This paper analyzes the role of controlling shareholders in corporate wage decisions. Even though existing theories have argued for the positive role of controlling shareholders who own substantial portions of voting shares, there have not been many theoretical or empirical papers that specifically identify or confirm their roles in corporate management. If any, existing papers analyze the relationship between managerial ownership and firm value or firm performance. However, the causal relationship is not easily testable, and the results are indeterminate. This is partly due to the endogeneity problem between ownership and firm value in addition to the mixed effects of managerial ownership on firm value. In theory, larger managerial ownership positively affects firm value by aligning the incentives of managers with those of outside shareholders, but managers would also hold larger numbers of shares if they find the shares of their companies are undervalued. Such an endogeneity issue makes it extremely difficult to test empirically the effect of managerial ownership on firm value. In addition, a larger size of managerial ownership entrenches managers, which has a negative effect on the firm value, leading to indeterminate conclusions on the issue. In this paper, we identify wage bargaining as a corporate decision process in which managers or controlling shareholders can get involved. We set up a theoretical model to predict the relationship between managerial ownership and wage decision, and empirically test the hypotheses based on the model. We use a cooperative bargaining model in which a controlling shareholder or a manager who represents the share holder bargains with employees to decide on employees’ wage. Unlike other production factors such as financial capital or intermediate materials to be out- sourced from competitive factor markets, wage provides a good candidate for confirming the role of controlling shareholders in corporate management since wage is negotiable in the bargaining process between the firm and its employees. We derive theoretical predictions on the effect of controlling ownership and the personal benefits controlling share holders gain from controlling the wage of the firm’s employees. As a result, we could empirically confirm the disciplinary role of controlling ownership in wage decision in firms. The theoretical model predicts that controlling ownership is negatively correlated with the wage of employees as long as the profitability of the firm is not too high or employees’ stock ownership is large enough. This is because the relative importance of cash flow rights of a controlling shareholder increases with his stock ownerships while the relative importance of his private benefit of control decreases. Our intuition dictates that the more shares the controlling shareholder owns, the higher wage will be incurring more cost to his share value, providing an incentive for him to lower the wage. Thus, the condition of low profitability is needed since the controlling shareholder may concede too much in a wage bargaining if he has too much to lose when the profitability of the firm is very high and the bargaining fails. The condition for the reasonable level of employees’ ownership also implies that employees also need to have something to lose if the bargaining fails. Empirical analyses confirm the theoretical predictions and show that there is a negative relationship between the two variables. We also show in the theoretical model that the size of the private benefit of control is positively correlated with employees’ wage. We conjecture that controlling shareholders concede to the employees in the wage bargaining since the private benefit can be lost if the bargaining fails. The data used in this paper for empirical analyses is obtained from the TS-2000 of KLCA, and covers the listed companies on the Korea Stock Exchange during the years from 1999 to 2002. The empirical analyses confirm the theoretical predictions and show that there is a negative relationship between controlling ownership and wage level. When we include an interaction variable between low profitability dummy variable and controlling ownership, the coefficient is negative and significant at the 1% significance level. The result confirms our conjecture that the monitoring role of controlling shareholders will be stronger when the firm does not perform well. When we divide the sample firms based on their employees’ ownerships and profitability, we again confirm our theoretical results that the monitoring role of controlling shareholders would be stronger in those companies with higher employees’ ownership and lower profitability. The over all results suggest that a professional manager with lower stock ownership would collude with his employees and allow them higher wages in order to secure his control over his firm. The paper also shows that the disciplinary role of a controlling shareholder is more prominent when the performance of the company is poorer. On the other hand, any increase in the ownership by employees or their participation in a labor union tends to have an increasing effect on their wage level. The theoretical and empirical results of the paper enhance our understanding of the role of a controlling shareholder as a monitor of corporate management.

