卖空能约束企业集团的债务资本扩张吗?

Does Short Selling Restrain the Expansion of Debt Financing in Corporate Groups?

约束企业集团利用股权资本重复获取债务资本,对防范资本无序扩张具有重要意义。以我国逐步放松卖空管制为准自然实验,本文研究发现:放松卖空管制后,融券标的公司对子公司的股权投资相较于非卖空标的显著减少;股权投资减少意味着母公司、子公司利用其重复融资的可能性降低,从而抑制了企业集团在母公司原有基础之上扩张债务资本。进一步分析发现,当子公司代理成本较高时,卖空抑制债务资本扩张的效果更为明显。本文的研究表明,持续放开融券交易,充分发挥卖空机制的公司治理效应,有助于约束企业集团的债务资本扩张。

It is of great importance to restrict corporate groups from repeatedly aquiring debt financing using equity investments,from the perspective of unregulated expansion of capital.Using the deregulation of margin trading and short selling as a natural experiment,we show a significant decrease in equity investments in firms whose stock are allowed to be shorted after the deregulation.This finding implies that the parent and its subsidiaries are less likely to repeatedly use equity investment for debt financing,and thus inhibiting the expansion of debt financing in the enterprise group.Further analyses show that the effect of short selling threats on restrict the expansion of debt financing is stronger when the agency cost of subsidiaries is high.Our findings indicate that deregulating short selling can restrain the expansion of corparte groups’debt financing,as the shorting selling mechanism plays an important role in corporate governance.