经济增长目标压力与企业过度负债——基于新结构经济学视角的分析

Target Pressure of Economic Growth and Excessive Debt of Enterprises--Analysis Based on the Perspective of New Structural Economics

文章从新结构经济学视角研究经济增长目标压力对企业层面的过度负债率的影响。本文通过构建两期模型发现,经济增长目标压力通过扩大国企债务规模和降低债务成本提高国企过度负债率,而并未造成非国企过度负债。实证上,文章以2010—2019年上市公司样本为研究对象,显著而稳健地验证理论模型的推断和机制。经济增长目标压力提高国企银行贷款和商业信用融资规模、降低债务融资成本,进而导致国企过度负债。异质性分析表明,横向和纵向增长压力均会影响国企过度负债率,增长压力主要作用在本地国企、大型国企、劳动密集型和资本密集型国企、市场化进程较慢地区的国企。文章为地方政府为实现经济增长而形成偏向性结构影响提供了一般性的理论和经验证据,增进了地方政府干预信贷资源配置动机和后果的新结构经济学学理认识。

Over the past decade,China's debts at all levels have increased rapidly,which has aroused concerns about debt risks from all walks of life.The existing literature also analyzes the excessive debt of Chinese enterprises and finds that this trend appears more in state-owned enterprises.Therefore,it is necessary to study the possible influence factors of excessive debt of state-owned enterprises deeply.We aim to explain the excessive leverage of the state-owned sector and the unbalanced development of the credit market from the perspective of local government target setting.First of all,by constructing a two-periods model,we find that the eco⁃nomic growth target pressure increases the excessive debt ratio of state-owned enterprises by expanding the debt scale of state-owned enterprises and reducing their debt cost,but has no significant effect on non-state-owned enterprises.Secondly,we take the sample of listed companies from 2010 to 2019 as the investigating sample,and conducts empirical analysis com⁃bined with the economic growth target pressure of prefecture level municipal governments and regional economic data.The measurement results significantly and steadily support the conclusions and mechanisms of the theoretical models.We find that:(1)The economic growth target pressure faced by local governments has increased the excessive debt ratio of enterpris⁃es.(2)The pressure on economic growth targets mainly increases the scale of bank loans and commercial credit financing,and reduce the cost of debt financing especially the scale and interest of long-term financing,which has increased the exces⁃sive debt ratio of state-owned enterprises.(3)Both horizontal and vertical economic growth pressure have a positive impact on the debt ratio of state-owned enterprises.(4)The affect is mainly on local state-owned enterprises,large state-owned en⁃terprises,labor-intensive and capital-intensive state-owned enterprises,and state-owned enterprises in areas with rapid marketization.The contributions of our research in theory and practice are mainly as follows.First,we build a universal and general theoretical model of the relationship between local government behavior and enterprise micro performance,which provides a logical and complete theoretical explanation framework for the relationship between local government and enterprise differen⁃tiation in China.Secondly,it enriches the literature on excessive debt.We study the impact of local government behavior on the changes of state-owned enterprises'capital structure from the perspective of economic growth targets,provide mecha⁃nism explanations and empirical tests for the impact of local government target setting on enterprises'excessive debt,which makes an important supplement to the sources of state-owned enterprises'excessive debt.Third,we also expand the literaUsing CLDS2016 and CGSS2017 as empirical data,this article explores the impact of the anxiety caused by the Internet as a medium of information dissemination on the saving rates of rural households.The results indicate that the anxiety trig⁃gered by upward social comparison on the Internet significantly increases the saving rates of rural households.This finding re⁃mains robust across various methods,including changing the assignment of independent variables,excluding insignificant in⁃strumental variables,and using different datasets.Further mechanistic investigation unveils that,on one hand,the anxiety induced by the Internet prompts individuals to evaluate their subjective economic status more unfavorably.This,propelled by precautionary motives for saving,consequent⁃ly leads to a reduction in the proportion of non-essential expenditures within the spending patterns of rural households.So,the savings rate of rural households is elevated.On the other hand,this paper further explores the upward social comparison effect occurring during the process of Internet information dissemination,along with its heterogeneous impact on rural house⁃hold savings.Empirical testing of the heterogeneity of the upward social comparison effect on the Internet reveals that,in the context of Internet information circulation and reception,individuals who are more prone to anxiety experience a substantial decline in their subjective economic status evaluation compared to those who are less prone to anxiety.The research findings bear significant policy implications.Firstly,careful attention must be directed towards the adverse impact of social anxiety,as it undermines the savings rates of rural households,dampens consumption dynamism,and ham⁃pers optimal economic circulation.Secondly,the government should implement a range of measures aimed at bolstering ex⁃pectation management and steadying societal outlooks.Last but not least,the protective capacity of pertinent rural social se⁃curity systems remains relatively inadequate,rendering families more susceptible.Hence,it is imperative to enhance the col⁃lective societal capability in safeguarding rural populations from life's uncertainties and mitigating the apprehensions held by rural households.