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The Korean stock markets include the KOSPI market (main board), the KOSDAQ market (new market), and the FreeBoard (organized OTC stock market). Originally, the first organized OTC stock market in Korea was the Third Market, which was founded in March 2000, specifically for the purpose of providing liquidity for stocks which could not meet the listing requirements for the regulated markets (the KOSPI and the KOSDAQ markets), particularly venture-related growth stocks; or which had been delisted from the regulated markets. Except for the first couple of years, however, the Third Market suffered from illiquidity arising mainly from regulatory inadequacy and the IT bubble. Hence, the Third Market did not fulfill the goals for which it was created. The Korean government decided to revamp the Third Market under its “Plan to Support Finance and Tax for Developing the Venture Industry;” in July 2005, the Third Market was replaced by FreeBoard, market rules were strengthened, and some tax benefits were added. However, the tax benefits fell short of the tax benefits provided to the regulated markets, and FreeBoard retained an archaic trading mechanism, in which orders are usually matched only if they are identical in both price and quantity. In this paper, we examine how effectively FreeBoard (including the Third Market, the predecessor of FreeBoard) has served three particular roles as the organized OTC stock market in Korea. The roles examined are: providing liquidity and market quality, providing financing, and bridging the OTC and regulated markets. First of all, FreeBoard’s creation of liquidity and market quality are examined through microstructure analysis. The latest microstructure theory uses trade-execution costs (or pricing errors) to measure a stock market’s quality in general. Hasbrouck (1993) and Bandi and Russell (2006) are representative of the research. In this paper, we utilized the Full-Information Transaction Cost (FITC) in Bandi and Russell as the main analytical frame. In addition, as a robustness check, we used Hasbrouck’s measure for pricing errors. We analyzed these estimates and other market statistics to measure the market quality of the FreeBoard in comparison to the KOSDAQ market. Next, we evaluated FreeBoard’s role of providing finance to unlisted firms by analyzing the total amounts of equity and bond financing raised by companies. Finally, we undertook a market macrostructure analysis to examine FreeBoard’s role of bridging the OTC and regulated markets. The analysis of the connection between the OTC and regulated markets compares the changes in market liquidity and volatility resulting from a listing transfer from the regulated markets to the FreeBoard or vice versa. Until recently, there has been very limited academic research concentrating on the OTC stock markets. However, the development of IT relating to stock trading and the increasing liquidity of the OTC markets has recently enabled the collection of OTC trading data, and several research projects are being carried out internationally, especially in the U.S. Compared to other papers focusing on Korea, this is the first paper to use FreeBoard’s intraday data to test its functional efficiency and economic significance. Other international papers have conducted analysis for the “one-way” bridging function from the NYSE and Nasdaq down to the OTCBB and Pink Sheets (Easley, O’Hara and Pompilio (2005) and Harris, Panchapagesan and Werner (2008)). This is the first paper to conduct a complete analysis of the OTC market’s “two-way” bridging function, both from the regulated markets down to the OTC, and from the OTC up to the regulated markets, in order to investigate the significance of the OTC market’s macrostructure. The sample period is from March 2000 to December 2007. We used intraday trade execution data for all stocks listed (registered) on both the Third Market and FreeBoard. We found the following results. •Market statistics of the firms listed on the FreeBoard are qualitatively very low and its market quality measured by FITC (or Hasbrouck’s pricing errors) is much lower than those of the KOSDAQ market. Hence, the FreeBoard does not provide adequate liquidity or market quality, and thus does not provide an attractive new investment opportunity for investors. • Few public offerings have been made since the inauguration of the market, so FreeBoard has not significantly facilitated financing for unlisted and unregulated firms. • In the case of stocks moving from regulated markets down to the FreeBoard, liquidity dried up and volatility increased substantially. In contrast, for stock transferring from the Free- Board up to the KOSDAQ market, both liquidity and volatility improved tremendously. In the latter case, perhaps surprisingly, the stock prices decline slightly; our interpretation is that the prices were too high on Freeboard since the greater liquidity suggests that pricing on KOSDAQ should be more efficient than it is on FreeBoard. Taken together, these results imply that FreeBoard’s market efficiency is very low. Our results also show that the functional gap between FreeBoard and the KOSDAQ market is huge, thereby exacerbating the inefficiency in the macrostructure of the Korean stock markets. Moreover, our results indicate that FreeBoard’s archaic trading mechanism has been the essential cause of inefficiency on FreeBoard and should be improved immediately.

