企业杠杆行为与技术创新

Corporate Leverage and Technological Innovation

运用杠杆获取外部资金是企业筹集技术创新投入资金的基本途径,但并非杠杆率越高,越有利于企业技术创新。如果人为降低账面杠杆率,导致企业实际杠杆率提高,可能既难以实现融资目标,又因为实际杠杆率过高而背负过重的债务负担,带来更大的债务风险,从而最终不利于其对技术创新的资金投入。本文基于2007—2019年沪深A股非金融上市公司的微观数据,实证分析企业实际杠杆率对技术创新的影响。结果显示,过高的实际杠杆率通过提高债务风险、增加债务负担抑制了企业技术创新,不仅涉及创新投入,也影响创新产出。同时发现,隐性杠杆率高的企业、大规模企业、高成长性企业、高技术行业企业、数字经济行业企业、强市场竞争行业企业的技术创新所遭受的负面影响更大。从杠杆行为看,负面影响主要来自明股实债和少提固定资产折旧。对此,应严格监管无助于技术创新的高杠杆率,一方面,采取有效措施遏制企业提升实际杠杆率的行为,有效控制企业实际杠杆率;另一方面,立足企业技术创新,坚持分类施策,科学合理地推进结构性控杠杆和结构性稳杠杆。

Technological innovation is the key factor for realizing the transformation of China's economic development from factor-driven model to innovation-driven model.Enterprises are the most important subjects of technological innovation.How to give full play to the leading role of innovation in enterprises is crucial to realizing the transformation of China's economic development to innovationdriven model.To leverage external funds is the basic way for enterprises to raise investment funds for technological innovation.However,it does not mean that the higher the leverage ratio,the more conducive it is to the technological innovation of enterprises.If an enterprise lowers its nominal leverage ratio through various means,leading to an increase in the actual leverage ratio,it may be difficult to achieve financing goals.This will also lead to greater debt risk and debt burden because the actual leverage ratio is too high,which is ultimately not conducive to funding investment in technological innovation.Therefore,this paper uses the micro-data of A-share non-financial listed firms from 2007 to 2019 to conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of corporate actual leverage ratio on technological innovation.The results show that the increase in corporate actual leverage ratio significantly inhibits corporate technological innovation,not only inhibiting innovation input but also inhibiting innovation output.From the perspective of the internal mechanism,the increase in corporate actual leverage ratio inhibits technological innovation of enterprises by increasing the debt risk and debt burden.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the increase in corporate actual leverage of enterprises with high implicit leverage,large scale and high growth,and those in high-tech industries,digital economy industries,and strong market competition industries have a greater negative impact on technological innovation.From the perspective of leverage behavior,the negative impact of corporate technological innovation mainly comes from the fact that the enterprise has fake equity and real debt and less depreciation of fixed assets.Since high-quality economic development requires funds to be tilted towards technological innovation,strict supervision should be carried out on high leverage ratio that does not promote technological innovation.Firstly,leverage control policies should be optimized to prevent corporate leverage behavior,and control corporate leverage ratio.Secondly,it is necessary to improve leverage stabilization policies,and make more reasonable structural arrangements.Based on technological innovation,we should adopt classified policies to carry out structural leverage control and structural leverage stabilization scientifically.Thirdly,we should balance the relations between corporate financing and debt risk,and continue to promote corporate technological innovation.The main contributions of this study lie in four aspects.Firstly,from the perspective of the actual leverage of enterprises,a new path of leverage regulation to promote technological innovation of enterprises has been discovered.Secondly,it is clarified that"stabilizing leverage"and"promoting innovation"can coexist.Thirdly,the impact of leverage behavior on corporate technological innovation is heterogeneous among enterprises with different leverage compositions,corporate characteristics,and industry characteristics,which provides a more specific reference for how to improve the leverage structure and optimize the means of stabilizing leverage.Fourthly,the specific leverage behaviors that inhibit innovation are discovered,and structural suggestions for the governance of corporate leverage behaviors are provided to promote innovation.