增长目标契合与僵尸企业治理

Growth Target Alignment and Disposal of Zombie Firms

经济社会发展规划是党治国理政的重要路径,如何治理好企业僵尸化问题,构成全面建设社会主义现代化国家的关键环节。文章立足于中国各地区经济增长目标设定普遍高于真实禀赋的现实情况,研究了增长目标契合对当地企业僵尸化程度的影响。研究发现,地区设定契合真实禀赋的增长目标,能够减少企业获得的非正常资源支持,并引导其良性健康发展,从而降低当地企业的僵尸化倾向。这种作用随着增长目标契合程度的降低而逐渐减弱,且在国有企业和垄断行业企业中更加明显。增长目标契合能够改善当地企业的盈利能力,降低债务规模,抑制正常企业僵尸化,促进僵尸企业恢复正常经营,最终对企业的资本市场价值和生产能力产生积极影响。文章研究表明,政府量力而行地设定契合真实禀赋的增长目标能够产生积极的施政成效。这不仅对经济增长目标微观治理成效的学术研究进行了创新性拓展,而且支持了高质量发展背景下决策层统筹协调“有为政府”与“有效市场”所进行的积极探索。

In the new era of economic structural transformation and prevention of major risks,how to better deal with zombie firms has become a topic of common concern in the fields of decision-making,social practice,and academic research.Generally speaking,zombie firms refer to firms that have suffered losses for a long time,are unable to make profits,and have stagnant production,but can continue to survive with high government subsidies and low-interest bank credit,which have a serious negative impact on the high-quality development of the national economy.However,existing research has not paid enough attention to the key role of local governments,especially the setting of economic growth targets,in the disposal of zombie firms.In this case,based on the reality that the economic growth target setting in various regions of China is generally higher than the real endowment,this paper takes listed companies from 2003 to 2020 as a sample to study the impact of growth target alignment on the degree of zombification of local firms.It is found that setting a growth target that fits the real endowment in a region can decrease the abnormal resource support that firms obtain and guide their healthy development,thereby reducing the zombification tendency of local firms.Further research finds that the aforementioned effect gradually weakens with the decreasing degree of growth target alignment,and is more pronounced in firms in state-controlled and monopoly industries.Moreover,growth target alignment can improve the profitability ability and reduce the debt scale of local firms,thereby realizing the dynamic governance effects of dezombification of normal firms and normalization of zombie firms,which ultimately has a positive impact on the market value and production capacity of corresponding firms.This paper has the following contributions and inspirations in theory and practice.In theory,different from the literature that simply studies the value of growth target setting,this paper defines and scientifically measures the growth target alignment with the real endowment,and deconstructs the growth target into two parts:real endowment and growth target alignment,which provides an important extension of academic research on the economic consequences of growth goals and the disposal of zombie firms.In practice,this paper shows that local governments setting economic growth targets in line with the real endowment can optimize the efficiency of public resource allocation and improve the healthy development of firms,so as to effectively manage the phenomenon of local zombie firms,which strongly supports the active exploration of national leaders in the overall coordination of“promising government”and“efficient market”.