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This paper re-examines the learning CAPM, a new version of conditional CAPM, developed by Adrian and Franzoni (2005). While acknowledging its firm foundation, we argue that the learning CAPM is likely to be exposed to endogeneity problems. In other words, the regressors are possibly correlated with the disturbance terms due to the omitted risk factors and errors-in-variable problems from the imperfect proxy for the unobservable market portfolio. Kim (2006) shows that the conventional Kalman filter provides an econometrician with invalid inference about the parameters if one ignores the endogeneity problems and provides new approach to circumvent endogeneity problems. In this paper, we test whether the proposed model can account for the Fama and French 25 size and book-to-market sorted portfolios. To test the joint significance of pricing errors, we use the root mean squared error (RMSE) where it gives equal weight to each portfolio as well as the composite pricing error (CPE) of Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004) in which it gives less weight to the volatile portfolio. The main findings of this paper are summarized as follows. First, Hausman’s (1978) specification test shows that there is a substantial correlation between the market portfolio and disturbance terms, which justifies the application of Kim’s (2006) two-step approach. We reject the null hypothesis of no correlation between the regressors and the disturbance terms in seventeen out of twenty-five portfolios. Second, our specification partly explains the size and value premium. While the time trends of the estimated market betas of the one from the Kalman filter ignoring endogeneity problems and our specification are very similar, the average market betas are considerably different. For example, the estimated average market beta of small-value portfolio by Kim’s (2006) approach is 1.62, whereas it is 1.05 when inferred from the Kalman filter ignoring endogeneity problems. It means that while the market betas of small-value stocks are underestimated if we ignore the endogeneity problems, the introduction of long-run market beta correctly estimates the true riskiness of small-value stocks. In addition, with Kim’s (2006) approach, the estimated average market beta of large-growth portfolio is 0.94, while it is 1.62 for small-value portfolio. Therefore, the proposed model explains why investors' expected return from small-value stocks is higher than that from large-growth stocks. Under our framework, small and value stocks earn more than big and growth stocks just because they are riskier than big and growth stocks. Third, the overall performance of our specification is better than that of the one from the Kalman filter ignoring endogeneity problems. The RMSE is reduced by about 28%. More importantly, the CPE drops by about 49%. Thus, the learning CAPM incorporating the endogeneity problems can better account for the size and value premium. However, our specification is not fully able to explain the value premium since the pricing errors of value portfolios are still significantly positive. Therefore, it seems that we are still missing some important determinants that explain the stock return patterns. Adrian and Franzoni (2005) develop a new type of conditional CAPM by incorporating the long-run changes in factor loadings as well as the contemporaneous changes in market betas. In their model, the long-run market beta plays a crucial role in explaining the size and value premium. Franzoni (2004) documents that the market betas of small and value stocks have decreased substantially in the second half of twentieth century. Based on the reduction in betas of small and value stocks, they argue that the high level of market betas from the past affect today’s market betas. The slow-learning of investors caused by the introduction of the long-run mean of market betas makes them larger than the OLS estimates. However, we argue that the regressors of the learning CAPM are very likely to be correlated with the disturbance terms. It is because : (1) there might be omitted risk factors such as SMB and HML of Fama and French (1993) which can explain most of the CAPM-related anomalies(size and value premium); and (2) there might be the errors-in-variable problems from the imperfect proxy for the unobservable market portfolio. Kim (2006) documents that the correct inference of Kalman filter strongly depends on the assumption that the regressors are uncorrelated with the disturbance terms. His simulation study shows that the conventional Kalman filter provides an econometrician with invalid inference about the parameters if one ignores the endogeneity problems. He derives a Heckman-type (1976) two-step approach to circumvent endogeneity problems and shows that one can obtain the consistent estimates of the hyper-parameters and correct inference of the time-varying factor loadings with the proposed two-step approach. Therefore, we apply Kim’s (2006) two-step approach to infer the time-varying market betas under the learning CAPM of Adrian and Franzoni (2005).

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In the Korean stock market, investors must wait, on average, for about 3 weeks after subscription day to trade initial public offering (IPO) stocks. At subscription day, the underwriting firms receive orders for the IPO stocks from various investor groups such as employees of the issuing firm, institutional and individual investors. This results in creating time lapse, or non-trading period between subscription and listing day in Korea. This is quite different from the IPO process in the U.S. Such non-trading period may be a risk factor on the IPO investments. Because investors cannot trade the IPO stocks during the non-trading period, they cannot gain the trading profits when positive information for an IPO stock is obtained and vice versa. This paper examines how the existence of non-trading period affects the IPO underpricing as a new risk factor that can increase the expected losses of the IPO investments in the Korean stock market. To answer this research question, we first define non-trading period effect as the upper bound of dis- count rate for the offering price or the expected losses that can occur during the non-trading period. We then measure an option value of the non-trading period effect with option pricing model and analyze the effect of the option values on the IPO underpricing. Longstaff (1995) provided an option pricing model to estimate losses by implementing restrictions on stock trade. Assuming a perfect timer who knows the optimal selling point of the IPO stocks, a variant of Longstaff model is applied to estimate the maximum expected losses resulting from the restriction on trading IPO stocks as option values. To estimate the option value, we should measure the volatility of each IPO stocks. But that is impossible because IPO stocks have no past return data. As a proxy for the volatility of an IPO stock, we used the average of volatilities of the matching firms. Matching firms, which had to be listed at least 3 years prior to the listing day of the concerned IPO stock, were selected within the same industry of the IPO stock. Using the data of 602 IPO stocks listed in Korea exchange (KRX) with KOSPI and KOSDAQ boards from February, 2000 to July, 2007, we first analyzed the degrees of IPO underpricing using various initial return measures. We found that the IPO underpricing in the Korean stock market was very high and sustainable. The average initial return at listing day (= closing price of listing day/offering price -1) was 57.60%. And the averages of the other 3 initial returns, the average of holding period returns (HPR) and cumulating abnormal returns (CAR) calculated for 20 trading days and HPR from listing day to first negative stock return day after the listing day, were higher than the average returns at the listing day. The amount of initial returns at listing day is more than double the amount of that in the U.S market, which was reported by Ritter and Welch (2002). We found the evidence that non-trading period effect is one of the important factors which determine the IPO underpricing. The option values for non-trading period effect were 11.98% of the offering price on average, which is about 21% of the initial returns at the listing day. And the IPO underpicing increases as the option value of the IPO stock increases. When the 602 IPO stocks were divided into five groups by their option values, the average initial returns of the highest group fell in the range of 25~49%, significantly higher than those of the lowest group, and the highest group always showed higher initial returns among subsamples before and after the abolition of the market making rule and among those of listed markets, KOSPI or KOSDAQ. These results are consistent with the results of the regression analysis. Various factors were controlled to evaluate the effect on the initial returns of IPO stocks. The factors considered were the change of the market making rule, market returns before and at the listing day, and other IPO-related characteristic variables -IPO amount, competitive rate of subscription, firm age, ROA, leverage ratio, etc. The option value for non-trading period effect was significantly and positively related with initial returns of IPO stocks in all models. However, the effects of the non-trading period on the IPO underpricing decreased after the abolition of the market making rule. Previous papers suggested that the expected losses of underwriting firms resulting from the IPO regulations such as compulsory market making rule or put-back option rule are the main cause for the IPO underpricing. Above and beyond this cause, this paper suggests that the expected losses of investors during non-trading period are another important cause for the IPO underpricing in the Korean stock market.

