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| Financial Asset Allocation and Default Risk: The Reservoir Effect versus the Profit-Seeking Effect |
| DENG Lu, LIU Huan, HOU Canran
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School of Economics and Management, Beihang University;
School of Business, Beijing Technology and Business University;
School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications |
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Abstract As China adjusts to its new stage of economic development and the globalization of trade and finance, corporate investment enthusiasm is waning. This is due to the reduced profits of traditional industries, a decline in the labor force and a lower labor-capital ratio. Stocks, bonds, some financial derivatives and other financial assets have become the hot areas of corporate investment. Debt default is a major disruptive event in a firm's operation and the default risks of both private firms and state-owned enterprises have been rising since March 2014, meaning that lowering the debt risk of enterprises has become a focus of local government departments. Chiang et al. (2015) and Brogaard et al. (2017) construct a simplified default probability model based on the work of Bharath and Shumway (2008), who document that corporate default risk is closely related to the absolute value and the volatility of asset values, suggesting that better corporate governance mitigates corporate default risk.
From a micro perspective, a firm's financial asset allocation decision is influenced by two mechanisms, the reservoir effect and the profit-seeking effect. The reservoir effect arises because financial assets can stabilize a company's income and reduce the company's financing costs, both of which enhance the company's development potential. An implication of the profit-seeking effect is that holding too many financial assets threatens a firm's main business, inhibits the productivity of its physical investment and damages its long-term development. We focus on the agency cost in the financial asset allocation decision. We show that if the reservoir effect is the main driver of the financial asset allocation decision, financial asset investments arise from a strategic choice made by management to maintain the stable development of the enterprise, which reduces the agency cost. If the profit-seeking effect dominates, financial asset investments are the result of management myopia and so aggravate the agency conflicts between shareholders and managers.
Using data on China's A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2016, we find that firms with more corporate financial assets have lower default risks, so the reservoir effect of financial asset allocation is significant. However, agency conflict is greater when monetary policy is loose, as loose monetary policy attenuates the negative relation between corporate financial asset holding and default risk.
The government can adjust the structure of the national economy by formulating industrial plans appropriate for China's institutional setting. However, the information asymmetry between firms and the government means that the policies implemented by government regulators can have uncertain policy effects and adverse selection on the part of management can increase the risk of corporate default. In this paper, we discuss the effect of industry policy on the relation between a firm's financial asset allocation and its default risk and find that the reservoir effect is significant for firms belonging to industries supported by China's industrial plan, suggesting that government regulation alleviates enterprises' agency problems. However, supportive industrial policy exacerbates the adverse selection problem for management when monetary policy is loose, so financial asset investment is an important factor influencing corporate default risk. In addition, we use the quality of accounting information as a measure of agency costs and find that accounting conservatism mediates the relation between a firm's financial asset allocation and its default risk.
We make several contributions in this paper. First, we examine the effect of a firm's financial asset allocation on its corporate default risk, enriching discussion of which factors drive corporate default risk. Our results reveal the internal reason for the risk changes of China's listed companies and provide theoretical guidance for regulatory authorities on making policy. Second, we investigate the path of influence of financial asset allocation on default risk through agency cost, allowing us to explore the internal logic of the influence of a firm's financial asset allocation on its default risk and deepening the discussion of the motivations for financial asset allocation decisions. Finally, we verify the moderating effects of monetary policy and industrial policy on the relation between a firm's financial asset allocation and its default risk, contributing to the literature on macroeconomic policy and micro corporate behavior and providing useful evidence that the government can use to improve the effectiveness of policy.
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Received: 22 January 2019
Published: 03 August 2020
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