委托理财会导致企业“脱实向虚”吗?

Would Entrusted Investment Distract Enterprises from Their Physical Investment?

近年来,大量非金融企业呈现出显著的金融化趋势。使用上市公司委托理财作为企业金融化的表征变量,分析委托理财对实体经济的影响。基于固定效应模型和双重差分检验的分析结果显示,企业投资委托理财这类周期短、灵活性高的金融资产,会促进企业对实体经济的投资。渠道分析显示,委托理财可以缓解企业的融资约束,降低企业的融资成本,从而增加企业的实体经济投资。此外,当企业外部环境更好、内部治理水平越高时,委托理财对实体经济投资的促进作用更加显著。鉴于此,对于非金融企业的金融化行为,监管部门不应采用“一刀切”的处理方式,而应针对不同的投资标的设定不同的监管规则,从而帮助企业实现更高质量的发展。

Recently, lots of non-financial enterprises show a significant trend of financialization. Using the listed firm’s entrusted investment of wealth management products as the proxy for firm’s financialization, this paper analyzes the impact of entrusted investment on real economy. By exploiting fixed effect model and difference-in-differences model, this paper finds that the entrusted investment of firms will promote their investment in the real economy. The underlying mechanisms are the decreasing of firms’ financial constraints and debt costs. Besides, the facilitating effect of entrusted investment on the real economy is more significant for firms operated in better environment and with better internal governance. The implication of this paper is that the regulator should not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to the financialization of non-financial enterprises, but should set different regulatory rules according to the different subject of investment, so as to help enterprises achieve a higher quality development.