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自由现金流-文献综述介绍自由现金流是指企业在经营活动中所产生的，能够留存下来分配给股东或用于企业自身再投资的现金流。
因此，它是企业真正可供支配的自由现金，也是衡量企业现金流状况及企业价值的重要指标。
自由现金流的管理对于企业长期发展至关重要。
在实际应用中，如何理解和计算自由现金流？此外，如何进一步考虑到企业永续性和增长性的方面？这些问题一直以来受到研究者和业界人士的关注。
研究进展自由现金流一词最早可以追溯到20世纪60年代，但直到80年代末90年代初才逐渐被广泛应用。
由于企业的内外部因素及市场环境的变化，自由现金流的计算和管理方式不断得到更新和完善，研究者们也对自由现金流的相关问题进行了深入的研究和探讨。
自由现金流的概念和计算自由现金流的概念主要指的是企业在一定时期内能够产生的剩余现金流，即企业实际可支配的自由现金，它通常被用于企业的再投资和股息分配。
自由现金流的计算主要分为“简单模型”和“复杂模型”两种方法。
其中，“简单模型”是指通过对企业的经营活动中产生的净现金流进行一些基本调整，来计算企业的自由现金流；“复杂模型”则是在简单模型的基础上，进一步考虑到企业的资本支出、债务费用和营运资本等方面的因素，对自由现金流进行更加全面和精细的计算。
自由现金流的管理自由现金流的管理主要包括两个层面，一是储备自由现金，即保留一定量的自由现金以应对未来可能出现的经营风险或机会；二是谨慎分配自由现金，即在考虑各种因素和因素交互影响的基础上，合理分配自由现金给股东或作为企业再投资的资金。
自由现金流与企业永续性和增长性的关系自由现金流不仅是企业可支配的现金，也是企业永续性和增长性的体现。
在政策、市场和竞争环境的密切联动中，企业的永续性和增长性对于企业长期健康发展至关重要，而自由现金流正是这种企业永续性和增长性的关键指标。
对于成长型企业来说，在实现长期稳健增长的同时，自由现金流的管理更加关键，需要综合考虑营运资本、资本投资和股权激励等因素，使得企业永续发展的同时，也可以给股东带来更多价值增长。
浅谈现金流管理----公司治理、自由现金流与过度投资的关系研究Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, P.R.China200052摘要：本文检验了我国资本市场上自由现金流和过度投资之间的关系，以及公司治理和股权结构对两者关系的影响。
我们发现，与代理成本的解释一致，企业的过度投资对自由现金流高度敏感，自由现金流越多的企业过度投资的冲动越强烈。
另外，与代理成本和信息成本的解释一致，公司治理和股权结构变量对过度投资行为影响显著。
对于过度投资为正的企业，国家股公司倾向于推进过度投资，流通股比例、监事会规模和财务杠杆倾向于削减过度投资；对于过度投资为负的企业，国家股公司、董事会规模和外部董事比例倾向于导致投资不足恶化，而流通股比例和财务杠杆则倾向于缓解投资不足。
关键词：自由现金流、过度投资、公司治理、不对称信息Abstract：Following Richardson’s study, we examine the extent of firm level over-investment of free cash flow and the impact of ownership structure and corporate governance on over-investment in China. Consistent with agency cost explanations and Richardson’s result, we find evidence that firms’ over-investment are excessively sensitive to current free cash flow, and firm with higher free cash flow has higher over-investment impulse. We also find that to some extent corporate governance structure, especially ownership structure, are associated with over-investment and under-investment of free cash flow. For over-investment firms, our evidence suggests that state character of the largest shareholdings appears to boost over-investment, while proportion of tradable shares, supervisor size, andleverage appear to mitigate over-investment. For under-investment firms, our evidence suggests that state character of the largest shareholdings, board size and proportion of external directors appear to conduce to severer under-investment, while proportion of tradable shares, and leverage appears to alleviate under-investment.Key words:free cash flow, over-investment, corporate governance, asymmetric information1 引言和文献回顾近年来国外大量的文献开始研究投资决策和现金流之间的关系，尤其关注代理成本和信息问题在其中的作用和影响。
文献综述摘要企业的自身价值作为投资者的主要参考依据，投资者会根据一个企业的价值来判断该企业是否值得被投资，企业也会因为其自身价值是否充分的被投资者所认识而作出相应的公司发展策略，而自由现金流作为一种企业价值评估的理论、方法和体系，最早是由美国西北大学拉巴波特和哈佛大学詹森等学者在20世纪80年代所提出来的，它是衡量企业价值的重要指标，研究自由现金流模型评估企业价值，旨在站在投资者的角度，运用模型分析出，被评估企业是否值得投资，其企业价值是否与市场价值所契合（有无被高估或是低估）。
并通过真实的价值反映，帮助企业实现价值最大化，改善企业管理水平落后的状况，为企业作出的决策提供更加坚实的基础依据，投资者通过分析一家公司的自由现金流量来分析该公司是否有投资价值。
关键词：自由现金流企业价值FCFE FCFF目录前言 (1)一、自由现金流的定义与计算 (2)（一）自由现金流的定义 (2)（二）自由现金流的计算 (2)二、自由现金流估值模型 (3)（一）FCFE模型 (4)（二）FCFF模型 (6)（三）CFF公式的形成原理 (7)三、总结 (9)参考文献 (10)前言近年来，随着我国市场经济体制的初步建立和改革开放的推进，出现了多种所有制经济的交融发展，企业并购的数量不断增多，规模也不断扩大。
在企业并购过程中，无论是收购公司还是目标公司都要对被收购目标公司进行价值评估，从而得到自己心目中的价位，合理的价格是决定交易能否成功的关键。
与国外发达的价值评估体系相比，我国企业价值评估起步较晚。
20年代80年代末期，我国引入了资产评估的概念、原理和方法，同步引入了企业价值评估和实物资产评估。
虽然当时也引入了“企业的价值不等于企业资产价值简单加和”的观点与理论。
但在我国长期的企业价值评估实务中，这样的理念并没有得到实际执行，我国企业价值评估和实物资产评估始终混在一起，不予区分。
随着经济全球化和一体化进程的加快，资产重组以空前的规模和速度进行。
文献综述摘要：现金流是企业的生命线,是其生存的根本。
企业没有利润不一定破产，而一旦没有足够的现金流就很可能破产.在历次金融危机中,这一点表现得尤其明显。
然而，如何有效地进行现金流管理却是个复杂的问题。
20世纪60年代后期有学者把经济学的研究方法引入会计研究之中，随后会计在西方相对成熟的资本市场土壤上逐渐发展起来。
我国关于现金流量管理的研究始于20世纪80年代，取得了一些成果，但仍然存在许多不足，尚待不断完善。
对这些研究成果的研究现状、研究方法、主要观点、基本原理和理论基础进行归纳总结具有一定的理论和现实意义。
纵观20世纪70年代以来的研究成果，可以发现在在现金流管理领域的研究主要集中在个五方面:一是影响现金流的因素分析；而是现金流指标在企业财务分析评级中的应用;三是现金流与企业融资行为之间的研究；四是现金流信息对外部市场有效性影响的研究;五是现金流与企业价值之间关系的研究。
关键词：现金流、会计学、研究成1.国外研究综述1985哈佛大学商学院教授迈克尔·波特(Michael E。
Porter）提出了价值链理论，揭示了企业与企业的竞争是整个价值链的竞争，整个价值链的综合竞争力决定企业的竞争力.价值链理论的提出为优化基于价值链现金流管理提供了坚实的理论基础.1986年哈佛大学詹森（Jensen）提出了自由现金流量假说理论（FreeCashFlowHypothesis）：指出自由现金流量满足所有具有正的净现值的投资项目所需资金后多余的那部分现金流量，这些投资项目的净现值按相关资本成本贴现计算出来.为基于自由现金流量的企业融资、投资、运营以及价值评估理论奠定了基础。
1987年11月，美国财务会计准则委员会发布了第95号公告——“现金流量表”，正式将编制基础确定为现金及现金等价物,做到了与财务预测与决策中现金基础一致.为直接利用财务会计信息进行预测和决策提供了方便,促进了现代现金流管理的发展.迈克尔（Michael S。
本科毕业论文（设计）外文翻译原文：Over-investment of free cash flowAbstractThis paper examines the extent of firm level over-investment of fre cash flow. Using an accounting-based framework to measure over-investment and free cash flow, I find evidence that, consistent with agencycost explanations, over-investment is concentrated in firms with the highest levels of free cash flow. Further tests examine whether firms’ governance structures are associated with over-investment of free cash flow. The evidence suggests that certain governance structures, such as the presence of activist shareholders, appear to mitigate over-investment.IntroductionThis paper examines firm investing decisions in the presence of free cash flow. In theory, firm level investment should not be related to internally generated cash flows (Modigliani & Miller, 1958). However, prior research has docu-mented a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow (e.g., Hubbard, 1998). There are two interpretations for this positive relation. First, the positive relation is a manifestation of an agency problem, where managers in firms with free cash flow engage in wasteful expenditure (e.g., Jensen 1986; Stulz 1990). When managers’objectives differ from those of shareholders, the prese nce of internally generated cash flow in excess of that required to maintain existing assets in place and finance new positive NPV projects creates the potential for those funds to be squandered. Second, the positive relation reflects capital market imperfections, where costly externalfinancing creates the potential for internally generated cash flows to expand the feasible investment opportunity set(e.g., Fazzari, Hubbard, & Petersen, 1988; Hubbard, 1998).This paper focuses on utilizing accounting information to better measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment, thereby allowing a more powerful test