数字金融发展与企业去杠杆

Development of Digital Finance and Enterprise Deleveraging

近十年来,中国经济整体债务水平和宏观杠杆水平快速上升。非金融企业是中国债务的大头,中国高杠杆率的企业主要是国有企业和大型企业,而对中国经济增长有重要贡献的私营企业和中小企业杠杆率较低,存在突出的融资难和融资贵问题。可以说,当前中国经济正处于债务风险高、融资难和融资贵的双重困境,但鲜有研究对如何破解这种双重困境进行探讨。数字金融发展为破解这种双重困境提供了可行方案。采用北京大学数字金融研究中心课题组编制的数字普惠金融指数的省级数据测量中国各省的数字金融发展程度,以2012年至2016年中国各省工业和2位数代码制造业行业作为研究对象,使用面板固定效应模型,检验数字金融发展对总杠杆率、短期杠杆率、长期杠杆率和债务期限等企业杠杆率的影响,以及这种影响在不同规模、不同所有制、不同区域和不同研发投入强度的企业之间的异质性。最后,采用工具变量两阶段最小二乘法进行内生性检验,以加强研究结果的稳健性。研究结果表明,数字金融发展对企业总杠杆率和短期杠杆率有显著的负向影响,对长期杠杆率没有显著影响,对债务期限具有显著的正向影响,即数字金融发展没有抬高反而降低了企业杠杆率,优化了企业债务期限结构。基于企业融资约束视角的分组回归结果表明,与大型企业、国有企业、非中部省份企业和传统行业企业相比,数字金融发展对降低中小企业、私营企业、中部省份企业和高技术行业企业杠杆率的作用更明显,表明这4类企业更依赖于数字金融。研究结果提供了数字金融发展有利于降低企业债务风险的正面证据,丰富了数字金融的经济后果研究,识别了影响企业杠杆率的新因素,对于防范系统性风险和深化金融供给侧结构性改革具有启示意义。

The overall debt and macro leverage level of China′s economy have risen rapidly in recent ten years.The non-financial enterprise has the largest part of China′s debt,and the enterprises with high leverage ratio in China are mainly state-owned enterprises and large enterprises.However,the leverage ratio of private enterprises and small and medium enterprises(SMEs)that make a significant contribution to China′s economic growth is relatively low,existing a prominent problem of difficult and expensive financing.It may be understood that China′s economy is currently in the double dilemma of high debt risk and difficult and expensive financing.Yet how to solve this double dilemma has been rarely studied.The development of digital finance may provide a feasible solution to this double dilemma.In this paper,we use the provincial-level data of Digital Financial Inclusion Index compiled by the Institute of Digital Finance at Peking University to measure the development of digital finance in provinces of China,take overall industry and two-digit manufacturing industries from 2012 to 2016 as the research object,and adopt the panel fixed effects model to examine the effect of the development of digital finance on the enterprises′leverage ratio,includingtotal leverage ratio,short-term leverage ratio,long-term leverage ratio and debt maturity.The heterogeneous impact on different types of enterprises ranging in scale,ownership,R&D investment intensity,and located in different regions is also analyzed.Endogenous test is also conducted by the two-stage least square method of instrumental variables,which strengthens the robustness of the research results.Results indicate that the development of digital finance has a significant negative impact on total leverage ratio and short-term leverage ratio of enterprises,no significant impact on their long-term leverage ratio and significant positive impact on their debt maturity.That is to say,the development of digital finance doesn′t increase but rather reduces leverage ratio of enterprises,and optimizes their debt maturity structure.Grouped regression results based on the perspective of financial constraints of enterprises show that,compared to large enterprises,state-owned enterprises,enterprises in the non-central region,and enterprises in traditional industries,a greater reduction in leverage ratio occurred in SMEs,private enterprises,enterprises in the central region,and enterprises in high-tech industries,which suggests that the latter four types of enterprises are more dependent on digital finance.This study provides positive evidence that development of digital finance is beneficial to reduce the debt risk of enterprises,enriches the research on the economic consequences of digital finance,and identifies the new factors influencing the leverage ratio of enterprises,which has a great enlightening significance for preventing systemic risk and broadening financial supply-side structural reform in China.