Title: Analysis of Loan Guarantees among the Korean Chaebol Affiliates
Author: Doh, Taeyoung & Ryu, Keunkwan
Author Affiliation: Seoul National University
Source: International Economic Journal, June 2004, v. 18, no. 2, pp. 161-178
Publication Date: June 2004
Abstract: This paper analyses corporate loan guarantees among the Korean chaebol affiliates. Loan guarantees are found to be efficiency-neutral under a set of ideal conditions characterized by perfect and symmetric information, no agency problem, and no governmental interference in private financial contracts. In reality though, corporate loan guarantees have negative as well as positive effects. The negative effects of loan guarantees arise from the agency problem between the controlling minority shareholders and outside investors. Government's implicit support to financial institutions worsens the problem. Without such distortions, a loan guarantee by the guarantor firm may signal the quality of the investment project of the borrowing firm, if the guarantor firm has more information than the lending bank with regards to the type of the borrowing firm's investment project.

© 2005 International Economic Journal
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