of the agency-based explanation for why firm level investment is related to internally generated cash flows. In doing so, this paper is the first to offer large sample evidence of over-investment of free cash flow. Prior research, such as Blanchard, Lopez-di-Silanes, and Vishny (1994), document excessive investment and acquisition activity for eleven firms that experience a large cash windfall due to a legal settlement, Harford (1999) finds using a sample of 487 takeover bids, that cash-rich firms are more likely to make acquisitions that subsequently experience abnormal declines in operating performance, and Bates (2005) finds for a sample of 400 subsidiary sales from 1990 to 1998 that firms who retain cash tend to invest more, relative to industry peers. This paper extends these small sample findings by showing that over-investment of free cash flow is a systematic phenomenon across all types of investment expenditure.The empirical analysis proceeds in two stages. First, the paper uses an accounting-based framework to measure both free cash flow and over-investment. Free cash flow is defined as cash flow beyond what is necessary to maintain assets in place and to finance expected new investments. Over-investment is defined as investment expenditure beyond that required to maintain assets in place and to finance expected new investments in positive NPV projects. To measure over-investment, I decompose total investment expenditure into two components:(i) required investment expenditure to maintain assets in place, and (ii) new investment expenditure. I then decompose new investment expenditure into over-investment in negative NPV pro jects and expected investment expenditure, where the latter varies with the firm’s growth opportunities, financing constraints, industry affiliation and other factors.Under the agency cost explanation, management has the potential to squander free cash flow only when free cash flow is positive. At the other end of the spectrum, firms with negative free cash flow can only squander cash if they are able to raise “cheap” capital. This is less likely to occur because these firms need to be able to raise financing and thereby place themselves under the scrutiny of external markets(DeAngelo, DeAngelo, & Stulz, 2004; Jensen, 1986). Consistent with the agency cost explanation, I find a positive association between over-investment and free cash flow for firms with positive free cash flow.For a sample of 58,053 firm-years during the period 1988–2002, I find that for firms with positive free cash flow the average firm over-invests 20% of its free cash flow. Furthermore, I document that the majority of free cash flow is retained in the form of financial assets. The average firm in my sample retains 41% of its free cash flow as either cash or marketable securities.There is little evidence that free cash flow is distributed to external debt holders or shareholders.Finding an association between over-investment and free cash flow is consistent with recent research documenting poor future performance following firm level investment activity. For example, Titman, Wei, and Xie (2004) and Fairfield, Whisenant, and Yohn (2003) show that firms with extensive capital investment activity and growth in net operating assets respectively,experience inferior future stock returns. Furthermore,Dechow, Richardson, and Sloan (2005) find that cash flows retained within the fir m (either capitalized through accruals or “invested” in financial assets) are associated with lower future operating performance and future stock returns. This performance relation is consistent with the over-investment of free cash flows documented in this paper.The second set of empirical analyses examine whether governance structures are effective in mitigating over-investment. Prior research has examined the impact of a variety of governance structures on firm valuation and the quality of managerial decision making (see Brown & Caylor, 2004; Gompers, Ishii, & Metrick, 2003; Larcker, Richardson, & Tuna, 2005 for detailed summaries). Collectively, the ability of cross-sectional variation in governance structures to explain firm value and/or firm decision making is relatively weak. Consistent with this, I find evidence that out of a large set of governance measures only a few are related to over-investment. For example, firms with activist shareholders and certain anti-takeover provisions are less likely to over-invest their free cash flow.1. Free cash flow and over-investmentThis section describes in detail the various theories supporting a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow and then develops measures of free cash flow and over-investment that can be used to test the agency based explanation.1.1. Explanations for a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow .In a world of perfect capital markets there would be no association between firm level investing activities and internally generated cash flows.If a firm needed additional cash to finance an investment activity it would simply raise that cash from external capital markets.If the firm had excess cash beyond that needed to fund available positive NPV projects (including options on future investment) it would distribute free cash flow to external markets. Firms do not, however, operate in such a world.There are a variety of capital market frictions that impede the ability of management to raise cash from external capital markets. In addition,there are significant transaction costs associated with monitoring management to ensure that free cash flow is indeed distributed to external capital markets.In equilibrium,these capital market frictions can serve as a support for a positive association between firm investing activities and internally generated cash flow.The agency cost explanation introduced by Jensen (1986) and Stulz (1990) suggests that monitoring difficulty creates the potential for management to spend internally generated cash flow on projects that are beneficial from a management perspective but costly from a shareholder perspective(the free cash flow hypothesis).Several papers have investigated the implications of the free cash flow hypothesis on firm investment activity.For example, Lamont (1997) and Berger and Hann (2003) find evidence consistent with cash rich segments cross-subsidizing more poorly performing segments in diversified firms.However, the evidence in these papers could also be consistent with market frictions inhibiting the ability of the firm to raise capital externally and not necessarily an indication of over-investment. Related evidence can also be found in Harford (1999) and Opler, Pinkowitz, Stulz, and Williamson (1999, 2001).Harford uses a sample of 487 takeover bids to document that cash rich firms are more likely to make acquisitions and these “cash rich” acquisitions are followed by abnormal declines in operating performance. Opler et al.