Department of International Trade, Kyonggi University, 154-42, Gwanggyosan-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 16227, Korea.
Department of Global Business, Konkuk University, 120, Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 05029, Korea.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Jan;30(2):3367-3382. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-22429-7. Epub 2022 Aug 10.
We empirically investigate whether government subsidies result in firms' overinvestment using unbalanced panel data from 61 renewable energy technology firms in Korea between 1991 and 2018. Considering the diagnostic test results, we build a panel vector autoregression model and test how overinvestment is influenced by research and development and non-research and development government subsidies and the interactions between subsidies, leverage, and free cash flow. We find that these subsidies do not significantly induce overinvestment by firms. In addition, non-research and development subsidies affect overinvestment positively through leverage and affect it negatively through free cash flow interactions. We also find that leverage and free cash flow do not affect overinvestment in Korea's renewable energy technology sector directly; however, firms with positive free cash flow tend to overinvest. One factor that drives renewable energy technology firms in Korea to overinvest is external growth opportunities. We suggest various policy implications based on this study's results.
我们利用韩国 1991 年至 2018 年 61 家可再生能源技术公司的非平衡面板数据，实证研究了政府补贴是否会导致企业过度投资。考虑到诊断测试结果，我们构建了一个面板向量自回归模型，并检验了研发和非研发政府补贴以及补贴、杠杆率和自由现金流之间的相互作用如何影响过度投资。我们发现，这些补贴并没有显著诱使企业过度投资。此外，非研发补贴通过杠杆作用对过度投资产生正向影响，通过自由现金流相互作用产生负向影响。我们还发现，杠杆率和自由现金流不会直接影响韩国可再生能源技术部门的过度投资；然而，拥有正自由现金流的企业往往会过度投资。推动韩国可再生能源技术企业过度投资的一个因素是外部增长机会。我们根据本研究的结果提出了各种政策建议。
