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Financialization of South Korean non-financial firms: an empirical analysis of the impacts on firms’ real and research and development investments

Abstract This study explores financialization’s effects on corporate innovation using data on 711 firms taken from the KIS-Value database (1994–2019) and the generalized method of moments (GMM) model. Scholars warn that aiming solely to maximize shareholders’ interests and short-term financial investments places non-financial firms’ entrepreneurship at risk. Long-term R&D and real investments decline as a result, leading to stagnant growth. This study investigates whether empirical findings from the US and the UK, where financialization negatively affects corporations’ real and R&D investments, apply to the South Korean market. We find that the financialization of South Korean non-financial firms has damaged both real and R&D investments. The first channel of financialization, increased financial investments, reduces real investments and R&D spending. Furthermore, the second channel of financialization, profit-sharing, reduces corporate innovation. The more that South Korean non-financial firms adhere to dividend payments and stock buybacks, the greater the negative impacts on real and R&D investments are.