(1999) find some evidence that companies with excess cash (measured using balance sheet cash information) have higher capital expenditures, and spend more onacquisitions,even when they appear to have poor investment opportunities (as measured by Tobin’s Q). Perhaps the most di rect evidence on the over-investment of free cash flow is the analysis in Blanchard et al. (1994). They find that eleven firms with windfall legal settlements appear to engage in wasteful expenditure.Collectively,prior research is suggestive of an agency-based explanation supporting the positive relation between investment and internally generated cash flow. However, these papers are based on relatively small samples and do not measure over-investment or free cash flow directly.Thus,the findings of earlier work may not be generalizable to larger samples nor is it directly attributable to the agency cost explanation. More generally, a criticism of the literature examining the relation between investment and cash flow is that finding a positive association may merely indicate that cash flows serve as an effective proxy for investment opportunities (e.g., Alti, 2003).My aim is to better measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment by incorporating an accounting-based measure of growth opportunities, and test whether the relation is evident in a large sample of firms.Some early work in this area examined the sensitivity of investment to cash flow for high versus low dividend paying firms (Fazzari et al., 1988),comparing differing organizational structures where the ability to raise external financing was easier/harder (Hoshi,Kashyap and Scharfstein,1991,with Japanes keiretsu firms) and debt constraints (Whited, 1992).These papers find evidence of greater sensitivity of investment to cash flow for sets of firms which appeared to be financially constrained (e.g., low dividend paying firms, high debt firms and firms with limited access to banks). However, more recent research casts doubt on the earlier results. Specifically, Kaplan and Zingales (1997, 2000),find that the sensitivity of investment to cash flow persists even for firms who do not face financing constraints. They construct a measure of ex ante financing constraints for a small sample of firms and find that the sensitivity of investment to cash flow for firms is negatively associated with this measure,thereby casting doubt on the financing constraint hypothesis. Nonetheless the investment expectation model described in Section 1.4 includes a variety of measures designed to capture financing constraints.ConclusionThis paper presents evidence on firm level over-investment of free cash flow. The empirical analysis utilizes an accounting based framework to measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment.A comparative advantage of theaccounting researcher is in measuring critical constructs from the financial economics literature.The analysis of over-investment and free cash flow is but one example of how accounting information can be better utilized in academic research. The evidence in this paper suggests that over-investment is a common problem for publicly traded US firms. For non-financial firms during the period 1988–2002, the average firm over-invests 20 percent of its available free cash flow. Furthermore, the majority of free cash flow is retained in the form of financial assets. For each additional dollar of free cash flow the average firm in the sample retains 41 cents as either cash or marketable securities. There is little evidence that free cash flow is distributed to external stakeholders, thereby creating the potential for retained free cash flow to be over-invested in the future. Supplemental analysis found only weak evidence that governance structures are effective in mitigating the extent of over-investment.These findings corroborate recent work that has found significant negative future stock returns from capital investment and significant growth in net operating assets (e.g.,Fairfield et al.,2003;Titman et al., 2004).Indeed,Li (2004) finds that future operating performance is lower for firms engaging in investment expenditure and that this negative relation is increasing in contemporaneous free cash flow.A natural explanation for this poor future performance is free cash flow related agency costs.The framework developed in the paper to measure over-investment and free cash flow can easily be extended to consider abnormal investment more generally. Indeed, some recent research has started to use this framework to examine the impact of accounting information systems on investment decisions and the efficient allocation of capital (e.g., Bushman, Piotroski, & Smith, 2005; Goodman, 2005; Wang, 2003).Source: Scott Richardson,2006.“Over-investmen t of free cash flow” .Review of Account Studies,vol.11, june,pp.159-189.译文：自由现金流下的过度投资摘要本文调查了公司水平范围内的自由现金流的过度投资问题。
关于过度投资的国内外文献综述作者：殷国红来源：《时代经贸》2013年第24期【摘要】过度投资是一种典型的非效率投资行为，严重影响企业整体价值的实现，不利于企业的长远发展。
本文从过度投资的度量、成因以及制约机制等方面对国内外过度投资方面的已有研究成果进行了梳理，并对今后的研究方向进行了展望。
【关键词】过度投资；自由现金流量；制约机制企业的投资行为是未来现金流增长与企业价值提升的基础，企业的投资是否有效率与企业的成长有直接关系，然而，种种迹象表明，上市公司的投资行为往往不能给企业带来价值增值。
近年来我国经济迅猛发展，国民生产总值增长速度快，资本市场也有了飞速发展，上市公司的数量越来越多，各种各样的投资行为也越来越活跃。
但是研究表明我国上市公司过度投资行为十分严重，直接造成了投资效率的低下。
针对这一现象，学者们进行了大量关于过度投资行为的研究，取得了一定成果，本文将对其进行综述。
