逆转的杠杆率剪刀差——国企加杠杆还是私企去杠杆

The Reversal of Leverage Scissors:State-owned Enterprises' Leveraging or Private-owned Enterprises' Deleveraging

近年来,我国企业的债务水平迅速上升。这种上升表现出怎样的结构性特征?背后的原因又是什么?文章利用中国上市公司2001-2016年年报数据,发现国有企业与私营企业的杠杆率差异从2008年开始明显上升且由负转正,两者的杠杆率剪刀差发生逆转。进一步的研究表明,在控制了企业杠杆率的常见影响因素之后,国有企业与私营企业的杠杆率差异从2008年开始与企业所在地的GDP增速呈现出显著的负相关关系,而私营企业的投资-现金流敏感性在2008年前后则没有出现明显的变化。这说明国企与私企杠杆率剪刀差的逆转主要来源于稳增长压力上升所引致的地方政府对国有企业融资决策的干预。文章的发现为2008年以来我国国企杠杆率的相对上升提出了一种全新的解释,有助于我们更加全面和深入地认识我国企业债务结构性问题的成因,也为国有企业结构性去杠杆的政策选择提供了参考。

Recently,the debt level of the Chinese corporate sector has risen rapidly.According to BIS,the ratio of debt to GDP in China’s non-financial sector has soared from 96%in 2008 to 166%in 2016,accounting for 61%of China’s non-financial sector debt growth.Behind the skyrocketing debt of the corporate sector,is there any structural difference in leverage changes of different companies?If yes,what is the reason behind it?Using the annual report data of China’s listed companies from 2001 to 2016,we find that the leverages of China’s private-owned enterprises(POEs)are higher than those of state-owned enterprises(SOEs)before2008.However,the leverage gap between China’s POEs and SOEs has started to turn negative since 2008,a phenomenon we called'the reversal of leverage scissors'.Our further research shows that there is no significant relationship between the leverage gap and the local GDP growth before 2008.After 2008,the negative correlated relationship began to emerge.This finding indicates that the relative increase in the leverage ratio of SOEs after 2008 is likely to come from the increasing intervention of local governments on SOEs’financing decisions,which is sourced from local governments’increasing pressure to stabilize economic growth.On the other hand,we also find that the degree of financing constraints that POEs are faced does not increase significantly after 2008,which means that the relative decline in the leverage ratio of POEs is probably only the spontaneous adjustment of enterprises in the context of the decline in the macroeconomic growth rate and the reduction of investment opportunities rather than a result of the deterioration of the supply-side financing environment.Moreover,the impact of changes in equity on leverage,the'four trillion'stimulus plan,and the direct financing advantage of listed companies cannot explain the reversal of the leverage ratio scissors.Our conclusions are also robust to the different measures of local government intervention and corporate financing constraints.Overall,this study shows that the reversal of the leverage ratio scissors is mainly due to the active leveraging of SOEs caused by local government intervention in the financing needs of SOEs.The main contribution of this paper is to provide a possible explanation for the structural rise of the leverage ratio of SOEs since 2008.Although the existing literature records the time series changes and structural characteristics of the leverage ratio of Chinese enterprises,there is no consistent view on the reasons behind the structural characteristics.In contrast,from the perspective of stabilizing local economy,we have linked the downward pressure of macroeconomic growth to the structural changes of micro-enterprise leverage,forming a chain of'downward trend of the macroeconomic growth rate—the pressure of local governments—local governments’increasing intervention—the structural changes of SOEs and POEs’leverage—the deterioration of capital allocation efficiency—macroeconomic growth rate decrease',thus provide a new insight with the structural increase of SOEs’leverage.In short,our research provides a new and meaningful profile of structural problems of China’s corporate debt,and also provides a reference for the policy choice of structural deleveraging of state-owned enterprises.