国有上市公司为何要建立银行关联:缓解融资还是强化监督?

Why Does State-owned Listed Company Hire Bank-connected Directors: Ease Financing Constraints or Enhance Supervision?

银行关联是缓解企业融资约束的一种重要非正式制度安排,但国有上市公司受高负债和过度投资的困扰,为何还要建立银行关联?为此,本文考察了国有上市公司建立银行关联的动机与效果。研究发现,国有上市公司中银行关联的现象普遍存在,这些公司具有更低的短期和长期银行借款,同时有更多的非银行性负债。国有上市公司的银行借款水平越高越可能引起过度投资,银行关联可以抑制过高银行借款而激发的过度投资问题。国有上市公司的银行借款水平越高,越可能陷入财务困境,银行关联可以降低国有上市公司过高银行借款而陷入财务困境的可能性。此外,国有上市公司的银行借款水平越高,企业的价值越低,而银行关联可以削弱过多银行借款对企业价值的损害。这些证据显示,国有上市公司建立银行关联并不是为了缓解融资约束,而更多地表现出与强化监督相吻合的特征。本文的研究丰富了银行关联研究的视角,为国有上市公司建立银行关联的动机和效果提供了新的理论解释和经验证据。

Bank connection is an important informal institutional arrangement to alleviate enterprise financing constraints. However, state-owned enterprises in China are distressed by excessive debt and over-investment. In such a scenario, why dose state-owned listed company hire bank-connected directors？ This paper focuses on motivations and functions of hiring bank- connected directors in state-owned listed companies. It is found that the phenomenon of bank connection is quite popular in state-owned enterprises. Compared with companies without bank connection, the companies with bank connection have less short-term and long-term bank loans, while have more non-bank liabilities. The higher the level of bank loan gets, the more likely the over-investment will be, but bank connection can alleviate the over-investment caused by excessive bank loans. The more the company bank loan is, the more likely it will fall into financial distress, but bank connection can reduce the possibility of financial distress caused by excessive bank loans, in addition, the more the company bank loan is, the lower the value of the company is. And bank connection can weaken the value damage effect of excessive bank loans. In all, the evidence suggests that the main purpose of hiring bank-connected directors in state-owned enterprises is not to ease financing constraints, which is consistent with the hypothesis of enhancing supervision. The research of this paper enriches the bank connection related research, and provides some new theoretical explanations and empirical evidences for the motivations and functions of bank connection.