一、过度投资的含义及其度量Jensen（1986）首次提出了过度投资这一名词，从企业管理者与股东代理冲突角度展开分析，将过度投资定义为企业将自由现金流投资于NPV为负的项目的一种非效率投资行为。
Vogt（1994）在投资—现金流敏感性分析的基础上，从实证角度对过度投资与投资不足进行了区分，并获得了企业过度投资的实证证据。
尽管Vogt对过度投资与投资不足进行了区分，但没有对过度投资的程度进行衡量。
Hovakimian等（2002）通过计量每年度上市公司的投资对成长性的横截面回归，来估计企业的最佳投资水平，然后用企业实际投资支出与估计的企业正常投资支出之差来度量企业的过度投资程度，该方法使人们能够对过度投资进行量化，是企业过度投资行为研究中的一大进步，但是实际上影响企业投资行为的因素是存在多样性，所以仅考虑成长性因素来估计企业的最佳投资水平存在很大的局限性。
Richardson（2006）在Hovakimian的基础上对模型进行了改进，他将企业的净投资分为预期投资和非预期投资。
自由现金流量与企业过度投资的关系研究自由现金流量是企业经营活动中非常重要的一个指标，它代表着企业真正可以自由运用的资金。
而企业的投资决策则直接影响到企业的未来发展和经营状况。
研究自由现金流量与企业过度投资的关系对于企业的经营管理和投资决策具有重要意义。
一、自由现金流量与企业过度投资的定义自由现金流量是指企业在一定时期内所产生的净现金流量减去了所有的投资现金流量后剩余的现金，它代表着企业可用于发展、分红和偿付债务的自由资金。
而企业的过度投资则是指企业在投资决策中过度扩大投资规模，导致投资项目的收益率不高，从而影响企业的经营和发展。
二、自由现金流量与企业过度投资的关系1. 自由现金流量越大，企业越有发展空间自由现金流量代表了企业真正可以自由运用的资金，它直接影响着企业的发展空间。
如果企业的自由现金流量较大，意味着企业可以更加灵活地运用资金进行投资和发展，而不至于陷入过度投资的困境。
2. 过度投资将影响自由现金流量企业如果在投资过程中过度扩大投资规模，可能导致投资项目的回报率不高，从而影响企业的现金流量。
过度投资可能会导致企业资金占用过多，难以为企业带来实际的价值和收益，进而影响了自由现金流量的增加。
3. 自由现金流量和过度投资的平衡企业需要在投资决策中平衡考虑自由现金流量和投资规模之间的关系，确保企业在投资活动中既可以获得足够的自由现金流量，又不至于过度投资。
只有在自由现金流量和投资规模之间取得平衡，企业才能实现持续稳健的增长。
三、影响自由现金流量和过度投资的因素1. 经营管理水平企业的经营管理水平直接影响着企业的自由现金流量和投资决策。
如果企业的管理水平较高，能够合理配置资金，控制投资规模，就能够更好地保障自由现金流量的增长。
2. 行业发展环境不同行业的发展环境也会对企业的自由现金流量和投资决策产生影响。
在行业竞争激烈、市场饱和的情况下，企业更容易因为过度投资而导致自由现金流量不足。
四、自由现金流量与企业过度投资的案例分析以奥美电商公司为例，该公司曾因为追求规模扩张而过度投资，导致自由现金流量减少，给企业带来了一定的风险。
自由现金流下的过度投资【外文翻译】本科毕业论文(设计)文翻译外原文:Over-investment of free cash flowAbstractThis paper examines the extent of firm level over-investment of fre cash flow. Using an accounting-based framework to measure over-investment and free cash flow, I find evidence that, consistent with agencycost explanations, over-investment is concentrated in firms with the highest levels of free cash flow. Further tests examine whether firms’ governance structures are associated with over-investment of free cashflow. The evidence suggests that certain governance structures, such as the presence of activist shareholders, appear to mitigate over-investment.IntroductionThis paper examines firm investing decisions in the presence of free cash flow. In theory, firm level investment should not be related to internally generated cash flows (Modigliani & Miller, 1958). However, prior research has docu-mented a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow (e.g., Hubbard, 1998). There are two interpretations for this positive relation. First, the positive relationis a manifestation of an agency problem, where managers in firms with free cash flow engage in wasteful expenditure (e.g., Jensen 1986; Stulz 1990). When managers’objectives differ from those of sh areholders, the presence of internallygenerated cash flow in excess of that required to maintain existing assets in place and finance new positive NPV projects creates the potential for those funds to be squandered. Second, the positiverelation reflects capital market imperfections, where costly externalfinancing creates the potential for internally generated cash flows to expand the feasible investment opportunity set (e.g., Fazzari, Hubbard, & Petersen,1988; Hubbard, 1998).This paper focuses on utilizing accounting information to better measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment, thereby allowing a more powerful test of the agency-based explanation for why firm level investment is related to internally generated cash flows. In doing so, this paper is the first to offer large sample evidence ofover-investment of free cash flow. Prior research, such as Blanchard, Lopez-di-Silanes, and Vishny (1994), document excessive investment and acquisition activity for eleven firms that experience a large cash windfall due to a legal settlement, Harford (1999) finds using a sample of 487 takeover bids, that cash-rich firms are more likely to make acquisitions that subsequently experience abnormal declines in operating performance, and Bates (2005) finds for a sample of 400 subsidiary salesfrom 1990 to 1998 that firms who retain cash tend to invest more, relative to industry peers. This paper extends these small sample findings by showing that over-investment of free cash flow is a systematic phenomenon across all types of investment expenditure.The empirical analysis proceeds in two stages. First, the paper uses an accounting-based framework to measure both free cash flow and over-investment. Free cash flow is defined as cash flow beyond what is necessary to maintain assets in place and to finance expected new investments. Over-investment is defined as investment expenditure beyond that required to maintain assets in place and to finance expected new investments in positive NPV projects. To measure over-investment, I decompose total investment expenditure into two components: (i) required investmentexpenditure to maintain assets in place, and (ii) new investment expenditure. I then decompose new investment expenditure into over-investment in negative NPV projects and expected investment expenditure, where the latter varies with the firm’s growth opportunities, financing constraints, industry affiliation and other factors.Under the agency cost explanation, management has the potential to squander free cash flow only when free cash flow is positive. At the other end of the spectrum, firms with negative free cash flow can only squander cash if they are able to raise “cheap” capital. This is less likely to occur because these firms need to be able to raise financing and thereby place themselves under the scrutiny of external markets(DeAngelo, DeAngelo, & Stulz, 2004; Jensen, 1986). Consistent withthe agency cost explanation, I find a positive association between over-investment and free cash flow for firms with positive free cash flow.For a sample of 58,053 firm-years during theperiod 1988–2002, I find that for firms with positive free cashflow the average firm over-invests 20% of its free cash flow. Furthermore, I document that the majority of free cash flow is retainedin the form of financial assets. The average firm in my sample retains 41% of its free cash flow as either cash or marketable securities. There is little evidence that free cash flow is distributed