地方官员变更与企业风险——基于中国上市公司的经验证据

Local Officials,Turnover and Corporate Risk——Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

官员变更导致的政策不确定性会对当地经济发展产生重要影响,从而影响当地企业的正常经营投资活动。本文研究这样的问题:地方官员的变更是否会加剧当地企业面临的市场风险,以及有哪些因素会加剧或减弱这种作用机制?本文以1999—2012年在沪深A股上市的企业为研究样本,研究发现:官员变更导致的政策不确定性将显著加剧当地企业面临的市场风险;同时,若新任官员与省级官员存在"老乡"关系时会降低这种政策不确定性程度。进一步,本文还发现当企业所在地区的市场化进程较低时,企业风险受政策不确定性影响的程度更大,但由官员变更导致的政策不确定性对处于不同行业管制的企业以及产权不同的企业风险影响并没有显著差异。本文的研究结论丰富了企业风险方面的文献,同时有助于明晰政策不确定性的具体传导机制及其引起的经济后果。

The political uncertainty aroused by official turnovers often has a major impact on local economic development, thus affects the daily operating and investing activities of local firms. This paper investigates whether the political uncertainty increases the market risk faced by local firms and which factors can aggravate or mitigate this mechanism. Using data of listed firms in China from 1999 to 2012 as samples, we find the political uncertainty significantly increases the current year＇s market risk faced by local firms. Besides, the degree of political uncertainly can be significantly reduced if the new official has some connection with the provincial or local leaders, thus lower the impact on local firms. Also, the impact of political uncertainty is more pronounced when the firms are in the regions with lower degree of marketalization, and the impact of political uncertainty is not pronounced when the firms are in regulated industries and are owned by government. This paper enriches the research on corporate risk, and can help us to better understand the transmission mechanism of political uncertainty and the economic consequences it causes as well.