Internal funds generation as a determinant of brazilian public firms fixed capital investment / A geração interna de recursos como fator determinante do investimento em capital fixo realizado por empresas brasileiras de capital aberto

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

In perfect capital markets, a firm´s investment decision can be considered independent from its financing decision, because external funds provide a perfect substitute for internal capital. However, in capital markets with imperfections, such as transaction costs, bankruptcy costs, information asymmetries and agency problems, the availability of internal capital tends to have an influence on investment decision. The shortage of internal funds may lead firms to pass up good investment opportunities (underinvestment) and the excess can encourage managers to invest in non-valuable projects (overinvestment). Due to operational, financial and managing features, some firms are more liable to the impacts of market imperfections than others and, for this reason, their investment should be more sensitive to internal funds generation. The aim of this study is to investigate, in the universe of brazilian public firms, the of fixed capital investment – represented by change in gross fixed assets – to internal funds generation – represented by cash flow from operations – as well as the corporate factors (operational, financial and managing features) that affect this sensitivity. The following factors were considered: length of time traded in the stock exchange market; firm size; financial leverage; percentage of common assets detained by controllers; dividend payment rate and industry. The study approach was based on multiple regression models. Panel data was used to estimate models coefficients. In the first part of the study, investment was regressed on cash flow and control variables. In the second part, interaction terms between cash flow and corporate factors were introduced in the models. The results of the first part of this study showed no evidence that internal funds generation has impact on investment, suggesting that not all firms prefer (or depend on) internal funds to invest. The results of the second part showed that, conditioned on firms features, internal funds generation is rather considerable for investment decision. Size, financial leverage and percentage of common assets detained by controllers affect investment sensitivity to internal funds generation. The larger the firm size, the larger its financial leverage and the larger the percentage of common assets detained by controllers, smaller will be the impact of internal funds generation on investment. This is consistent with the existence of transaction costs, bankruptcy costs, information asymmetries and agency problems. The results concerning the two latter factors suggest that the overinvestment problem is more serious than the underinvestment problem in brazilian public firms.

ASSUNTO(S)

geração interna de recursos investment empirical test assimetria de informações agency problems information asymmetries problemas de agência investimento teste empírico internal funds generation

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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