to externaldebt holders or shareholders.Finding an association between over-investment and free cash flow is consistent with recent research documenting poor future performance following firm level investment activity. For example, Titman, Wei, and Xie (2004) and Fairfield, Whisenant, and Yohn (2003) show that firmswith extensive capital investmentactivity and growth in net operating assets respectively, experience inferior futurestock returns. Furthermore, Dechow, Richardson, and Sloan (2005)find that cashflows retained within the firm (either capitalized through accrualsor “invested” infinancial assets) are associated with lower future operating performance and future stock returns. This performance relation isconsistent with the over-investment of free cash flows documented inthis paper.The second set of empirical analyses examine whether governance structures are effective in mitigating over-investment. Prior research has examined the impact of a variety of governance structures on firm valuation and the quality of managerial decision making (see Brown & Caylor, 2004; Gompers, Ishii, & Metrick, 2003; Larcker, Richardson, & Tuna, 2005 for detailed summaries). Collectively, the ability of cross-sectional variation in governance structures to explain firm valueand/or firm decision making is relatively weak. Consistent with this, I find evidence that out of a large set of governance measures only a few are related to over-investment. For example, firms with activist shareholders and certain anti-takeover provisions are less likely to over-invest their free cash flow.1. Free cash flow and over-investmentThis section describes in detail the various theories supporting a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow and then develops measures of free cash flow and over-investment that can be used to test the agency based explanation. 1.1. Explanations for a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow .In a world of perfect capital markets there would be no association between firm level investing activities and internally generated cash flows.If a firm needed additional cash to finance an investment activity it would simply raise that cash from external capital markets.If thefirm had excess cash beyond that needed to fund available positive NPV projects (including options on future investment) it would distribute free cash flow to external markets. Firms do not, however, operate in such a world.There are a variety of capital market frictions that impede the ability of management to raise cash from external capital markets. In addition,there are significant transaction costs associated with monitoring management to ensure that free cash flow is indeeddistributed to external capital markets.In equilibrium,these capital market frictions can serve as a support for a positive association between firm investing activities and internally generated cash flow.The agency cost explanation introduced by Jensen (1986) and Stulz (1990) suggests that monitoring difficulty creates the potential for management to spend internally generated cash flow on projects that are beneficial from a management perspective but costly from a shareholder perspective(the free cash flow hypothesis).Several papers have investigated the implications of the free cash flow hypothesis on firm investment activity. For example, Lamont (1997) and Berger and Hann (2003) find evidence consistent with cash rich segments cross-subsidizing more poorly performing segments in diversified firms. However, the evidence in thesepapers could also be consistent with market frictions inhibiting the ability of the firm to raise capital externally and not necessarily an indication of over-investment.Related evidence can also be found in Harford (1999) and Opler, Pinkowitz, Stulz, and Williamson (1999, 2001). Harford uses a sample of 487 takeover bids todocument that cash rich firms are more likely to make acquisitions and these “cash rich” acquisitions are followed by abnormal declinesin operating performance. Opler et al.(1999) find some evidence that companies with excess cash (measured using balance sheet cash information) have higher capital expenditures, and spend more on acquisitions,even when they appear to have poor investment opportunities (as measured by Tobin’s Q). Perhaps the most direct evidence on the over-investment offree cash flow is the analysis in Blanchard et al. (1994). They find that eleven firms with windfall legal settlements appear to engage in wasteful expenditure.Collectively,prior research is suggestive of an agency-based explanation supporting the positive relation between investment and internally generated cash flow. However, these papers are based on relatively small samples and do not measure over-investment or free cash flow directly.Thus,the findings of earlier work may not be generalizable to larger samples nor is it directly attributable to the agency cost explanation. More generally, a criticism of the literature examining the relation between investment and cash flow is that finding a positive association may merely indicate that cash flows serve as an effective proxy for investment opportunities (e.g., Alti, 2003).My aim is tobetter measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment by incorporating an accounting-based measure of growth opportunities, and test whether the relation is evident in a large sample of firms.Some early work in this area examined the sensitivity of investment to cash flow for high versus low dividend paying firms (Fazzari et al., 1988),comparing differing organizational structures where the ability to raise external financing was easier/harder (Hoshi,Kashyap and Scharfstein,1991,with Japanes keiretsu firms) and debt constraints (Whited, 1992).These papers find evidence of greater sensitivity of investment to cash flow for sets of firms which appeared to befinancially constrained(e.g., low dividend paying firms, high debt firms and firms with limited access to banks). However, more recent research casts doubt on the earlier results. Specifically, Kaplan and Zingales (1997, 