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In this paper, we investigate how the ownership structure of a firm is related to its corporate policy on payouts. Previous literature has identified several goals that may guide firms’ payout policies such as signaling firm value or lowering agency costs. Some of these studies argue that firms may distribute their cash or engage in share repurchase programs in order to send a signal to the market that either they are undervalued or their future value will be higher. Other researches claim that firms might lower their agency costs by adopting a payout policy to lower free cash flows. The focus of our study is to investigate whether the ownership and the control rights of controlling shareholders are linked to corporate payout decisions. It has been widely recognized that there can be a discrepancy between the ownership rights (also known as cash flow rights) and the control rights of controlling shareholders. In the case of Korea, ownership by affiliated firms can contribute to such differences. Many Korean firms have subsidiaries that are interconnected through interlocking ownership and internal capital markets. Considering the corporate ownership structure, we measure control rights through all the cash flow rights of controlling shareholders and the voting rights of all subsidiaries. Thus, the control rights include all the shares under the influence of the controlling shareholders. First, we examine payout policies for all publicly traded firms in the Korean Stock Exchange between 1998 and 2005. For share repurchases, we collected information on corporate decisions to engage in open market share repurchases as well as to allocate resources to trust funds that specialize in treasury stocks. Since all publicly traded firms are required to disclose their decisions on share repurchases, we collect information on the announcement dates, the amounts, and the methods of share repurchases. In addition, for corporate decisions to distribute cash to shareholders, we use the annual information of cash dividends reported in their financial statements. We empirically test the determinants and effects of payout policy using the announcement information and the financial data of publicly traded firms. Based on empirical results from previous studies, we have controlled for other explanatory factors such as firm size, capital structure, volatility, market to book ratio, cash holding, free cash flow, and chaebol dummy. In addition to these explanatory factors, we also examine how ownership and control rights affect payout decisions. Overall empirical results in this paper can be summarized in three parts. First, we find that firms of which controlling shareholders have greater ownership and control rights are more likely to choose to pay cash dividends to their shareholders controlling for other factors. In contrast, firms with lower ownership and control rights are more likely to adopt share repurchase programs. These results are strong and statistically significant. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis that ownership structure affects corporate decisions to adopt payout policy. Second, we test whether firms with weak ownership rights are engaged in larger scale share repurchase programs. Specifically, we examine factors affecting the number of shares that a firm buys back or the proportion of firm resources allocated buying back shares. After controlling for the aforementioned explanatory factors, we find that firms with weaker ownership and control rights are more likely to both buy more shares and spend proportionately more resources, compared to firms with stronger ownership and control rights. Third, we examine the effects of payout policy on firm value. In particular, we investigate how announcements by firms to buy shares affect their stock returns. Under the efficient market hypothesis, investor decisions in the market are believed to reflect all information available in stock prices. Thus, the changes in stock prices reflect how the market evaluates the payout decisions of firms. We find that stock prices decline after the announcement of share repurchases by firms whose controlling shareholders have weaker ownership. This result is different from the positive stock returns shown in many earlier studies of share repurchases that did not examine ownership structure. Our result suggests that investors in the market perceive a negative consequence of share repurchases by firms with weak ownership structure and consequently, firm value declines. Taking into account all the results in this study, we conclude that a firm’s payout policy depends on ownership structure. Moreover, firms with weak ownership structures tend to adopt share repurchase programs at the cost of other shareholders.

