企業之生命週期與資本結構之關聯

Abstract

本研究旨在探討企業之生命週期以及其融資決策之關係。本文參考Anthony and Ramesh(1992)區分生命週期的方法，利用銷貨成長率，股利支付率以及公司年齡三項指標將企業分為成長期，成熟期以及衰退期三期。首先探討不同生命週期對融資順位理論的符合程度有何差別，其次探討生命週期與企業負債到期期限之關係。實證結果發現在融資順位理論方面，屬於成長期公司因為獲利能力與負債比之關係最小，且最偏好利用現金增資之方式代替負債融資，因此最不符合融資順位理論，成熟期次之，而衰退期之融資決策最遵守融資順位理論。在負債到期期限方面，我們發現不同生命週期階段確實影響了負債到期期限的選擇，隨著生命週期之經過，負債到期期限也會隨之增加，即成長期公司較偏好舉短債，成熟期次之，而衰退期公司較偏好舉長債。

This study investigates the relationship between life cycle and financing strategies. We follow methodology of Anthony and Ramesh(1992), and use sales growth, dividend payout and age as the indicators to identity the life cycle stage-growth stage, mature stage and stagnant stage. First of all, we investigate how the pecking order theory matches into companies in different life cycle stage. We conclude that in the study of pecking order theory, growth stage firms are the most unrelated between their profitability and debt ratio, and they also prefer financing by issuing stocks instead of financing with debt. Since, the growth stage companies are not consistent with pecking order theory. And the stagnant stage firms are the most consistent with pecking order theory. Second, we focus on the relationship between life cycle and debt maturity. We found debt maturity increases over life cycle stage. Firms in growth stage prefer to use short-term debt for financing, and firms in stagnant stage borrow at the long end of the maturity spectrum.