控股股东股权质押、审计质量与债务融资成本

Controlling Shareholder's Equity Pledging,Audit Quality and Debt Financing Costs

控股股东股权质押加剧了公司风险和代理问题,从而对公司债务融资成本产生影响。本文以我国2011〜2018年A股上市公司为样本,实证检验了控股股东股权质押对公司债务融资成本的影响结果,以及外部审计对股权质押与融资成本之间关系的调节作用。实证结果表明:控股股东进行股权质押会导致企业债务融资成本显著增加,并且股权质押比例越高,债务融资成本越高,说明控股股东通过股权质押方式侵占了公司利益;同时,高质量的审计可以缓解控股股东进行股权质押造成的债务融资成本的增加,但是不能降低高比例股权质押带来的债务融资成本的增加,说明外部审计可以提高信息透明度但对控股股东掏空行为的监督作用是有限的。进一步研究发现,控股股东的法人属性和自然人属性不影响其股权质押与公司债务融资成本之间的正向关系。研究结果丰富了股权质押经济后果的相关文献,并为政府部门完善股权质押法律法规、企业降低债务融资成本提供了一定的理论依据和经验证据。

The controlling shareholder’s equity pledges aggravate the company’s risks and agency problems,which has an impact on the company’s debt financing costs.The paper empirically tests the influence of shareholder’s equity pledges on the company’s debt financing costs and that of external audit on the adjustment of the relationship between equity pledges and financing costs on the basis of the sample of A-share listed companies in China from 2011 to 2018.The empirical results show that the controlling shareholder’s equity pledges will lead to a significant increase in the debt financing costs of the enterprise,and the higher the equity pledge ratio,the higher the debt financing cost,which indicates that the controlling shareholder has encroached on the company’s interests through equity pledges.High quality audits can alleviate the increase of debt financing costs caused by the controlling shareholders’ equity pledges,but cannot reduce the increase of debt financing costs caused by high proportion of equity pledges.It shows that external audit can improve information transparency,but its supervision on tunneling behavior of controlling shareholders is limited.Further research finds that the attributes of "legal person controlling shareholders" and "natural person controlling shareholders" do not affect the positive relationship between equity pledges and the company’s debt financing costs.The research results enrich the relevant literature on the economic consequences of equity pledges,and provide theoretical basis and empirical evidence for government departments to improve equity pledge laws and regulations and for enterprises to reduce debt financing costs.