2000),find that the sensitivity of investment to cash flowpersists even for firms who do not face financing constraints. They construct a measure of ex ante financing constraints for a small sample of firms and find that the sensitivity of investment to cash flow for firms is negatively associated with this measure,thereby casting doubt on the financing constraint hypothesis. Nonetheless the investment expectation model described in Section 1.4 includes a variety of measures designed to capture financing constraints.ConclusionThis paper presents evidence on firm level over-investment of free cash flow. The empirical analysis utilizes an accounting based framework to measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment.A comparative advantage of theaccounting researcher is in measuring critical constructs from the financial economics literature.The analysis of over-investment and free cash flow is but one example of how accounting information can be better utilized in academic research. The evidence in this paper suggests that over-investment is a common problem for publicly traded US firms. Fornon-financial firms during the period 1988–2002, the average firm over-invests 20 percent of its available free cash flow. Furthermore, the majority of free cash flow is retained in the form of financial assets. For each additional dollar of free cash flow the average firm in the sample retains 41 cents as either cash or marketable securities. There is little evidence that free cash flow is distributed to external stakeholders, thereby creating the potential for retained free cash flow to be over-invested in the future. Supplemental analysis found only weak evidence that governance structures are effective in mitigating the extent of over-investment.These findings corroborate recent work that has found significant negative future stock returns from capital investment and significant growth in net operating assets (e.g.,Fairfield et al.,2003;Titman et al., 2004).Indeed,Li (2004) finds that future operating performance is lower for firms engaging in investment expenditure and that this negativerelation is increasing in contemporaneous free cash flow.A natural explanation for this poor future performance is free cash flow related agency costs.The framework developed in the paper to measure over-investment and free cash flow can easily be extended to consider abnormal investment more generally. Indeed, some recent research has started to use this framework to examine the impact of accounting information systems on investment decisions and the efficient allocation of capital (e.g., Bushman, Piotroski, & Smith, 2005; Goodman, 2005; Wang, 2003).Source: Scott Richardson,2006.“Over-investment of free cashflow” .Review ofAccount Studies,vol.11, june,pp.159-189.译文:自由现金流下的过度投资摘要本文调查了公司水平范围内的自由现金流的过度投资问题。
自由现金流与企业过度投资--基于内外部约束视角的实证研究马文慧【摘要】在我国转型经济的制度背景下，基于公司内外部约束视角，以我国制造业2001年-2012年主板上市公司为研究对象，研究了自由现金流与企业过度投资的关系，以及公司外部负债融资和内部公司治理机制对于过度投资的约束作用。
研究表明：企业留存的过量自由现金流会造成企业的过度投资现象，而企业外部的债务约束以及内部完善的公司治理机制可以较有效的约束这种过度投资现象。
结论对于建立约束企业过度投资行为的机制，提高企业投资决策效率具有理论和现实意义。
%Under the background of transition of economic system in China and based on the company internal and external constraints perspective , this paper takes main board listed companies from 2001 to 2012 in manufacturing industry in China as the research object to study the relationship between free cash flow and over -investment of firms and the restriction of external debt financing and internal governance mechanism for excessive investment .Studies show that excessive retained corporate free cash flow led to enterprise's over investment phenomena , improving the external debt constraint and the internal mechanism of corporate governance can constrain the phenomenon of exces -sive investment effectively .The conclusion has a theoretical and practical significance for setting up the system of constrai ning enterprise ’ s excessive investment behavior and improving the efficiency of corporate investment deci -sion.【期刊名称】《石家庄经济学院学报》【年(卷),期】2014(000)001【总页数】6页(P94-99)【关键词】自由现金流;过度投资;债务约束;公司内部治理机制【作者】马文慧【作者单位】安徽财经大学，安徽蚌埠233000【正文语种】中文【中图分类】F271.5Jensen[1](1986)在代理理论的基础上提出著名的自由现金流理论,认为自由现金流影响企业的投资行为，当公司内部留存大量自由现金流又不存在好的投资机会时，代理人往往倾向于将现金流投资于净现值为负的项目上，而不是将其分配给股东，这就会产生过度投资问题。
This paper examines firm investing decisions in the presence of free cash flow. In theory, firm level investment should not be related to internally generated cash flows (Modigliani & Miller, 1958). However, prior research has documented a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow(e.g., Hubbard, 1998). There are two interpretations for this positive relation. First, the positive relation is a manifestation of an agency problem, where managers in firms with free cash flow engage in wasteful expenditure (e.g.,Jensen 1986; Stulz 1990). When managers‟ objectives differ from those of shareholders, the presence of internally generated cash flow in excess of that required to maintain existing assets in place and finance new positive NPV projects creates the potential for those funds to be squandered. Second, the positive relation reflects capital market imperfections, where costly external financing creates the potential for internally generated cash flows to expand the feasible investment opportunity set (e.g., Fazzari, Hubbard, & Petersen,1988; Hubbard, 1998).This paper focuses on utilizing accounting information to better measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment, thereby allowing a more powerful test of the agency-based explanation for why firm level investment is related to internally generated cash flows. In doing so, this paper is the first to offer large sample evidence of over-investment of free cash flow. Prior research, such as Blanchard, Lopez-di-Silanes, and Vishny (1994), document excessive investment and acquisition activity for eleven firms that experience a large cash windfall due to a legal settlement, Harford (1999) finds using a sample of 487 takeover bids, that cash-rich firms are more likely to make acquisitions that subsequently experience abnormal declines in operating