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This study examines a large sample of M&As conducted in Korea since the financial crisis in late 1990s in order to investigate how announcement returns to acquiring firms differ among various types of acquisitions. We adopt the term ‘acquisition types’ inclusively: the legal procedures, intended goals, payment methods, and acquirer’s financial characteristics such as firm size. We try to get the sufficient sample size by including ‘acquisition of business’ and ‘acquisition of stock’, as well as ‘merger’ in our sample M&A firms. However, we exclude from our sample the backdoor listings that are fundamentally different from ordinary M&As in order to enhance the sample homogeneity. Most of existing empirical studies fail to distinguish backdoor listings from ordinary M&As in sample selection. In our preliminary analysis, the announcement returns of backdoor listings are estimated to be larger by more than twice the size of ordinary M&As. Based on the final sample of 396 acquisitions announced and completed by non-financial companies listed in the Korea Exchange (KRX) from January 2000 to June 2008, acquiring firms’ short-run stock performance (CARs) during the announcement period is examined to see if the market’s initial reaction is affected by such facts as: whether the transaction is a merger or acquisition; whether the acquisition is a diversifying or affiliated one or not; and whether the acquiring firm is large or small. Abnormal returns are measured using both the market adjusted and the market-model adjusted approaches, whose outcomes are basically similar. We perform our analysis both in a univariate setting and in a multivariate framework in which we control for other factors that may affect acquirer announcement returns. Our major findings are as follows. First, acquiring shareholders consistently earn positive abnormal returns for as long as 10 days prior to the announcement date, i.e., the date of decision by a board of directors. However, stock prices behave efficiently, showing seldom abnormal returns after the announcement date. Consequently, their CARs(-5, 1), on average, amount to 5.9%, statistically significant at the 1% level. The positive announcement effects on acquiring firms are more evident in domestic studies than those in foreign studies while the results are consistent with the empirical evidences of existing domestic studies. Furthermore, shareholders of firms in acquisitions of businesses earn positive abnormal returns (CARs(-5, 1)) of 11.1%, while those in abnormal returns to mergers and stock acquisitions are only 5.3%. The difference between these two is statistically significant. Second, acquirers of diversifying acquisitions significantly outperform in shareholders’ abnormal returns relative to acquirers of non-diversifying acquisitions. Although it has been commonly argued that non- diversifying acquisitions increasing the concentration of core business are more likely to create firm value, our empirical evidence supports the opposite. Our result seems to indicate that the stock market of the current decade values highly developing a new business area for the future growth through diversifying acquisitions. Third, acquirers of non-affiliated mergers significantly outperform in shareholders’ abnormal returns relative to those of affiliated mergers, both the acquirer and the target owned by the same major shareholder. The result is consistent with existing empirical findings, suggesting that affiliated mergers are usually initiated by corporate headquarters which have intention to remedy their ailing subsidiaries through mergers with better performing subsidiaries. Accordingly, shareholders of acquiring firms, namely well-performing subsidiaries, react negatively to the announcement of affiliated mergers. Fourth, we find the size effect on M&A transactions, which implies that announcement returns are inversely related with the acquirers’ firm size when measured in total assets and the market value of equity. The size effect is significant and robust in all the variations of regression models. However, the acquiring firm’s financial ratios measured prior to the year of merger completion such as free cash flow, debt ratio, book to market ratio, and profit margin do not have any significant effects on announcement returns. The targets’ financial data such as firm size and operating performance are not meaningfully related with the acquiring shareholders’ returns either. Lastly, it is commonly expected that announcement returns of acquisitions with stocks are less than those of cash acquisitions since acquiring firms would pay for their acquisitions with stocks when those stocks are overvalued and cash when they are undervalued. Although the extant foreign literature documents significant relations between the form of acquisition payment and announcement returns, we find no evidence that the method of payment conveys information about the acquirer’s firm value. Typically in Korea, all stock-financed acquisitions correspond to mergers as the legal forms of acquisitions, whereas all cash-financed acquisitions are of acquisitions of either stocks or businesses. Thus, it is possibly conjectured that the effect of payment methods is veiled by the legal forms of acquisitions.

