This paper analyzes how the size of firms, unrelated to inherent credit risks, influences firms’ access to capital markets. Specifically, we theoretically and empirically whether credit rating agencies (CRAs) unduly give favors to large-sized companies and conglomerates than small and mid-sized companies when CRAs evaluate default risks of these companies on their debts. In a simple theory model in a Bayesian persuasion framework, we find that CRAs have an incentive to generously underestimate default risks on the large-sized firms when these firms raise capital from bond markets more often than small and mid-sized firms, and thus become a very important client to CRAs. However, the bond buyers rationally infer the default risks on these large-sized companies with high credit rating, and thus charges a higher risk premium than they would to small and mid-sized companies conditional on the same financial conditions. Using a financial dataset in Korea, we document that the interest rates of bonds issued by mid-sized companies are in fact lower on average than those issued by large-sized companies. We further find that mid-sized companies are less likely to receive a high credit rating than the large-sized companies. These findings suggest that CRAs unfairly treat companies willing to issue bonds based on their sizes, thereby possibly distorting credit market structures.

발간사
요 약

제1장 서 론

제2장 국내 기업의 자금조달 구조 현황과 시사점

제3장 이론분석: 기업규모가 신용평가기관의 유인구조에 미치는 영향
　제1절 모 형
　제2절 벤치마크: 유일기업 경제(a single-firm economy)
　제3절 균형분석: 차별적 신용평가 기준 설정

제4장 실증분석: 기업규모와 회사채 신용등급 산정 간 상관관계
　제1절 가설 수립
　제2절 분석대상 통계자료
　제3절 실증분석
　제4절 정책적 시사점

제5장 결 론

참고문헌
ABSTRACT