follow up on the mailing to the fortune 500 firms with a phone call and possible faxing of a second copy of the survey. on february 23, fei refaxed the survey to the 4,440 fei corporations and we remailed the survey to the fortune 500 firms, with a new due date of february 2

33、6, 1999. this second stage was planned in advance and designed to maximize the response rate.the executives returned their completed surveys by fax to a third-party data vendor. using a third party ensures that the survey responses are anonymous. we feel that anonymity is important to obtain frank a

34、nswers to some of the questions. although we do not know the identity of the survey respondents, we do know a number of firm-specific characteristics, as discussed below.three hundred ninety-two completed surveys were returned, for a response rate of nearly 9%. given the length (three pages) and dep

35、th (over 100 questions) of our survey, this response rate compares favorably to the response rate for the quarterly fei-duke survey. the rate is also comparable to other recent academic surveys. for example, trahan and gitman (1995) obtain a 12% response rate in a survey mailed to 700 cfos. the resp

36、onse rate is higher (34%) in block (1999), but he targets chartered financial analysts - not senior officers of particular firms.2.3. summary statistics and data issuesfig. 1 presents summary information about the firms in our sample. the companies range from very small (26% of the sample firms have

37、 sales of less than $100 million) to very large (42% have sales of at least $1 billion) (see fig. 1a). in subsequent analysis, we refer to firms with revenues greater than $1 billion as “large”. forty percent of the firms are manufacturers (fig. 1c). the nonmanufacturing firms are evenly spread acro

38、ss other industries, including financial (15%), transportation and energy (13%), retail and wholesale sales (11%), and high-tech (9%). in the appendix, we show that the responding firms are representative of the corporate population for size, industry, and other characteristics.fig. 1. sample c

39、haracterstics based on the survey respponses of 392 cfos.view thumbnail imagesthe median priceearnings ratio is 15. sixty percent of the respondents have priceearnings ratios of 15 or greater (fig. 1d). we refer to these firms as growth firms when we analyze how investment opportunities affect corpo

40、rate behavior. we refer to the remaining 40% of the respondents as nongrowth firms.the distribution of debt levels is fairly uniform (fig. 1e). approximately one-third of the sample firms have debt-to-asset ratios below 20%, another third have debt ratios between 20% and 40%, and the remaining firms

41、 have debt ratios greater than 40%. we refer to firms with debt ratios greater than 30% as highly levered. the creditworthiness of the sample is also dispersed (fig. 1f). twenty percent of the companies have credit ratings of aa or aaa, 32% have an a credit rating, and 27% have a bbb rating. the rem

42、aining 21% have speculative debt with ratings of bb or lower.though our survey respondents are cfos, we ask a number of questions about the characteristics of the chief executive officers. we assume that the cfos act as agents for the ceos. nearly half of the ceos for the responding firms are betwee

43、n 50 and 59 years old (fig. 1i). another 23% are over age 59, a group we refer to as “mature.” twenty-eight percent of the ceos are between the ages of 40 and 49. the survey reveals that executives change jobs frequently. nearly 40% of the ceos have been in their jobs less than four years, and anoth

44、er 26% have been in their jobs between four and nine years (fig. 1j). we define the 34% who have been in their jobs longer than nine years as having “long tenure”. forty-one percent of the ceos have an undergraduate degree as their highest level of educational attainment (fig. 1k). another 38% have

45、an mba and 8% have a non-mba masters degree. finally, the top three executives own at least 5% of the common stock of their firm in 44% of the sample. these ceo characteristics allow us to examine whether managerial incentives or entrenchment affect the survey responses. we also study whether having

46、 an mba affects the choices made by corporate executives.企业融资的理论与实践：从现场的证据摘要：我们调查了392资本成本，资本预算，资本结构的首席财务官。大企业在很大程度上依赖于现值技术和资本资产定价模型，而小企业相对容易使用回收期准则。数量惊人的企业使用企业的风险，而不是项目风险评估新的投资。公司发行股本时，所关心的财务灵活性和发行债券时，信用评级和每股稀释和近期的股价升值收益。我们发现一些啄食顺序和权衡资本结构假说，但很少有证据有关资产置换，信息不对称，交易成本，自由的现金流量，或个人所得税，高管们的支持。在本文中，我们进行了全面的

47、调查，描述了企业融资的现行做法。也许在这方面最有名的实地研究是约翰·林特纳（1956）开创性的股利政策的分析。该项研究的结果仍然援引的今天，已经深深地影响股利政策研究进行的方式。在许多方面，我们的目标是林特纳的相似。我们希望，研究人员将利用我们的研究结果，以发展新的理论 - 并有可能修改或放弃现有的意见。我们也希望，医生会从我们的分析，学习其他公司如何运作，并确定学术建议没有得到充分实施的地区。我们的调查dimensions.1首先在以往的调查不同，我们的调查范围是广泛的。我们研究资本预算，资本成本和资本结构。这使我们能够连接各地区的反应。例如，我们调查公司认为财务上的灵活性，是一种

