Abstract
Currently, Korean firms are making a lot of effort to invest in research and development (R&D) by spending a lot of development costs in order to cope with the 4th industrial revolution. On the other hand, the capital market of Korea, which is the main source of funding, has caused a lot of cost of capital for firms by its reorganization mainly with safe assets in the experience of foreign exchange crisis at the end of 1997, the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007 and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Thus, this study empirically analyzed the effect of development expenses on credit rating and firm value. The credit rating was measured by commercial paper(CP) credit rating which is sensitive for investors in terms of risk because it is issued only by the credit of the firms. Firm value was defined as Tobin's Q, which has been widely used in prior studies. The results of the analysis are summarized as follows; Firstly, development expenses did not affect credit rating. Development expenses are recognized as intangible assets for uncertainty of economic benefits and long-term investment. Thus, it seems that there is no effect of development expenses on CP credit rating as CP credit rating is evaluated by short-term credit rating.