劳动保护、行业下滑与企业贷款违约——基于2008《劳动合同法》的实证检验

Labor Protection,Industry Downturn and Firm's Bank Loan Default:Empirical Evidence from 2008 Labor Contract Law

笔者主要研究劳动保护是否以及如何影响企业发生贷款违约的概率。以1999—2012年我国A股上市公司为样本,利用2008年《劳动合同法》的实施度量劳动保护强度的变化,检验发现,随着劳动保护的增强,劳动密集型企业在行业下滑时发生贷款违约的概率显著增加。分样本研究发现,高财务杠杆企业由于面临更加沉重的还款压力,劳动保护增强使其更容易出现债务违约。相对国有企业,民营企业缺乏信贷和展期上的优势,劳动保护增强对其债务违约的影响更为明显。小企业具有更高的财务风险和更不完善的劳动保障制度,其受劳动保护增强的负面影响也更加明显。进一步的平稳性检验显示,在新劳动法实施之前,不同特征企业的贷款违约趋势并未出现显著变化;在不同行业下滑的定义下,劳动保护增强对企业贷款违约的影响依然显著。总的来说,笔者基于贷款违约得到的证据支持关于劳动保护具有负面经济后果的论断。

This paper studies whether and how labor protection affects firms＇ probability of bank loan default. Using Chinese listed firms from 1999 to 2012 as research sample and exploiting the implementation of 2008 Labor Contract Law to measure change in labor protection intensity, this paper finds that, with the strengthening of labor protection, labor intensive firms are more likely to default on bank loans during industry downturn. Studies on sub-sample find that, highdeveraged firms have more pressure on repayment and thus are more likely to be affected by labor protection strengthening. Compared with state-owned firms, private firms lack advantages on loan borrowing and extension. Thus the impact from labor protection is more pronounced for private firms. Small firms have higer financial risk and less complete system of labor security, thus are more affected by labor protection. Further robust tests show that, before the new labor law, the propensity of loan default of firms with different characteristics did not show significant change. Under several alternative measures for industry downturn, the impact of labor protection on firm＇s loan default is still significant. In general, the evidence provided in this paper from the perspective of bank loan default supports the argument that labor protection has negative impact on economic outcomes.