Research On The Relationship Between Internal Finance And Investment Of Listed Companies

The cause of the significantly correlation between investment and internal finance becomes a hassle for academic circles, ever since the demonstration done by FHP(1998).The paper makes a research and empirical test on the relationship between the internal finance and investment in Chinese listed companies. The author thinks that the general level of internal finance in China is low and has great difference between industries, which lead to the coexistence of the over investment caused by free cash flow agency problem and the under investment caused by financial constraints because of asymmetric information.The empirical test takes industry as the sorting criteria to identify the information cost in different firms, chooses the public utility industry that has abundant free cash flow and the information technology industry which represents the new-technology as the research objective, uses the financial data of A share listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2004 to 2005 as the sample, testifies the relationship between investment and internal finance. The result shows that there is a significant correlation between investment and internal finance in Chinese listed companies, thereof; the investment in public utility industry is greatly influenced by internal finance.The cause of the significant correlation between investment and internal finance is examined further. The empirical evidence shows that the free cash flow agency problem is the main cause of significant correlation between investment and internal finance in public utility industry and information technology industry.At the end, the author puts forward some policy advice. For the companies with serious agency problems, they should reduce the free cash flow by proper dividend policy and liability level. On the other side, they can make the aim of managers consistent with shareholders'by manager share-hold. Thereby, improve the investment efficiency.