中小企业的流动性约束——来自温州的经验

Liquidity Constraints of Small and Medium Enterprises——Evidence From Wenzhou

信息经济学与金融微观理论的有关文献认为,由于非对称信息与代理成本,中小企业在投资融资中比大企业面临更严重的流动性约束。本文采用1997—2000年温州企业的水平数据研究了企业规模与流动性约束的关系。我们的基本发现是,在我国这样的转型经济中,中小企业比大企业面临更少的流动性约束。我们的解释是:中小企业主要依靠内源融资和非正规金融;而在大企业中居主导地位的国有企业沉重的债务负担分散了其可以利用的有效现金流。本文的结果为我国在金融领域存在的"增长之谜"——非国有经济的快速增长与民营中小企业得不到正规金融的支持同时并存——提供了部分解释。

Common wisdom suggests that small and medium firms should face tighter liquidity constraints than their larger counterparts.This paper probes the relationship between firm size and liquidity constraints by using firm-level data from enterprises in Wenzhou during the 1997—2000 period.Our empirical results show that small firms in Wenzhou are actually less liquidity-constrained than their larger counterparts.We suggest three possible explanations for this peculiar finding: (1)The market success of the small and medium firms allows them to generate sufficient internal funds over time to cover their investments.(2)Small and medium enterprises in nonstate sectors can rely on informal credit markets to obtain funds for investment even though they are excluded from the state banking system. (3)The heavy indebtedness of the large state-owned enterprises may deprive them of sufficient cash for investment decisions.Our findings provide a partial interpretation of the Chinese economic growth puzzle,which is the coexistence of rapid economic growth in the nonstate sector even though nonstate enterprises obtain few loans from the formal financial sector.