Cihan Yalcin

Corporate Finance Under Low Interest Rates: Evidence from Hong Kong

This paper examines the impact of the dramatic reduction in interest rates by the Federal Reserve on Hong Kong. Using a panel of several hundred firms in Hong Kong we find that firms increase all types of debt, but shift from short-term to long-term debt as rates fall. This can be attributed in part to a supplyside effect as the benign monetary policy environment has improved creditworthiness. The most noticable result from our analysis is the high level of bank dependence among Hong Kong firms and the continued dependence on bank finance even when interest rates fall. Potentially this may reveal that Hong Kong lacks the benefits of a deep domestic bond market.

Foreign Currency Borrowing, Exports and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Currency Crisis

ABSTRACT This paper develops a simple signaling model of foreign currency borrowing that yields predictions about firm survival and performance during a currency crisis. Using a large panel of firm level data for South Korea we offer empirical support for many of the predictions of our model, while others support predictions that cannot be tested using our data. Our paper demonstrates that although firms that borrow in foreign currency are more likely to exit after the currency collapses, those that continue to produce perform better. Among them, the best performers are exporters whose foreign sales are more competitively priced under a devalued currency.

Exports and Financing Constraints Evidence from Turkey

Abstract This paper examines the link between financing constraints and firm exporting behavior through an in-depth study of the Turkish manufacturing firms between 1996 and 2013. Utilizing a rich firm-level data set, we test for both ex-ante and ex-post links between exports and financing constraints to tackle potential selection biases and endogeneity problems. We find a positive and statistically significant export premium for financing constraints in general. In further testing we show that there is no significant evidence of pre-entry premium, while we find that financing constraints faced by exporting firms are eased once they start exporting, confirming an improvement in the financial conditions of export starters compared to non-exporters.