债务分布与企业风险承担——基于投资效率的中介效应检验

Debt Distribution and Corporate Risk Taking: The Test of Mediated Effect Based on Investment Efficiency

区别于现有研究从上市公司合并整体视角考察债务契约的治理效应,本研究从企业风险承担视角考察了母子公司债务分布的治理效应。理论上,母子公司的债务分布可以通过约束过度投资和缓和投资不足两个路径影响合并整体的风险承担水平。研究发现,过度投资或者投资不足均加剧了公司的风险承担水平;对于经营业务主要分布在子公司的上市公司,增加子公司的借款比重明显降低了合并整体的风险承担水平,主要原因在于子公司债务约束了公司的低效投资。进一步研究发现,债务分布对风险承担的影响路径虽然包括抑制过度投资或投资不足,但针对我国国有企业前者更为明显,民营企业则是通过后一路径发挥影响。本研究揭示,债务的治理效应除受总体债务水平、债务期限影响外,债务在集团内部的分布特征也是一个重要影响因素。研究深化了债务治理效应的相关研究,为我国上市母子公司集团内部的债务管理提供了实践启示。

Different from the literatures which investigated the debt contract＇s governance effects in the perspective of consolidation of parent and subsidiary firms, in the perspective of corporate risk taking, this study investigates the governance effects of debt distribution between parent and subsidiary firms. Theoretically, the distribution of debt between parent and subsidiaries can ease over-investment or under-investment behaviors and therefore in- fluence the corporate risk taking. Using the samples of 2007-2013 Chinese A-Share listed firms, this study treats corporate subsidiary level as a whole, estimates parent-subsidiary debt distribution by computing the bank loan size difference between the consolidated financial report and parent financial report. And then, through the use of firm investment efficiency as the intermediary variable, we empirically test the mechanism how the distribution structure of debt contract between the parent and subsidiary plays on corporate risk taking. The empirical evidences show that： over-investment and under-investment have exacerbated the firm risk-taking; for the company whose subsidiaries＇ proportion of business is higher, the increase of the proportion of the subsidiary＇s loan significantly reduced firm overall risk taking, it can be attributed to the subsid- iaries＇ debt through restricting low efficiency investment. Further, this study found that even the affecting path of debt distribution to risk taking including the inhibition of over-investment or un- der-investment, but the former path is more obvious for the state- owned companies, and the latter is more obvious for the private companies. This study reveals that not only the consolidated debt level, debt maturity, but the distribution within group is also an im- portant factor affecting the governance effect of debt contract. This study extends the related researches of debt governance, as well as reveals that in the multi-level governance framework of Chinese listed group, an appropriate parent-subsidiary debt distribution can improve firm investment efficiency to some extent, which leads a lower level of corporate risk taking and protects interests of the controlling and minority shareholders, it provides Chinese listed groups a practical revelation for parent-subsidiary internal debt fi- nancing management.