本論文第一部分係藉由分析公司現金在長短期投資上的分配決策來探討企業信用風險如何影響其現金配置決策。實證結果顯示當每增加一單位之現金，一般情況下公司傾向將比較多的比例分配在長期投資，而分配比較少的現金比例於短期營運資金需求。然而，當公司信用風險較高時，其現金配置在長期投資之比重將下降而分配在短期營運資金所需之現金部位將提高。進一步分析發現，信用風險對於現金配置在企業長短期投資上之差異效果主要是導因於獲利性所產生之不確定問題，而非現金流量不確定所產生之問題。
第二部分則在探討信用風險對於企業未來績效之影響，主要透過信用風險如何影響投資－績效關係來進行驗證。實證結果發現信用風險將促使公司改善其投資決策品質，進一步可降低企業投資與未來績效之負向關連性，此效果主要發生於企業長期投資決策。換言之，本身信用風險較高的公司，其投資之邊際報酬之遞減程度將會較低信用風險公司來的緩慢。信用風險所帶的改善效果也顯示了負向投資績效關係主要傾向受市場錯誤評價所導致，而非理性投資理論所解釋。此外，實證結果在不同公司治理環境下仍不受影響。

The first essay is to investigate how the corporate cash allocation changes with the credit risk by investigating the change of cash allocation into short run (SR) operating working capital and long run (LR) investments. The results indicate that firms generally tend to invest additional cash more in LR investments than in SR working capital. However, firms would decrease their cash allocation into LR investments and increase the allocation into SR working capital investments when they face higher credit risk than others. Furthermore, the cash allocation effect on SR and LR investments is mainly driven by the profitability problem instead of cash-flow problem. The credit risk caused by the cash-flow risk does not necessarily lead to the increased cash allocation into SR working capital investments, because firms under SR cash shortage can still raise funds to mitigate the liquidity problem as long as they have a good LR perspective.
The second essay examines the effect of credit risk on corporate performance by testing the effect of credit risk on the relation between corporate investments and subsequent performance. The results demonstrate that the effect of credit risk is likely to enhance the quality of corporate investment decisions and thus improves the negative relation between corporate investments and corporate performance. The improvement of credit risk in such investment-performance relation is more associated with mispricing-explained theory than optimal investment theory. The findings are robust for firms under different corporate governance environment and marginally evidence that the improvement of credit risk in negative investment-performance relation is weaker in poorly-governed firms than that in well-governed firms.

Essay I. Credit Risk and Cash Allocation
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Essay II The Effect of Credit Risk and Corporate Performance
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