银行授信、信贷紧缩与企业研发

Bank Lines of Credit,Credit Squeeze and Firm R&D

企业研发是生产率提升和长期经济增长最重要的源泉，但企业研发需要长期持续不断的资金支持，而且由于其风险高、孵化周期长和信息不对称等因素，更容易受到融资约束的影响。本文使用世界银行在中国12000余家企业的调查数据，用企业是否获得银行授信以及授信额度大小来衡量企业是否有稳定的外部融资渠道，考察了其对企业研发行为的影响。结果发现，企业获得银行授信，其研发概率提高8．6个百分点，研发强度提高0．24个百分点，而且全要素生产率增长也更快。我们还进一步使用2003—2004年宏观调控中的信贷紧缩政策作为一个自然实验，发现受信贷紧缩政策冲击更大的企业，研发支出下降更多甚至是中断研发投资。本文的实证结果表明，缺乏稳定持续的融资渠道是阻碍中国企业创新的一个重要原因。

Finn R＆D is a key driver for productivity growth and long - run economic growth. However, as a result of higher risk and longer gestation periods, R＆D investments are more likely to be subjected to financialconstraints than ordinary investments. Using a unique World Bank survey of 12,400 manufacturing firms in Chi-na, this paper investigates the impacts of stable financial access, as proxied by indicators of whether firms haveaccess to a bank credit line, on firm R＆D activities. We find that firms with better financial access are morelikely to invest in R＆D and have faster productivity growth. In addition, we use exogenous shock of creditcrunch caused byc control policies in 2003 - 2004 as a natural experiment on financial constraintsof firms. We find robust evidence that, during the credit crunch period, firms which are unable to get bankloans invest less in R＆D than before or even suspend R＆D activities. Moreover, during the period of creditcrunch, firms with credit lines will have higher growth of R＆D expenditures as their access to finance is lesslikely to be affected by credit crunch. Our empirical findings of this paper suggest that the lack of stable financial access an important factor that hinders the innovation of Chinese finns.