48、资本结构优先是否也有可能在资本预算决策的实物期权价值。我们深入探讨每个类别中，要求100多个总总的问题。第二，我们品尝大截面约4440家公司。共392首席财务人员对调查作出回应，回应率为9。下一个最大的调查，我们知道是摩尔和赖克特（1983）研究298大企业。我们可能无反应偏差调查，并得出结论，我们的样本是代表的人口。第三，我们分析公司特征的反应条件。我们审查的高管和企业规模之间的关系，p / e比率，杠杆，信用评级，股息政策，产业，管理所有权，首席执行官的年龄，ceo任期，和教育的ceo。通过测试反应是否在这些特点不同，我们摆脱对各种企业融资与企业规模，风险，投资机会，信息不对称，交易成本和

49、管理激励理论的影响。这种分析可以为企业融资理论更深入的调查。例如，我们去超越，询问公司是否按照金融啄食顺序（迈尔斯和麦吉罗夫，1984年）。我们调查是否最强烈的支持啄食顺序理论的影响，公司也受影响最严重的信息不对称理论的建议的公司。基于调查分析的补充，基于大样本临床研究的其他研究。大样本研究的实证分析是最常见的类型，比其他方法有几个优点。最大样本的研究提供，除其他事项外，统计力量和横断面的变化。但是，大样本的研究，经常有有关变量的规范和定性问题不能问的弱点。临床研究是不太常见的，但提供出色的细节，是不可能“平均”的企业行为独特的方面。然而，临床研究，使用小样本，其结果往往是特定的样本。调查方法

50、提供了一个大样本分析和临床研究之间的平衡。我们的调查分析的基础上适度的大样本和企业广泛的横截面。同时，我们能够提出非常具体的和定性的问题。然而，调查方法也不是没有可能出现的问题。调查措施信仰不一定行动。调查分析的受访者是不是代表的人口公司面临的风险，或调查的问题是误解。总体而言，调查分析企业财务研究很少使用，所以我们认为我们的论文提供了独特的信息，以帮助我们了解企业如何运作。我们的调查结果都让人放心的和令人惊讶的。一方面，大多数企业使用现值技术，新项目进行评估。另一方面，大量的企业利用全公司范围内的折扣率，以评估这些项目，而不是具体项目的贴现率。有趣的是，调查表明，企业规模明显影响企业融资的做

51、法。例如，大型企业有显着更有可能使用净现值技术和项目的评价比小企业的资本资产定价模型，而小企业更容易使用回收期标准。大多数大型企业有紧密或有点紧的目标债务比例，相反，只有三分之一的小企业。高管很大程度上依赖于实际的，非正式的规则时，选择的资本结构。债务政策的最重要的因素是财务上的灵活性和良好的信用评级。发行股票时，受访者关注每股稀释和近期的股价升值收益。我们很少发现的证据表明，高管有关资产置换，信息不对称，交易成本，自由的现金流量，或个人所得税。我们承认，但不调查的可能性，这些更深层次的含义是，例如，扣押到价格和信用评级，使高管间接地对他们的反应本文组织如下。在第二部分中，我们提出调查问卷设计

52、，抽样方法，调查研究讨论一些注意事项。在第三部分中，我们研究资本预算。我们分析在第四节资本成本。在第五部分中，我们研究资本结构，我们在最后一节提供一些结论性意见。我们的调查集中在三个方面：资本预算，资本成本和资本结构。仔细审查了现有文献的基础上，我们制定了一个草案被分发到一组反馈的著名学者的调查。我们采纳他们的建议，并修订了调查。然后，我们要求调查的设计和执行营销研究专家的意见。我们提出的问题和减少问卷引起的偏见和最大限度地提高响应速度的目标与整体调查设计的格式更改。调查项目是与财务执行官协会（fei）的共同努力。费有大约14000名成员拥有决策职位作为首席财务官，财务主管，并在整个美国和加拿

53、大的8000家公司的控制器。每季度进行一次，杜克大学和费调查这些财务人员的一个重要议题（格雷厄姆（1999年a）和格雷厄姆（1999年b）上的单页的调查。通常的季度调查的回应率是8-10。使用调查的倒数第二个版本，我们进行测试的测试费和杜克大学的。这涉及到毕业的mba学生和财务管理人员填写的调查，注意所需的时间，并提供反馈。我们的beta测试了，平均17分钟才能完成调查。这和其他反馈的基础上，我们作出了最后的变化，一些问题上的措辞。调查的最终版本中包含15个问题，大部分与子部分，是三页长。一节收集有关样本的人口统计资料。调查文书在互联网上出现的地址/charvey/research/indexr.htm我们发出了两个不同的版本，与问题11-14和1-4互换问题。我们担心的受访者填写在第一页或两个调查，但留下的最后一页空白。如果是这样的话，我们希望看到一个较高比例的受访者回答的问题出现在任一版本的调查开始