本文主要的目的是檢驗台灣上市公司投資與現金流量敏感度之主要決定因素。以台灣上市(製造業)公司為樣本，我們首先將所有樣本區分為高敏感度、低敏感度與負敏感度三組不同敏感度之樣本組。其次、利用融資限制、現金流動因素與成長機會等多項財務變數，以單變量之個別測試及多變量之趨勢比較來分析此三組樣本。實證結果顯示其投資與現金流量敏感度較能夠為代理問題所解釋。同時、我們再以經理人持股為自變數測試此三組樣本，因經理人持股在過去研究中，經常同時被當作用來檢驗過度自信或代理問題之代理變數，故我們也藉此變數來確認以經理人的立場對投資行為是代理問題或過度自信的傾向；其結果呈現經理人持股為代理人問題，並也相對地拒絕過度自信之觀點。最後以兩項公司治理項目，機構持股與董事長兼總經理，為因變數來覆驗上述各項變數，以確認前述所得之結論，此兩項實證結果均驗證並支持上述論點。故我們總結在台灣的上市(製造業)公司，主要以代理問題較能夠解釋投資與現金流量之敏感度關係。 Our main purpose of this paper is to examine the main source of the investment-cash flow sensitivity of the Taiwan listed manufacturing companies. We firstly use firm-level estimates to classify three different sample groups into high, low, and negative of investment-cash flow sensitivity. We then apply comprehensive of financial characteristics on financial constraints, internal liquidity, and growth opportunity to associate the three classified groups. We use both single and multivariate tests throughout the analysis. The results demonstrate the financial characteristics of high sensitive firms mostly comply with prior literatures; and the results also show the investment-cash flow sensitivity is more significantly related to agency problem than information asymmetry in Taiwan. Further, as some literatures discuss overconfidence is also closely correlated with investment policy, we test managers’ shareholding, a controversial proxy of both overconfidence and agency problem to be the variable. Our finding indicates that managers’ shareholding is more relates to agency problem instead of overconfidence. To confirm this point, we apply institutional shareholding and Chairman also served as CEO to obtain supportive evidence of the aforementioned point. Our empirical evidences of this paper conclude that a cash flow dependent investment policy results mainly from agency problem in Taiwan listed manufacturing companies.