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Two dominant theories explaining firms’ different level of cash holdings are the static trade-off model and the pecking order theory. According to the former, a firm holds cash and cash equivalent assets when the subject firms’ managers can easily enjoy the incentives from the transactions of such assets and the precautionary motive outweigh the cost and benefit of cash holdings. In contrast to the static trade-off model, the pecking order theory asserts that the level of firm’s cash holdings is determined passively and that the optimal level of cash holdings does not exist since a firm first expends on the profitable investment opportunities and then pays off the debt and accumulates cash holdings with what is left (Myers and Majluf (1984)). Most empirical studies have also placed emphasis on the static trade-off model and the pecking order theory. Both models exhibit exceedingly similar results that smaller-sized firms tend to increase the level of cash holdings, implying a greater degree of information asymmetry existing in a subject firm especially when its investment and R&D expenditures are projected to be high. Higher expenditures subsequently lead to higher future capital requirement and higher possibility of liquidity shortage owing to more volatility in past cash flows (Opler et al. (1999), Gong (2006)). On the other hand, as Myers and Rajan (1998) have mentioned, managers in a firm with a higher possibility of an agency problem due to the separation of ownership and management are likely to have an incentive to hold more cash assets. This is because cash and its equivalents are the easiest types of assets with which managers can exercise their discretional power.. Conversely, at a firm with more transparent corporate governance, on the other hand, its management has less incentive to hold more cash assets as a way to expand his/her discretional power since, then, such firm closely monitors management’s transactions, which reduces the possibility of the agency problem. As such, based on the previous studies, we examine whether the agency theory, as well as the static trade-off model and pecking order theory, is also a significantly influential factor in deciding the level of cash holdings for Korean companies. Most studies consider only partial elements of corporate governance such as ownership structure including shareholding ratios of management, or institutional investors and foreign investors as proxy variables for the possibility of agency problem. Unlike those preceding studies, we use a unique data set of the firm-level corporate governance scores on an annual basis as a proxy variable for the degree of agency problem. The data are being provided by the Korea Corporate Governance Service (KCGS) every year, following the evaluation of listed firms’ ownership structures and governance structures. In addition, we provide an empirical evidence on how the agency problem affects a firm’s level of cash holdings based on our analysis of 2,541 sample firms listed in the Korea Stock Market between 2002 and 2006. We collect an individual firm’s annual financial statement data, stock price data, and composite data with respect to Korean business groups (aka. chaebols) from KisValue II and FnDataGuide. The annual ratio of average cash holdings to total assets ranges from 9.34% to 10.42%. We also consider the standardized score of shareholder protection, board of directors, corporate disclosure (transparency), auditing organization, and earnings distribution which altogether constitute the total corporate governance score. By controlling various factors of the static trade-off model and the pecking order theory, we find that firms with sound corporate governance, especially those that enforce strong shareholder protection rules, tend to reduce the level of cash holdings. Moreover, we also undertake various robustness tests to control for the effects of endogeneity problems of corporate governance and the characteristic of panel data. Furthermore, we provide additional evidence reinforcing our results and the agency theory. We conclude that chaebols show lower levels of cash holding ratios than non-chaebols do, if all else equal. The tendency of the lower the level of cash holdings the better corporate governance the firm has is found more apparent in chaebol firms than in non-chaebol firms. Further, as the level of cash holdings of the other group-affiliated firms increases, the firm’s cash holding ratio becomes lower, implying that the static trade-off model and the pecking order theory have less influence on the cash holdings due to the existence of internal capital markets within Korean chaebol groups. In other words, internal capital markets within chaebols indeed have a substantial impact on the group-affiliated firms and allow them to maintain lower level of cash holdings than those of non-chaebols, all else equal. Overall, this paper provides the evidence strongly supportive of the agency theory and shows that differences in the intensity of agency problem across firms play an important role in explaining the different levels of firms’ cash holdings.

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This paper analyzes the firm-bank relationship from a borrower (firm)’s perspective using the data of Korea’ s listed firms and banks in transaction relationships (say related banks). For the analysis, I use a number of related banks or the of dependence of a firm on the main bank as measurements of firm-bank relationship. Further, the more related bank means that the firm has many ties with banks, which implies the firm can make new relationship with new bank easily. However, each tie is weak in the strength. In the other hands, the more dependence on the main bank means that the firm has the deeper relationship with the main bank. The firm characteristics for the analysis are classified into four categories. The first includes the information asymmetries on the borrower. Firm size, firm history and proportion of tangible assets among total assets are used to capture the information asymmetries. In particular, the firm with bigger size or longer history might have lower information asymmetries in the loan market. The more tangible asset of a firm, often hold as a mortgage in the loan contract, also could decrease the information asymmetries in loan market. The second category includes the performance and the risk of the borrower. ROA and the interest expenses-sales ratio capture the performance and the risk of the firm respectively. The firm showing better performance or with lower risks has less trouble to make a new relationship with new banks. However, these variables does not indicate the depth of relationship between a firm and banks. The third includes the characteristics regarding the growth and investment of a firm. Growth rate in sales and average growth rate in sales for recent five years are used to capture the growth characteristic of a firm. Further, investment activity of a firm is measured by the increase in tangible asset divided by total asset of a firm. Since the firm with fast growth and intensive investment is more likely to have the higher information asymmetries in the loan market, the firm might have trouble to raise funds from banks except the main bank. Therefore, we expect that the growth and investment of a firm are loosely related to the depth of relationship with banks. The fourth is the financial soundness, which is important factor to determine