主动模仿还是被动反应:商业信用同群效应研究

Active Imitation or Passive Reaction:Research on the Peer Effect on Trade Credit

本文基于我国制造业上市公司2007-2019年非平衡面板数据,研究了我国制造业商业信用供给行业同群效应的存在性、作用机制、异质性及经济后果。研究发现制造业商业信用供给存在显著的行业同群效应,当采用行业平均股票异质收益率作为工具变量检验后的结果依然成立。通过作用机制检验发现,企业商业信用供给的行业同群效应既存在竞争理论的被动反应,也存在信息理论的主动模仿。此外,商业信用供给的行业同群效应存在异质性,即在国有企业、低客户集中度及地理位置邻近程度高的企业中更为显著。其经济后果表现为放大效应和溢出效应,即基于同群效应的商业信用供给不仅会增加企业自身的流动性风险,而且会引发和增加行业流动性风险。研究拓展了企业商业信用供给的影响因素和同群效应的研究边界,揭示了企业商业信用供给的行业互动聚集现象及决策关联性带来的潜在风险,为企业制定商业信用供给决策提供了重要的经验证据。

Trade credit is rooted in the supply chain,which reflects the business association and interdependence among supply chain firms,and plays an important role in alleviating the tension of capital chain,stabilizing supply chain and maintaining market stability.Existing research on trade credit supply usually regards firms as individuals who make decisions and act independently,pays more at-tention to the impact of their own characteristics and external environment on trade credit supply,and ignores the interaction between groups.However,in the actual decision-making process,firms need to observe and learn,and respond to or even counter the deci-sionmaking behavior of the peers;moreover,the mutual imitation among firms also makes a small change spread to a wider system in the form of index,forming a social multiplier effect.Therefore,the trade credit supply of peer firms should not be underestimated.Imitation behaviors are explained by competition-based and information-based theories,but these two theories are not mutually exclusive,which will cause the peer effect of corporate decisions.On the one hand,trade credit supply is a means of market com-petition.The competition-based theory argues that firms may mimic their rivals through passive reaction to maintain competitive parity or limit the rivalry when the market competition is fierce.On the other hand,trade credit supply is a strategic tool to reduce information asymmetry.The information-based theory argues that firms may mimic their peers through active imitation to reduce the decision-making cost and credit risk when their peers are perceived to have superior information.Therefore,whether and how firms mimic their peers’trade credit supply remains to be tested empirically.Therefore,using a sample of manufacturing firms listed in China between 2007 and 2019,this paper explores the industry peer effect on trade credit supply.We provide strong empirical evidence showing that the industry peer effect on trade credit supply exists in the manufacturing sector.Our results are robust to the two-stage least squares regression analysis with the industry average heteroge-neous stock return rate as the instrumental variable.Furthermore,we find that the competition-based and information-based theories are the potential reasons driving the industry peer effect on trade credit supply.The results show that firms mimic their rivals through passive reaction to maintain their competitive parity or limit the rivalry when the market competition is fierce,and the industry peer effect on trade credit supply is more pronounced.Follower firms with information disadvantages tend to actively imitate the trade credit supply of leading firms to reduce the decision-making cost and credit risk.Additional analysis suggests that there is heteroge-neity in the industry peer effect of business credit supply,that is,the industry peer effect on trade credit supply is more pronounced for state-owned firms,firms with low customer concentration and firms with high geographical proximity.This paper also further explores the economic consequences of the industry peer effect on trade credit supply,and the results show that it has amplification effect and spillover effect.In other words,the trade credit supply based on peer effect will not only increase the liquidity risk of the firm per se but also induce and increase the liquidity risk of the industry.This paper makes up for the deficiency that existing research on the driving factors of trade credit supply only focuses on their own characteristics,helps to deeply understand the motivation of firms to provide trade credit supply,and expands the influencing factors of firms’trade credit supply and the research boundary of peer effect.At the same time,this paper also expounds the phenomenon of industrial interaction cluster of the firms’trade credit supply and reveals the potential risks of the decision-making relevance,which provides important empirical evidence for firms to make trade credit supply decisions.