券商的股权质押业务与其分析师荐股评级的乐观偏差

The Share-Backed Loan Business of Brokerage Firms and Optimistic Recommendation by Affiliated Analysts

券商为上市公司大股东提供的股权质押融资服务是否会影响其分析师荐股评级的乐观偏差呢?本文基于我国A股上市公司2008-2016年间的数据对此问题展开了研究,结果发现,相较于非质权人券商分析师,质权人券商分析师对出质人公司的荐股评级更加乐观;且这一关系在规模较小的券商中更为明显。本文进一步研究还发现,质权人券商分析师的荐股评级乐观倾向主要存在于大股东股权质押期间,而在相关股权质押发生前和股权质押解除后,没有证据表明质权人券商分析师与非质权人券商分析师的荐股评级存在显著差异。本文的研究结果表明,券商作为上市公司大股东股权质押的质权人会带来利益冲突,并在一定程度上会有损于其所隶属分析师的独立性。

This paper investigates whether share-backed loan business of brokerage firms lead to optimistic recommendations by affiliated analysts.Using the data of A-share listed firms from 2008 to 2016,we document that the recommendations issued by analysts affiliated to pledgees(brokerage firm providing share-backed financing)on the pledgors(whose blockholders pledged their shares to the pledgee brokerage firms)are significantly more optimistic than those recommendations issued by non-pledgees analysts.Such relationship is more pronounced when the affiliated analyst works in a smaller brokerage firm.Moreover,we show that the optimism tendency exists only during the pledging period,there is no evidence that the connected analysts were more optimistic prior to or post the pledging period.Collectively,our results indicate that pledged-shares-backed financing service of brokerage firms leads to the interest conflict,harms the independence of affiliated analysts.