佳作分享|高铁开通影响债务融资成本吗——一项准自然实验
Does opening high-speed railways
affect the cost of debt financing?
A quasi-natural experiment
高铁开通影响债务融资成本吗——一项准自然实验
· 文章作者 ·
Hongling Guo
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China,and
Keping Wu
School of Business Administration, Chaohu University, Hefei, China
Citation
Guo, H. and Wu, K. (2020), "Does opening high-speed railways affect the cost of debt financing? A quasi-natural experiment", China Finance Review International, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 473-496. https://doi.org/10.1108/CFRI-06-2019-0083
· 摘要 ·
本研究采用2008——2017年中国上市公司非平衡面板数据，实证检验了高铁开通对债务融资的影响，研究结果发现，高铁开通降低了债务融资成本。进一步研究发现，在产权性质为民营企业、内部控制质量较弱以及聘请非“四大”审计的公司，高铁开通与债务融资成本呈更为显著的负相关关系。此外，本文采用渠道检验方法，对高铁开通降低债务融资成本这一结果进行影响机制分析，结果发现，高铁开通通过提高公司的分析师关注度、机构投资者参与度以及信息披露质量，从而降低债务融资成本。本文的研究结果表明，高铁开通有助于缓解上市公司与债权人之间的信息不对称，为债权人做出更为精准的贷款决策提供更加透明的信息环境，从而减少逆向选择和道德风险，进而降低债务融资成本，在一定程度上促进债务融资市场的资源合理配置和正常运行。本文一方面为中国基础设施建设对债务市场信息环境和公司债务融资的影响提供理论支持和经验证据，进一步丰富了“高铁经济学”的研究；另一方面利用高铁开通这一外生性事件，考察高铁开通带来时间距离的瞬间缩短对公司债务融资成本的影响，为关于公司地理位置的金融研究提供了一个新的视角。
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how opening high-speed railways affects the cost of debt financing based on China's background.
Design/methodology/approach
Using panel data on Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2017, this study constructs a quasi-natural experiment and adopts a difference-in-difference model with multiple time periods to empirically examine the relation between the high-speed railway openings and debt financing cost.
Findings
Our results show that opening high-speed railways reduces the cost of debt financing, and this negative correlation is more significant in non-state firms, firms with weaker internal control, and firms that hire non-Big Four auditors. Besides, we explore the impact mechanisms and find that opening high-speed railways improves analyst attention, institutional investor participation, and information disclosure quality, which in turn lowers the cost of debt financing.
Research limitations/implications
The results imply that the opening of high-speed railways helps to alleviate the information asymmetry and adverse selection between firms and creditors and ultimately reduces the cost of corporate debt financing.
Practical implications
This paper can inform firms and stakeholders about the impact of opening high-speed railways on debt financing cost: it improves the information environment, reduces the geographical location restrictions of debt financing, ensures the reasonable pricing of corporate debt, and thus promotes the healthy and sound development of the debt market.
Originality/value
This paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for the impact of infrastructure construction on the information environment of the debt market in China, which enriches the research on the “high-speed railway economy.” In addition, as an exogenous event, the opening of high-speed railways instantly shortens the time distance between firms and external stakeholders, which gives us a natural environment to conduct empirical research, thus providing a new perspective for financial research on firms' geographical location.
Keywords
High-speed railway, Debt financing, Information asymmetry
· 文章结构 ·
Introduction
Related literature
2.1 Debt financing and information asymmetry
2.2 The opening of high-speed railways and information asymmetry
Theoretical analysis and research hypotheses
Research design
4.1 Sample selection
4.2 Variable definition and measurement
Main findings
5.1 Descriptive statistics
5.2 Correlation analyses
5.3 Multivariate results
Robustness checks
6.1 Difference-in-differences analysis based on a propensity score-matched sample
6.2 Placebo effect test
6.3 Fixed effect regression
6.4 Deleting cities with airports
6.5 Expanded sample
6.6 Controlling for debt characteristics
6.7 Group regression for large and small cities
Further analyses
7.1 State-owned enterprises and private firms
7.2 Different quality of internal control
7.3 Big Four and non-Big Four auditors
The influence mechanisms
8.1 Analyst attention
8.2 Institutional investor participation
8.3 Information disclosure quality
8.4 The model of mediating effects and analysis of results
Conclusion
研究成果
· 1 · List of variable definitions.
