资本市场开放与企业避税——来自“沪港通”的经验证据

Capital Market Liberalization and Corporate Tax Avoidance:Evidence from“Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect”Scheme

以“沪港通”开通为研究背景,基于2008-2018年A股上市公司为研究样本,采用双重差分模型,探讨了资本市场对外开放对企业避税行为的影响作用。研究结果发现,“沪港通”开通有助于降低企业激进的避税程度,该结论在采用PSM、更换样本区间以及改变变量测量方法等检验后依然稳健。进一步研究发现,“沪港通”开通对企业避税的降低作用在代理成本较高、公司治理水平较低以及融资约束程度较大的样本组中更为明显。本文的研究表明资本市场开放对上市企业避税决策具有重要作用,一定程度上丰富了资本市场对外开放经济后果的研究,也从企业避税这一角度提供了“沪港通”机制发挥公司治理效应的证据,为后续资本市场对外开放政策继续深入提供了理论指导和经验借鉴。

In the setting of“Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect”scheme,this paper investigates the effect of capital market liberalization on corporate tax avoidance.Using the difference-in-differences method of the policy launched in 2014 as an exogenous shock and taking the sample of listed samples from 2008 to 2018,we find that“Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect”scheme contributes to curb corporate aggressive tax avoidance.The findings still hold after we use a series of robustness checks including propensity score matching method,alternative sample and other measures of key variables.Furthermore,we find the negative relation between capital market liberalization and corporate tax avoidance is more pronounced in firms with a higher level of agency costs,lower level of corporate governance and higher degree of financing constraints.This paper emphasizes the significant impact of capital market liberalization on tax behavior.Our findings enriches the research on the economic consequences of capital market liberalization,and also provides additional evidence of the governance effect from the micro-firm level,which bears theoretical thesis and practical guidance for the government to further continue to implement the opening policies of the capital market.