The Effects of Agency Costs and Insiders’ Shareholdings on Financing Choices

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of debt agency cost and equity agency cost of current and prior periods on the financing choices of long-term debts, seasoned equity offering, and private equity financings. It also examines the effects of the shareholdings of insiders on the association between both debt and equity agency costs and the choice of financing methods.

The findings show that both prior and current debt agency costs are positively related to seasoned equity offerings of current period, and both prior and current debt agency costs are positively related to private equity financing of current period regardless of whether the models consider the factor of insiders’ shareholdings. As for equity agency cost, the document indicate that both current and prior equity agency costs are negatively related to current seasoned equity offerings, however, only prior equity agency costs are negatively related to current seasoned equity offerings under considering shareholdings of insiders. Moreover, the shareholdings of insiders would affect the positive association between the corporate debt agency cost and seasoned equity offerings and the positive association between the corporate equity agency cost and debt financing.