地方政府融资与上市公司股权质押——来自融资平台“城投债”的证据

Local Government Financing and Share Pledge:Evidence from the Municipal Investment Bonds in China

近年来,我国地方债务风险高企,引发了金融生态系统的失衡。文章从股权质押的角度研究了地方政府融资的“挤出效应”,以厘清公司控股股东实施股权质押的外部动因。研究发现,地方政府“城投债”规模越大,挤占当地可借贷资源越严重,当地上市公司控股股东股权质押的比例也越高。由于融资约束是股权质押的重要影响因素,进一步以控股股东的产权性质、行业对资金依赖度、控股股东内部资本市场规模或是否获得现金股利分红来量化融资约束程度,结果发现:民营性质控股股东受地方政府融资挤压越严重,其股权质押比例越高;控股股东内部资本市场规模大或得到现金股利分红均会缓解地方政府融资对股权质押的影响;并且,地方政府资金投向的行业敏感性也对国有或民营企业的股权质押行为产生了差异性影响。文章不仅为地方政府融资行为的外部效应提供了微观证据,还对政府部门综合评估地方债务融资风险、加强地方政府债务治理以及监管部门出台“对症”股权质押风险的策略提供了理论依据和经验证据。

In recent years,China's local government debt has become prominent and risky,which has been an important factor threatening China's financial stability and economic growth.One of the most prominent negative effects at the micro level is the crowding-out effect on corporate financing.The formation mechanism of China's interest rate liberalization has not been really established,and banks prefer to use collateral for credit rationing.Therefore,the controlling shareholders of listed companies in China will choose share pledge as a financing alternative when facing the crowding out of local government financing.We investigate the impact of local government financing on controlling shareholders'share pledge decisions using the unbalanced panel data on A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2018.It is found that the larger the scale of local municipal investment bonds,the higher the proportion of local controlling shareholders'share pledge.Since the financing constraint is an important influencing factor of share pledge,this paper further quantifies the degree of financing constraint based on controlling shareholders'property rights,the industry's dependence on funds,the size of controlling shareholders'internal capital market or whether it receives cash dividends.The results show that private controlling shareholders are more severely crowed out by local government financing.When controlling shareholders have a larger internal capital market or receive cash dividends,local debts will mitigate the impact on share pledge.Moreover,the industry sensitivity of local government investment also has a differential impact on the share pledge of state-owned or private companies.This paper makes the following contributions:First,it studies the crowding-out effect of local government financing from the perspective of share pledge,which expands the research on local debt issues.Second,based on the external macro shock-local government financing,it discusses the hidden motives behind share pledge,which is not only conducive to overcoming the endogenous problems in share pledge research,but also helpful to understand the motivation of share pledge decisions and explain the economic behavior of listed companies.Third,it confirms that local government financing brings higher costs to individual financing,which deepens the understanding of the negative impact of local government financing,and helps government departments comprehensively assess local debt risks and strengthen local government debt governance.