“原罪”嫌疑、制度环境与民营企业慈善捐赠

“Original Sin”Suspicion,Institutional Environment,and Corporate Philanthropy in Private Enterprises

2018年11月1日,习近平同志在民营企业座谈会上的讲话指出,要落实按照罪刑法定、疑罪从无的原则,切实保护民营企业家的人身和财产安全,这是因为"原罪"嫌疑是中国民营企业发展史上无法回避的一个重要问题,长期使得企业家面临企业合法性地位能否获得政府与社会公众认可的担忧,产生了诸多的微观经济后果。本文以2004-2016年间中国A股民营上市公司作为研究样本,根据企业初始产权获取过程中是否涉及公有产权到私有产权的转变作为对民营企业"原罪"嫌疑的度量,实证检验了"原罪"嫌疑是否以及如何影响民营企业的慈善捐赠行为。结果发现,由于"原罪"嫌疑所引致的民营企业合法性得不到正式认可与保护的威胁,背负"原罪"嫌疑的民营企业有动机通过慈善捐赠来讨好政府和社会公众以便降低这种威胁,而且这一正向影响关系随着企业所在省市的制度环境的完善而减弱。进一步本文还发现,"原罪"嫌疑对民营企业慈善捐赠水平的正向影响关系在不存在政治联系的企业以及实际控制人登上富豪榜后表现得更为明显。

The suspicion of“original sin”is an unavoidable problem in the development of China's private enterprises.It has greatly aggravated theworries of entrepreneurs that whether their firms'legitimacy and property rights could be formally recognized and protected by the public and the government.Using a sample of A-share private listed firms between 2004 and 2016,we investigate whether and how the suspicion of“original sin”of private enterprisesaffects corporate philanthropy.We find that enterprises with“original sin”suspicion have stronger incentives to take corporate philanthropy as a strategictool to reduce such threat.High development levels of institutional environment can attenuate the positive effect of“original sin”suspicion on privateenterprises'corporate philanthropy.Furthermore,we find that the positive association between“original sin”suspicion of private enterprises and their corporatephilanthropy is more pronounced when firms do not have political connections and after the ultimate controllers were showed up on the HurunRich List.