产品市场竞争对企业资本结构的影响

The Effect of Product Market Competition on Capital Structure

许多研究表明中国上市公司存在较强的股权融资偏好。国内学者根据代理理论认为股权融资过多的企业未能充分利用财务杠杆而使企业绩效下降，如果从产品市场竞争对资本结构影响这一角度来研究上市公司的融资行为可能会得出不同的结论。通过对2000年-2003年深市和沪市796家公司相关数据的实证研究发现，产品市场竞争程度和资本结构之间存在负相关关系，激烈的产品市场竞争也是导致企业采用低财务杠杆的重要原因，由于这一原因而导致的财务保守行为是合理的，它是企业为避免财务风险、提高产品市场竞争能力而采取的战略行为。

It is well-known that Chinese listed companies strongly prefer to equity financing. The domestic academic thought that listed companies with lower financial leverage didn＇t utilize financial leverage so sufficiently that their economic performance was affected negatively. This paper studies the financing behavior of listed companies from a perspective of the effect of product market competition on capital structure. It is found that firms＇ financial leverage is negatively related to product market competition through an empirical study on the panel data of 796 listed companies in 2000 - 2003. With theoretical analysis and empirical test this paper concludes that drastic product market competition makes listed companies adapt lower financial leverage, and under this circumstance firms will benefit from lower leverage, which makes a firm have ability to navigate effectively within its competitive environment.