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企業之不對稱資訊、銀行往來關係及直接與間接融資
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The Enterprises’ Asymmetric Information, Banking Relationship,
and Direct and Indirect Financing
1. Purpose/Objective
After the deregulation of financial markets in the United States, Japan, and European
countries, financial disintermediation and financing diversification have been new
international trends, especially in bank-based financial systems. Therefore, with respect to
funding activities, the banking industry is experiencing vigorous competition and challenges
from market-based financial systems (Petersen and Rajan, 1995; Holmstrom and Tirole,
1997; Schmidt et al., 1999; Ongena and Smith, 2000; Houston and James, 2001; Allen and
Santomero, 2001; Berger and Udell, 2002). In contrast, due to the flourishing development in
direct financing and the securities industries, significant gains in trading volumes are being
made at the expense of indirect financing and the banking industry (Allen, 1999; Anderson
and Makhija, 1999; Schmidt et al., 1999; Boot and Thakor, 2000; Ongena and Smith, 2001;
Carpenter and Petersen, 2002). However, as of 2010, the proportion of indirect financing
provided by financial institutions in Taiwan was approximately 77%, and the proportion of
direct financing was approximately 23%. This shows that indirect financing from financial
institutions is the most vital source of corporate funding in Taiwan, and it is because indirect
financing allows financial institutions to more effectively reduce information asymmetry
concerns, execute screening and delegated monitoring functions (Diamond, 1984, 1991;
Winton, 1995), and implement asset transformation or intertemporal wealth and liquidity
transfer processes (Diamond and Dybvig, 1983; Greenbaum and Thakor, 1995).
These new macro-trends should profoundly integrate entrepreneurs’ micro-selections of
diversified financing sources, bank loans, and banking relationship from the viewpoint of
information asymmetry. However, these integrated subjects have not been well-examined in
theoretical studies and should prompt a number of more rigid clarifications by theoretical
models. Therefore, in this study, a micro-foundation theoretical framework is exploited to
theoretically examine how heterogeneous firms with different extents of information
asymmetry optimally select intertemporal banking relationship, as well as direct and indirect
financing arrangements mainly from the perspective of information asymmetry. The
objective of this study is to theoretically provide a better understanding of the influences of
the extent of information asymmetry, the attributes of funding sources, and the external
macro-financial conditions on the entrepreneur’s optimal direct and indirect funding levels
Jauling Tseng
, Associate Professor, Department of Finance, Shih Hsin University