the firm-bank relationship. The financially sounder firm can raise funds easily from only limited numbers of banks. Thus, the sounder financial status of a firm implies the deeper relationship with banks. Since the paper analyzes the firm-bank relationship in the firm’s perspective, I control the characteristics of banks for the analysis using variables like ROA and size of main bank. To control the effects of firm’s dependency on the bank loan, size of bank loans of a firm divided by total liabilities is used. Furthermore, year and industry dummies are included to control the effects of macro economic condition or industry characteristics. The result of empirical analysis shows that borrower with lower information asymmetries is easier to find new relationships with banks and has lower dependency on the main bank. Tuning to the performance and risk of a firm, the firm showing better performance or with lower risks is easier to find new relationship with banks and has lower dependency of the main banks. However, a firm with fast growth and intensive investment is more likely dependent on the main bank to raise funds. Also the result suggest that a firm with the sounder financial status has the smaller number of related banks and the higher dependence on the main bank. In summary, borrower with lower information asymmetries, better performance, and lower risks is more likely to have multiple ties with banks than growth-oriented (or investment-oriented) firms. However, the dependency on the main bank is stronger in growth-oriented (or investment-oriented) firms. In addition, the financial soundness make strengthen the relationship between the borrower and the main bank. It is a common belief that the alleviation of information asymmetry in the loan market can improve the intermediary role of banks. Also the strengthening of main bank stimulates the growth or investment of small-medium enterprise. Moreover, financial soundness of firms is crucial to strengthen the firm-bank relationship and enhance the intermediary role of banks. The analysis in this paper using Korean data empirically supports these common beliefs. However, this paper has several limitations to be improved in future researches. The empirical results are obtained from the recent Korean data, and the time-span of data is not sufficient. Therefore, more rigorous studies are required to generalize the result of this paper. Further, although simple test of correlation among variables shows that endogenous problem is negligible, still the endogenous problem could exist.

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To determine the appropriate tick size for the Korean Exchange (KRX), we analyze the effect of changing the minimum tick size (hereafter “tick size”) on, first, the liquidity, measured by relative spread, market depth, and volume and secondly, on the overall market quality. The results from these analyses shed light on the optimal tick size for the KRX. Our finding shows an ambiguous effect of changing the tick size on market quality: reducing the tick size increases relative spread and volume but decreases market depth. Also, compared to the U.S. exchanges whose tick size is one cent regardless of the stock price, the tick size of the KRX is a step function of the stock price. This characteristic allows us to study the effect of changing the tick size by comparing stocks with prices just above and just below the level at which the tick size changes. Unlike previous studies, our analyses focus on the effect of changing the tick size on market depth among liquidity variables, by, among others, addressing the endogeneity problem among the variables. Other specific methods used in our analyses are as follows. First, as a preliminary study, we examine whether our results regarding the effects of changing tick size on three variables of liquidity--relative spread, market depth, and volume--in the KRX are the same as those from previous studies on domestic and overseas exchanges. Second, we investigate the effects of changing tick size on investors’ order submission patterns to find the reasons and implications of the adverse effects of reducing tick size on market depth. For both analyses, we conduct panel-data analyses, which are robust even with the endogeneity problem. Rogers’ (1993) standard errors are incorporated in order to adjust for the clustering effect. Third, we test dynamic relations between tick size and market depth in order to obtain detailed results indicating the effects of reducing tick size on market depth. This test is designed to measure the extent to which the KRX tick size could be reduced. For this test, we use the sample stocks whose tick sizes change during the sample period. We, first, sort them into 9 categories based on their upper and lower price limits and, then, conduct “endogeneous” event studies. Using all 689 common stocks listed on the KRX during our sample period of 122 trading days from January 3 to June 30 in 2005, we apply both TAQ (Trades and Quotes) and daily data to each stock. The data are provided by the KRX. The test results for our seven null hypotheses are as follows. •Results from Analyses for the Effects of Changing Tick Size on Liquidity: Reducing tick size has a favorable effect on relative spread and volume, but an unfavorable effect on market depth. This finding of trade-off among the liquidity variables confirms similar results from previous studies; however our finding is more robust, since the endogeneity problem among the variables is taken into account in the regression analyses. Our study also has the practical implication that policy makers must heed unfavorable effect on market depth when considering reducing the tick size as a way to reduce transaction costs. •Results from Analyses Using Investors’ Order Submission Patterns: As tick size is reduced, order size decreases and the ratio of cancellation and correction orders increases. Market depth, in turn, is decreased and market quality deteriorates. As tick size is reduced, the ratio of “order-more-improved to best-order” also increases. This increase leads market depth and relative spread to decrease; as a result, it can either improve or deteriorate market quality due to the trade-off between them. As tick size is reduced, the market-order ratio slightly increases, decreasing liquidity and, in turn, resulting in a slight deterioration of market quality. All together, a decrease in order size and an increase in the ratio of cancellation and correction orders are, at least, principal causes for decreasing market depth as tick size reduces. •Results from Dynamic Relation between Tick Size and Market Depth: Reducing tick size does not decrease the market depths of the stocks whose prices are around the points at which the tick size jumps, except at 10,000 won. This implies that the tick size can be reduced at most price levels without deterioration of market depth. The price range jumping around 10,000 won is the only exception at which market depth decreases with statistical significance as the tick size decreases. This phenomenon is closely related to the large change in the relative tick size (from 0.1% to 0.5%) at this price range, which is a very abrupt change compared to that at other price ranges (from 0.1% to 0.2%, in particular for 5,000 won and 50,000 won price ranges). Therefore, if we set our argument to stocks under 100,000 won, the KRX can reduce the relative tick size 0.2 percent without having significant adverse effects on market depth.

