Le marché boursier et le financement des entreprises françaises : 1890-1939
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Abstract EN:
The purpose of this work is to measure and explain the financing of the french firms that were quoted on the paris bourse between 1890 and 1939. This study is based on the collection of all financial operations of these firms, which permits to take a new view on the role of the market in their financing. A new method allows to measure the importance of retained earnings on a market-price basis. This study shows that the maximum of market financing is reached during the 1920s, and that the fraction of external financing consisting in shares grows between the 1890s and the 1920s. This transformation benefits mainly to manufacturing firms that had little access to the bourse until that date. We conclude that the stock exchange played a positive role in the second industrial revolution in france. We use time series and cross section to test microeconomic financial theory during our period. Both show that micro-arguments explain the allocation of financial flows between firms at a given date, but that they are insufficient to explain the financing's transformation of our period : taxation and agency costs rise during the period, what is inconsistent with the rise of external financing. These results are interesting because they are supported by micro-level indicators of agency costs, what is uncommon in studies on that subject. Macroeconomic and institutional arguments give a better explanation of the long terme transformation of financing. Before 1914, the public distrusts private firms and
Abstract FR:
Ce travail cherche a mesurer et expliquer les formes de financement des entreprises francaises cotees en bourse de paris entre 1890 et 1939. Le recensement individuel des operations financieres de ces societes montre sous un nouveau jours la contribution du marche boursier au financement et permet une explication plus approfondie. Grace a une methode originale de mesure de l'autofinancement, on montre que la part du marche dans le financement des entreprises cotees atteint son maximum dans les annees 1920. Cette augmentation se conjugue avec celle de la part des actions dans le financement externe, au detriment des obligations. Enfin, cette transformation beneficie surtout aux societes industrielles qui accedaient difficilement a la bourse auparavant. Cette derniere accompagne donc efficacement la seconde revolution industrielle. Une analyse menee sur series chronologiques et sur donnees transversales montre que la microeconomie financiere n'explique pas cette transformation. En effet, l'augmentation de la fiscalite ou des couts de mandat la contrarient sans vraiment la freiner. En revanche, cette theorie explique bien l'allocation des capitaux entre les entreprises. Ces resultats sont d'autant plus interessants qu'a la difference de la plupart des etudes sur ce sujet, on dispose d'indicateurs individuels et precis des couts de mandat et d'une mesure non comptable de l'autofinancement. Des arguments macroeconomiques et institutionnels expliquent mieux l'evolution a long terme des formes de financement. Avant 1914, les banques d'affaires et les agents de change parviennent a diminuer la mefiance des epargnants envers la bourse, et a