performance, and Bates (2005) finds for a sample of 400 subsidiary sales from1990 to 1998 that firms who retain cash tend to invest more, relative to industry peers. This paper extends these small sample findings by showing thatover-investment of free cash flow is a systematic phenomenon across all types of investment expenditure.The empirical analysis proceeds in two stages. First, the paper uses an accounting-based framework to measure both free cash flow and over-investment. Free cash flow is defined as cash flow beyond what is necessary to maintain assets in place and to finance expected new investments.Over-investment is defined as investment expenditure beyond that required to maintain assets in place and to finance expected new investments in positive NPV projects. To measure over-investment, I decompose total investment expenditure into two components: (i) required investment expenditure to maintain assets in place, and (ii) new investment expenditure. I then decompose new investment expenditure into over-investment in negative NPV projects and expected investment expenditure, where the latter varies with the firm‟s growth opportunities, financing constraints, industry affiliation and other factors.Under the agency cost explanation, management has the potential to squander free cash flow only when free cash flow is positive. At the other end of the spectrum, firms with negative free cash flow can only squander cash if they are able to raise ……cheap‟‟ capital. This is less likely to occur because these firms need to be able to raise financing and thereby place themselves under the scrutiny of external markets (DeAngelo, DeAngelo, & Stulz, 2004; Jensen, 1986). Consistent with the agency cost explanation, I find a positive association between over-investment and free cash flow for firms with positive free cash flow.1For a sample of 58,053 firm-years during the period 1988–2002, I find that for firms with positive free cash flow the average firm over-invests 20% of its free cash flow. Furthermore, I document that the majority of free cash flow is retained in the form of financial assets. The average firm in my sample retains 41% of its free cash flow as either cash or marketable securities. There is little evidence that free cash flow is distributed to external debt holders or shareholders.Finding an association between over-investment and free cash flow is consistent with recent research documenting poor future performance following firm level investment activity. For example, Titman, Wei, and Xie (2004) and Fairfield, Whisenant, and Yohn (2003) show that firms with extensive capital investment activity and growth in net operating assets respectively, experience inferior future stock returns. Furthermore, Dechow, Richardson, and Sloan(2005) find that cash flows retained within the firm (either capitalized through accruals or ……invested‟‟ in financial assets) a re associated with lower future operating performance and future stock returns. This performance relation is consistent with the over-investment of free cash flows documented in this paper.The second set of empirical analyses examine whether governance structures are effective in mitigating over-investment. Prior research has examined the impact of a variety of governance structures on firm valuation and the quality of managerial decision making (see Brown & Caylor, 2004; Gompers,Ishii, & Metrick, 2003; Larcker, Richardson, & Tuna, 2005 for detailed summaries).Collectively, the ability of cross-sectional variation in governance structures to explain firm valueand/or firm decision making is relatively weak. Consistent with this, I find evidence that out of a large set of governance measures only a few are related to over-investment. For example, firms with activist shareholders and certain anti-takeover provisions are less likely to over-invest their free cash flow. The next section develops testable hypotheses concerning the relation between free cash flow and over-investment. Section 2 describes the sample selection and variable measurement. Section 3 discusses empirical results for the over-investment of free cash flow. Section 4 contains empirical analysis examining the link between corporate governance and the over-investment of free cash flow, while section 5 concludes.1.Free cash flow and over-investmentThis section describes in detail the various theories supporting a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flow and then develops measures of free cash flow and over-investment that can be used to test the agency based explanation.1.1.Explanations for a positive relation between investment expenditure and cash flowIn a world of perfect capital markets there would be no association between firm level investing activities and internally generated cash flows. If a firm needed additional cash to finance an investment activity it would simply raise that cash from external capital markets. If the firm had excess cash beyond that needed to fund available positive NPV projects (including options on future investment) it would distribute free cash flow to external markets. Firms do not, however, operate in such a world. There are a variety of capital market frictions that impede the ability of management to raise cash from external capital markets. In addition, there are significant transaction costs associated with monitoring management to ensure that free cash flow is indeed distributed to external capital markets. In equilibrium, these capital market frictions can serve as a support for a positive association between firm investing activities and internally generated cash flow.The agency cost explanation introduced by Jensen (1986) and Stulz (1990)suggests that monitoring difficulty creates the potential for management to spend internally generated cash flow on projects that are beneficial from a management perspective but costly from a shareholder perspective (the free cash flow hypothesis). Several papers have investigated the implications of the free cash flow hypothesis on firm investment activity. For example, Lamont(1997) and Berger and Hann (2003) find evidence consistent with cash rich segments cross-subsidizing more poorly performing segments in diversified firms. However, the evidence in these papers could also be consistent with market frictions inhibiting the ability of the firm to raise capital externally and not necessarily an indication of over-investment.Related evidence can also be found in Harford (1999) and Opler, Pinkowitz, Stulz, and Williamson (1999,2001). Harford uses a sample of 487 takeover bids to document that cash rich firms are more likely to make acquisitions and these ……cash rich‟‟ acquisitions are followed by abnormal declines in operating performance. Opler et al.