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This paper is an empirical investigation of the determinants of the cross- section of stock returns in Korea. While Fama and French’s (1993) three-factor asset pricing model is known to perform reasonably well in explaining the cross-section of stock returns in the U.S. and many other stock markets in developed countries, the model’s performance in explaining the cross-section of stock returns in Korea has been less than satisfactory. More specifically, there is mixed evidence for the existence of the book-to-market effect in the Korean stock market. Because Fama and French’s three-factor model is empirically motivated without firm theoretical grounds, it is difficult to argue that the book-to-market factor (HML) is a priced risk factor in the Korean stock market without clear empirical evidence for the book-to-market effect in the cross- section of stock returns in Korea. Consequently, an alternative asset pricing model is necessary to be used widely in Korea for the purpose of risk adjustment in estimating the cost of capital or performance evaluation. Using monthly stock returns and accounting information for the sample of non-financial firms belonging to the KOSPI index over the 1991~ 2007 period, we first investigate the cross-sectional relationship between stock returns and firm characteristics in the Fama-MacBeth regression framework. We find no evidence for the book-to-market or momentum effect. Firm characteristics which show significant relationship with the cross-section of stock returns in Korea are firm size measured by market capitalization and liquidity measured by turnover. Given the evidence for the size and turnover effects, we construct portfolios by sorting firms into four size groups and four turnover groups independently, similar to the way in which Fama and French (1993) construct their size and book-to-market portfolios. The sixteen size-turnover portfolios show clear patterns in average returns, decreasing in both firm size and turnover. Moreover, these size-turnover portfolios exhibit much bigger spread in average returns than the portfolios constructed using firm size and book-to-market (size-BM portfolios), which suggests that the size-turnover portfolios may be more useful and relevant test assets than the size-BM portfolios in the Korean stock market. The clear pattern of average returns in the size-turnover portfolios suggests that liquidity measured by turnover may be a priced risk factor in Korea. In order to estimate the magnitude of the risk premium associated with the size and turnover effects, we construct mimicking portfolios which are designed to capture the effects of firm size and turnover in the cross-section of stock returns, similar to the way in which Fama and French (1993) construct their mimicking portfolios, SMB and HML. Consistent with the results from the Fama-MacBeth regressions, the size factor (SMB) and the turnover factor (NMP) show significantly positive average returns while the average return of the book-to-market factor (HML) is positive but statistically insignificant. The magnitudes of the average returns for SMB and NMP are also economically significant at 0.99% per month for SMB and 1.19% per month for NMP. We then perform standard time-series and cross-sectional tests of asset pricing models using the size- turnover and size-BM portfolios as test assets. The asset pricing models we consider are the Fama-French three-factor model and our alternative three-factor model which replaces the book-to-market factor HML with the liquidity factor NMP. The main findings are as follows. When the size-turnover portfolios are used as test assets, the GRS F-test rejects the Fama- French three-factor model while it does not reject our alternative three-factor model. Moreover, the estimated risk premium for the liquidity factor NMP is both economically and statistically significant at 1.3% per month, which is also similar in magnitude to its average return of 1.19% per month. When the size-BM portfolios are used as test assets, the two models show broadly comparable performance. These main findings remain unchanged when we test the models using the first half or the second half of the sample period. In particular, we find that the liquidity factor NMP shows significant explanatory power for the cross-section of stock returns in each of the sub-sample periods. The Fama-French three-factor model is widely used in research and practice for risk adjustment and performance evaluation in both the U.S. and Korea. But the lack of clear empirical evidence for the book- to-market effect in Korea raises a question about the relevance of the book-to-market factor HML and the Fama-French three-factor model in understanding the determinants of stock returns in Korea. The findings in this paper suggest that our alternative three-factor model which incorporates a liquidity factor may be more useful and relevant for understanding the systematic variation of stock returns in Korea.

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