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Speaker’s Name: Dong Wook Lee (Professor, Korea University)

Abstract :

This paper measures the indirect impacts of financial globalization using the extent to which corporate growth opportunities—especially those of small-size companies—are countryspecific. Using data for 53,365 firms from 40 countries over the period of 1991-2012, we find that the country-specific growth opportunities (CSGOs) decrease with financial openness, both across countries and within a country over time. The reduction in CSGOs is much more pronounced in small firms than in large companies. On the other hand, the country-neutral and industry-specific growth opportunities (ISGOs) increase with financial openness, again mostly for small firms. With the progress of financial globalization, small firms also invest more in line with the ISGOs and less with the CSGOs than before. Considering that small-size companies are denied direct access to foreign capital but are subject to various changes in domestic institutions brought by financial globalization, our results support the notion of indirect impacts of financial globalization. Moreover, the results suggest that those impacts are beneficial, as small firms’ growth opportunities and investments are better aligned with economic fundamentals.