过度负债企业去杠杆:程度、持续性及政策效应——来自中国上市公司的证据

Deleveraging in Over-indebted Firms:Degree,Sustainability and Policy Effect

2008年“四万亿”经济刺激计划实施之后,我国企业杠杆水平不断攀升。为了防范金融风险,必须降低过度负债企业的杠杆水平。本文以我国非金融类上市公司为研究对象,实证检验了过度负债与去杠杆之间的关系。研究发现,过度负债企业更可能去杠杆,去杠杆程度也更高,且过度负债程度越高,去杠杆的可能性和程度也越高,但上述关系在国企中表现相对较弱;我国强制去杠杆政策的实施,进一步提高了过度负债的非国企和央企的去杠杆程度。本文的研究拓展和深化了资本结构和“中国式去杠杆”影响因素以及过度负债经济后果方面的文献,也为进一步优化我国结构性去杠杆工作提供了经验证据和政策参考。

Since the beginning of the 21st century and especially since the implementation of the“Four Trillion”economic stimulus plan in 2008,the leverage of Chinese enterprises has risen continuously and rapidly,reaching its peak in 2012-2013.High leverage is already a significant risk factor for the Chinese economy,and over-indebtedness must be reduced to prevent financial risks.As such,how to effectively control and reduce the leverage of Chinese non-financial enterprises has become an important issue,receiving extensive attention and widespread concern from the government,financial intermediaries,academia and media.In 2015,the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council of China launched a series of Mandatory Deleveraging Policies(MDP)that require enterprises,mainly state-owned enterprises(SOEs),to effectively eliminate their excessive debt without hurting their operations.However,some people think these policies might pressure enterprises too much,and media have raised questions,saying,“SOEs are sick while non-state-owned enterprises(non-SOEs)take medicine”.We aim to determine whether enterprises reduce their excessive debt due to the pressure of media,financial intermediaries,or the government.Do commercial banks and other financial intermediaries treat different enterprises equally during deleveraging?More importantly,we address whether the media's argument that“SOEs are sick while non-SOEs take medicine”is valid.Finally,we examine whether,in addition to within-firm pressure and policy pressure,market pressure affects enterprises'deleveraging.We collect the data of Chinese listed non-financial companies in 2007-2018 from the CSMAR database.We examine the effect of excessive debt on deleveraging,and the moderating effect of ownership.First,we find that when enterprises are over-indebted or have excessive debt,they are more likely to deleverage and deleverage to a greater extent.Second,the deleveraging process takes three or more years.Third,the relations between excessive debt and the degree of deleveraging are significantly weaker in SOEs compared to non-SOEs.After the implementation of MDP,the moderating effect of ownership in the relation between excessive debt and the degree of deleveraging is no longer significant.We find that compared to local SOEs,central SOEs with over-indebtedness exhibit higher likelihood and degree of deleveraging.We also find that when market pressure is higher,enterprises are more likely to deleverage and deleverage to a greater extent.Our study contributes to both theory and practice in several ways.First,it enriches the literature on capital structure.We provide new evidence that both the occurrence and degree of excessive debt have a significant impact on deleveraging,which suggests that the rationality of debt should be considered when we examine the dynamic adjustment of capital structure.Second,the study enriches people's understanding of the Chinese deleveraging issue.We not only investigate the relationships among excessive debt,deleveraging,and ownership but also the effect of MDP.Specifically,we answer a fundamental question:Who has been deleraged?Third,we contribute to the literature about the economic consequences of over-indebtedness.Using excessive debt as a key independent variable,we study its impact on the occurrence and degree of deleveraging.We find that over-indebted enterprises are more likely to deleverage and deleverage to a greater extent.The relation is moderated by ownership.Lastly,our findings have policy implications.We find that Chinese non-financial listed companies,especially those with a higher degree of over-indebtedness,have been reducing excessive debt.This finding implies that enterprises'deleveraging is effective.It is necessary to differentiate between high leverage and over-indebtedness in the reduction of excessive debt.After the implementation of MDP,the moderating effect of ownership(whether SOEs and non-SOEs)is no longer significant.The relationship between excessive debt and deleveraging is significantly different for central SOEs versus local SOEs.This finding implies the overall effectiveness of MDP and sheds light on how structural deleveraging can be implemented and optimized.In particular,the government should focus on the structural deleveraging of local SOEs.