企业自主创新的融资行为及其对成长的影响:来自中国A股市场的经验证据

The Financing of Enterprises on Independent Innovation and Its Impact on Growth: An Empirical Evidence from Listed companies in Yunnan

在"创新型国家"建设的背景下,资金瓶颈被认为是企业自主创新的一个主要影响因素,相应资本结构的变化也可能影响了企业的成长。以592家中国A股上市公司为样本,以2001-2010年共10年为时间窗,利用独立混合横截面回归方法研究了自主创新能力对融资行为的影响,以及财务杠杆对企业成长的影响。结果发现:无论是用专利授权数还是专利申请数作为创新能力的替代变量,创新能力对内源融资都具有显著的促进作用,用专利申请数作为创新能力的替代变量时,创新能力对股权融资也具有显著促进作用。进而,创新能力对杠杆具有显著的抑制作用。但并未发现杠杆影响成长的证据。

In recent years, Chinese government decided to construct ＇Innovation-orientated Country＇. A tremendous amount of resources is devoted to developing technological innovation and to securing patent protection over them. Patenting activity literally exploded in China over the past 5 years. Firms have become as the subject of innovation activity. During the innovation activity, however, there are existing two questions. First, how does technological innovation affect a firm＇s financing choices？ Second, how does capital structure affect a firm＇s growth？ Such two questions have caught the attention of academics and practitioners alike. In this paper, I use the patent data to assess empirically the implications of independent innovation for corporate financing and growth. First, I apply existing theory to discuss these two questions respectively. There are two competing theories to expect the first question. On the one hand, innovations may signal strong investment opportunities and therefore require new equity finance to avoid debt overhang problems （Myers, 1977）. As a consequence, outsider investors may want more control rights. Alternatively, technological innovations may call for more financial slack, for two different reasons. First, patents may come with a reduction of information asymmetry. As a result, equity goes up in the pecking order of external financing （Myers and Majluf, 1984）. Second, technological innovations may negatively affect a firm＇s competitive position and therefore call for more financial slack to survive against deep-pocket rivals. On the other hand, technological innovation may imply strong investment opportunities and therefore will require outside debt finance. Or technological innovation may create over capacity, and determine the need to restructure or exit. I apply these theories to discuss Chinese firms and develop three hypothesizes. There are also two competing theories to expect the last question. High leverage may negatively affect a firm＇s growth because the projects with negative NPV may be denied （Jensen, 1986）. Alternatively, there are not significantly connection between leverage and growth for a firm with high-return project （Miller, 1991）. I also discuss Chinese firms and develop two hypothesizes. Second, I test these five hypothesizes respectively. I use information on 592 Listed Companies in China for ten years 2001to 2010, which leads to 3290 observations, and independent pooled cross-section time series regression. Finally, I show that the relationship between innovation and newly retained earnings is significant whether innovation is specified by the number of patent applications or patent granted; Innovation is positively associated with net equity issues when innovation is specified by the number of patent applications. Innovation is negatively associated with leverage. We can＇t find the evidence about the effect of leverage on growth.