债券契约条款设置与企业投资行为——基于金融资产视角的考察

The Design of Bond Covenants and Corporate Investment:A Perspective on Financial Assets Investment

针对非金融企业的金融化现象,本文在资本结构理论的框架下,基于2007—2021年中国A股上市发债企业的7345个公司-年度观测数据,运用双向固定效应模型检验了债券契约条款设置对企业金融资产投资行为的影响。研究结果表明,债券契约条款设置促进了企业金融资产投资,其影响效应在外部金融资产投资收益更高、企业内部经营风险更大时更为明显。通过工具变量、倾向得分匹配、Heckman两阶段等方法缓解内生性问题后,上述结果仍保持稳健。异质性研究显示,区分债券契约条款的不同类别,各类条款均促进了企业的金融资产投资行为;区分金融资产的不同属性,债券契约条款显著增加了企业的长期高风险金融资产投资。其影响机制在于,债券契约条款设置加强了债权人保护,增加了债权人出让资金和承担风险的意愿,进而便利了企业的金融资产投资;但债券违约事件发生后,债券契约条款设置对债权人的保护效应不再显著。本研究有助于投资者深入理解我国实体企业金融资产的投资行为,对防范债券违约风险提供了可资参考的政策启示。

s:To understand the financialization of non-financial firms,this study examines the effect of bond covenants on firms’financial assets investment within the capital structure theory.Using a two-way fixed effects model based on 7345 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed bond issuers from 2007-2021,the study indicates that bond covenants promote corporate financial asset investment.Further tests show that the effect of bond covenants is more pronounced when external financial asset investment in higher-yielding and corporate internal operating situation at greater risk.These findings appear to be robust after mitigating the endogeneity issues through instrumental variables,propensity score matching,Heckman correction and other methods.Subsequent analysis shows that different types of bond covenants increase firms'financial asset investment,and bond covenants significantly enhance firms’long-term and risky financial asset investment.Moreover,this study suggests the underlying path lies in the fact that the bond covenants strengthen bondholders’protection and increase their willingness to lend capital and take risk,thus facilitate firms’financial assets investment.However,when bond defaults occur,the bond covenants fail to protect the interests of the bondholders.Overall,the study not only helps us to understand the investment of the financial assets of Chinese firms,but also provides regulators some inspirations for the prevention of bond default risk.