· 2 · Descriptive statistics of variables.
· 3 · The opening of highspeed railways and the cost of debt financing.
· 4 · Pearson and Spearman correlation analysis.
· 5 · Regression analysis of high-speed railways opening and debt financing cost.
· 6 · Covariate balance analysis.
· 7 · Robustness test of high-speed railways opening and debt financing cost.
· 8 · Robustness test: Controlling for debt characteristics.
· 9 · Robustness test: Group regression for large and small cities.
· 10 · Further analysis: stateowned enterprises and private firms.
· 11 · Further analysis: different quality of internal control.
· 12· Further analysis: Big Four and non-Big Four auditors.
· 结论·
The opening of high-speed railways instantly shortens the time distance between firms and stakeholders, reduces transportation costs and brings more opportunities and resources to firms, thus promoting corporate performance and regional economic development (Zhang, 2017; Zhang et al., 2018; Rao et al., 2019). Based on the economic effect of high-speed railway openings, this paper examines their impact on the cost of corporate debt financing. We find that the opening of high-speed railways reduces the cost of corporate debt financing, and this negative correlation is more significant in non-state firms, firms with weaker internal control, and firms that hire non-Big Four auditors. In addition, to explore the mechanism of how the opening of high-speed railways reduces the cost of corporate debt financing, we empirically examine the mediating effect and find that the opening of high-speed railways improves analyst attention, institutional investor participation and information disclosure quality, which subsequently helps lower the cost of corporate debt financing. The results imply that the opening of high-speed railways helps to alleviate the information asymmetry and agency conflicts between firms and creditors and ultimately reduces the cost of corporate debt financing.
Our results verify the positive role of high-speed railway openings at the micro level from the perspective of corporate debt financing and further reveal its impact mechanism, which has both theoretical and practical significance. Specifically, this paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for the impact of infrastructure construction on the information environment of the debt market in China, which enriches the research on the “high-speed railway economy.” In addition, as an exogenous event, the opening of high-speed railways instantly shortens the time distance between firms and external stakeholders, which gives us a natural environment to conduct empirical research, thus providing a new perspective for financial research on firms' geographical location. Finally, in terms of practical implications, this paper can inform firms and stakeholders about the impact of opening high-speed railways on the cost of debt financing: it improves the information environment, reduces the geographical location restrictions of debt financing, ensures the reasonable pricing of corporate debt and thus promotes the healthy and sound development of the debt market.
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作者简介
郭泓伶，西南交通大学经济管理学院在读博士，主要研究领域为公司金融。2019年受邀参加美国会计年会，论文“Sever Litigation, Financial Connection and Debt Financing”被该会议收录。一作论文“Effect of Severe Litigation and Bank Connection on Bank Financing in China”在Accounting & Finance（SSCI，影响因子2.217）发表。一作论文“Cross-shareholding Network and Corporate Bond Financing Cost in China”被North American Journal of Economics and Finance（SSCI，影响因子1.535）接收；作为主研人员成功申请2018年国家自然科学基金面上项目“法律诉讼，社会网络与债务契约”（项目编号：71772154）。
吴克平，巢湖学院工商管理学院副教授。会计学专业教研室主任。主要研究领域为财务理论、公司金融与资本市场。2014年毕业于中国人民大学商学院会计学专业，获管理学博士学位。主要研究领域为财务理论、公司金融与资本市场。新西兰梅西大学访问学者，2017年安徽省社科联优秀论文获得者。巢湖学院中青年学术技术骨干，基层学术委员会委员，巢湖学院学报审稿人。近年来一直致力于公司财务与资本市场方面的研究，曾在《上海经济研究》、《山西财经大学学报》、《中南财经政法大学学报》等刊物公开发表CSSCI期刊论文7篇，一篇SSCI期刊论文已处于送审阶段。曾参编教材2部，曾独立主持和参与中国人民大学科学研究基金项目1项、安徽省教育厅高校人文社科基金重点项目2项、安徽省高校优秀拔尖人才项目、国家自然科学基金项目、教育部人文社会科学基金项目各1项。
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