传统文化、非正式制度与社会契约——基于宗族观念、民族伦理与企业债务期限结构的微观证据

Traditional Culture,Informal institution and Social Contract:A Microeconomic Evidence Based on Ancestral Ideas,National Ethics and Corporate debt maturity structure

作为一种非正式制度安排,传统文化对社会契约具有重要的影响。本文从传统文化对经济秩序和社会契约维护的角度,理论分析了宗族观念、民族伦理对企业债务期限结构影响的作用机理,提出了企业债务期限结构具有地区文化烙印的假设,对地区间债务期限结构差异进行了基于文化角度的新解释,并以我国290个地级市1432家上市公司为研究样本,运用多层线性回归模型对研究假设进行了实证检验。研究发现,宗族观念和民族伦理能够通过内心信念、外在声誉、潜在惩罚等方式增强社会互信,进而提高了企业的债务期限结构,而且这种影响具有"基于企业所有权的异质性"。与国有企业相比,非国有企业的债务期限结构会在更大程度上受到宗族观念、民族伦理的影响。这些结论进一步表明,以新兴加转轨为特征的我国,在正式制度尚不完备的情况下,除了要进一步加强正式制度建设,还要重视非正式制度的价值,充分发挥传统文化中的道德伦理在维护经济秩序和完善社会契约中的积极作用,使正式制度与非正式制度相互补充、相得益彰。

Social contracts have an extensive and far-reaching influence on economic activities. A number of studies have suggested that social contracts can promote science and technology progress, human capital accumula- tion, and economic growth （ Acemoglu et al. , 2007 ; Nunn, 2007 ; Vogel, 2007 ; Costinot, 2009 ）. Although some leading scholars theoretically emphasize that culture is an important factor that can provide implicit rules for contract making and contract fulfillment. Up to date, little empirical research has been done from the culture perspective, mainly for the measurement problems of culture. China is a several-thousand-year Oriental civilization and has a magnificent culture history. Traditional ethical and moral ideas play an important role in all kinds of social activities. Chinese attach great importance to moral ide- as and neglect formal contract. Just as Fei Xiaotong, a famous Chinese sociologist pointed out that Chinese society basically is a relationship-type society which is based on moral and ethical ideas, and disparity structure is a promi- nent feature of the society. Therefore, culture will exert a far-reaching influence on social activities, including social contracting. By using theories and achievements from sociology, ethics, demography and ethnology for reference, we choose two essential elements from traditional culture to investigate their impact on social contracting. These two essential elements of traditional Chinese culture are ancestral ideas and national ethics, and the concrete form of social con- tract is corporate debt maturity structure. On one hand, we analyze the mechanism of how ancestral ideas and nation- al ethics affect corporate debt maturity structure and put forward the hypothesis. On the other hand, we empirically test the hypothesis with a sample of 1432 China listed companies from 290 prefecture-level city. As far as we know, this is the first time that sex ratio at birth and the minority ethnic population ratio are adopted as proxies from ances- tral ideas and national ethics. As to the methodology in this paper, multiple linear regression models are used. The empirical results show that ancestral ideas and national ethics affect corporate debt maturity structure and these effects have heterogeneity based on ownership. The detailed results are shown as follows. First, ancestral ideas posi- tively affect corporate debt maturity structure. The stronger the ancestral ideas, the longer the corporate debt maturity structure, indicating that ancestral ideas may play a role in promoting interpersonal trust and cooperation and benefit social contracting. Second, national ethics can also promote corporate debt maturity structure. Firms located in mi- nority populated areas have a longer corporate debt maturity structure, other factors controlled. Third, the ＂ancestral effect＂ and the ＂national ethics effect＂ depend on the heterogeneity of ownership. Compared to state-owned enterprises （SOEs） , non-SOEs are more obviously affected by ancestral ideas and national ethics. We make three contributions to the literature. First, consistent with the prediction of Hilary and Hui （2009） that culture affects firms＇ behaviors, we document that firms＇ contractual environment can also be affected by the surrounding culture. And even more particularly ,we come up with the main hypothesis that corporate debt maturity structure is imprinted by culture. Second, we empirically choose two proxies for ancestral ideas and national ethics, which will prompt empirical research in this area. Third, this paper has meaningful policy implication for market development. Besides depending on formal institutional improvement, we should cherish the informal institution such as ancestral ideas and national ethics. K