剩余控制权、分析师跟踪与公司债券契约条款

Residual Control Rights,Analyst Following and Corporate Bond Covenants

公司债券契约条款能够在债券发行人与债权人之间进行剩余控制权配置,有效抑制发行人对剩余控制权的滥用,保护债权人权益,近年来逐渐成为学术界和实务界关注的热点。由于信息不对称程度在最优契约结构上的重要影响,分析师的信息发掘与债券契约条款在防范债券发行人剩余控制权滥用方面存在替代效应。基于上述假设,本文以2007~2020年发行公司债券的中国A股上市公司为研究对象,检验了分析师跟踪对公司债券契约条款的影响。实证研究发现,分析师跟踪数越多,公司债券契约条款数越少;分析师预测准确度越高,公司债券契约条款数越少,分析师预测分歧度越大,公司债券契约条款数越多。在控制了可能的内生性后,前述结论依旧成立。本文首次从分析师跟踪视角考察了其对公司债券契约条款的影响,论证了股票市场的外部监督作用能够传导至债券市场,也为公司债券契约条款的作用机制提供了经验证据。

Corporate bond covenants can help restrain the residual control rights embedded in debt contracts,which protect the rights of creditors.In this paper,we use the data of corporate bond issues by China’s A-share listed companies in 2007-2020 and investigate the relationship between analysts’following and the restrictiveness of bond covenants.The empirical results show that the more the analyst following of a company,the fewer the covenants in its bond contracts.Furthermore,there is a negative relationship between the accuracy of analysts’forecasts of a company’s performance and the number of covenants in its bond contracts.The divergence of analysts’forecasts is positively related with the number of covenants.These conclusions still hold after controlling the possible endogeneity.