Abstract

Purpose - Along with the rise of foreign investments in the Korean stock market, there has been a variety of studies on their influence. The conflicting findings on the question of information asymmetry of foreign investors among existing literatures appear to be a result of mixture of research method problems, what information is defined as being comparable, individual business levels, or the entire stock market. This paper empirically investigates what factors contribute to foreign investments in firms in the Korean stock market. Research design, data, and Methodology - Samples are constructed by manufacturing firms listed on the stock market of Korea as well as those who settle accounts in December from 2001 to 2018. Financial institutions are excluded from the sample as their accounting procedures, governance and regulations differ. This study adopted the panel regression model to assess the sample construction including yearly and cross-sectional data. Result - This paper find that firms' R&D, dividends, size give significant positive impact to foreign investment, whereas debt gives significant negative impact to foreign investment. This relationship does not change when the samples are divided before and after the 2008 global financial crisis. Conclusion - This results support the literatures that foreign investors favor firms lowering their information asymmetry.