(1999) find some evidence that companies with excess cash (measured using balance sheet cash information) have higher capital expenditures, and spend more on acquisitions, even when they appear to have poor investment opportunities (as measured by Tobin‟s Q). Perhaps the most direct evidence on the over-investment of free cash flow is the analysis in Blanchard et al.(1994). They find that eleven firms with windfall legal settlements appear toengage in wasteful expenditure.Collectively, prior research is suggestive of an agency-based explanation supporting the positive relation between investment and internally generated cash flow. However, these papers are based on relatively small samples and do not measure over-investment or free cash flow directly. Thus, the findings of earlier work may not be generalizable to larger samples nor is it directly attributable to the agency cost explanation. More generally, a criticism of the literature examining the relation between investment and cash flow is that finding a positive association may merely indicate that cash flows serve as an effective proxy for investment opportunities (e.g., Alti, 2003). My aim is to better measure the constructs of free cash flow and over-investment by incorporating an accounting-based measure of growth opportunities, and test whether the relation is evident in a large sample of firms.In addition to prior empirical work on agency based explanations for the link between firm level investment and internally generated free cash flow, there exists a stream of research dedicated to examining the role of financing constraints (e.g., Fazzari et al. (1988), Hoshi, Kashyap, and Scharfstein (1991),Fazzari and Petersen (1993), Whited (1992) and Hubbard (1998)). Myers and Majluf (1984) suggest that information asymmetries increase the cost of capital for firms forced to raise external finance, thereby reducing the feasible investment. Thus, in the presence of internally generated cash flow, such firms will invest more in response to the lower cost of capital.Some early work in this area examined the sensitivity of investment to cash flow for high versus low dividend paying firms (Fazzari et al., 1988), comparing differing organizational structures where the ability to raise external financing was easier/harder (Hoshi, Kashyap and Scharfstein, 1991, with Japanese keiretsu firms) and debt constraints (Whited, 1992). These papers find evidence of greater sensitivity of investment to cash flow for sets of firms which appeared to be financially constrained (e.g., low dividend paying firms, high debt firms and firms with limited access to banks). However, more recent research casts doubt on the earlier results. Specifically, Kaplan and Zingales(1997, 2000), find that the sensitivity of investment to cash flow persists even for firms who do not face financing constraints. They construct a measure of ex ante financing constraints for a small sample of firms and find that the sensitivity of investment to cash flow for firms is negatively associated with this measure, thereby casting doubt on the financing constraint hypothesis. Nonetheless the investment expectation model described in Section 1.4includes a variety of measures designed to capture financing constraints.5. ConclusionThis paper presents evidence on firm level over-investment of free cash flow. The empirical analysis utilizes an accounting based framework to measure the constructs of free cash flow andover-investment. A comparative advantage of the accounting researcher is in measuring critical constructs from the financial economics literature. The analysis of over-investment and free cash flow is but one example of how accounting information can be better utilized in academic research. Theevidence in this paper suggests that over-investment is a common problem for publicly traded US firms. For non-financial firms during the period 1988–2002, the average firm over-invests 20 percent of its available free cash flow. Furthermore, the majority of free cash flow is retained in the form of financial assets. For each additional dollar of free cash flow the average firm in the sample retains 41 cents as either cash or marketable securities. There is little evidence that free cash flow is distributed to external stakeholders, thereby creating the potential for retained free cash flow to be over-invested in the future. Supplemental analysis found only weak evidence that governance structures are effective in mitigating the extent of over-investment.These findings corroborate recent work that has found significant negative future stock returns from capital investment and significant growth in net operating assets (e.g., Fairfield et al., 2003; Titman et al., 2004). Indeed, Li(2004) finds that future operating performance is lower for firms engaging in investment expenditure and that this negative relation is increasing in contemporaneous free cash flow.A natural explanation for this poor future performance is free cash flow related agency costs.The framework developed in the paper to measure over-investment and free cash flow can easily be extended to consider abnormal investment more generally. Indeed, some recent research has started to use this framework to examine the impact of accounting information systems on investment decisions and the efficient allocation of capital (e.g., Bushman, Piotroski, & Smith,2005; Goodman, 2005; Wang, 2003).翻译版本一：本文实证检验了在自由现金流量下企业的投资决策。
