政府规制、商业信用制度与国有企业竞争力——基于“清欠工作”的准自然实验

Government Regulation,Trade Credit System and SOE Competitiveness:A Quasi‑natural Experiment based on the“Clearing Delinquent Accounts”

借助于“清欠工作”的准自然实验,本文研究政府规制的商业信用制度对国有企业竞争力的影响及其作用机制。研究发现,政府规制的国有企业商业信用按期付款促进了其竞争力的提升。机制检验表明,政府规制的商业信用制度不仅能够重塑国有企业商业信用的秩序,减少国有企业的账款拖欠,保障供应商的有效回款,而且能够增强供应商对于国有企业商业信用按期还款的信任,减少供应商回收账款的资源耗散。这强化了国有企业对于供应商的吸引力,增加了供应商对国有企业客户的争夺,进而增强了国有企业的原材料议价能力,最终促进了国有企业竞争力的提升。异质性检验表明,“清欠工作”的执行强度越大、供应商转换客户去参与争夺国有企业客户的机会越大,政府规制的商业信用制度对国有企业竞争力提升作用越强,进一步验证了本文的逻辑。本文在理论上扩展了商业信用的相关研究,为中国企业在竞争中使用信用条款和价格条款的替代效应提供了直接的证据;在实践上验证了治理账款拖欠政策的实施效果。

Traditional trade credit theory holds that trade credit plays an important complementary role in allocating financial resources and has become one of the important external short‑term financing sources for firms.However,financially unconstrained firms still take trade credit to obtain supplier liquidity,which squeeze supplier cash and expose them to liquidity risk.Therefore,governments have introduced regulatory measures to regulate trade credit.Taking the“clearing delinquent accounts”in China as a quasi‑natural experiment,this paper studies the effect of the trade credit system under government regulation on enterprise competitiveness and its mechanism.The findings are as follows:The quick pay of state‑owned enterprises’trade credit under government regulation improves their competitiveness,which indicates that the quick pay of trade credit has a positive spillover effect.The mechanism test shows that the trade credit system under government regulation can not only reshape the markets orderings of state‑owned enterprises’trade credit,reduce the default of the accounts of state‑owned enterprises and guarantee the effective collection of the suppliers,but also enhance the suppliers’trust in the trade credit repayment of state‑owned enterprises on time and reduce the resource dissipation of the suppliers’recovery of accounts.This strengthens the attraction of state‑owned customers for suppliers,increases the competition between suppliers,and then enhances the raw material bargaining power of state‑owned enterprises,and ultimately promotes the improvement of state‑owned enterprises’competitiveness.The heterogeneity test finds that the greater the enforcement of“clearing delinquent accounts”and the greater the degree of market competition,the more significant the spillover effects of the trade credit system under government regulation.This further verifies the logic of the mechanism and further proves that the improvement of state‑owned enterprises competitiveness is indeed the function of“clearing delinquent accounts”.The possible marginal contributions of this paper are as follows:In terms of literature,firstly,existing studies mainly focus on the influence of limiting or shortening the payment default policy on suppliers,but lack attention to the influence on the policy implementing enterprise.This paper innovatively puts forward the positive influence of the restricting payment arrears under government regulation on the policy implementing enterprise.Secondly,existing studies have studied the economic consequences of trade credit,mainly from the positive effects of trade credit on short‑term financing and business operating,and the negative effects of financially unconstrained firms still squeezing cash from suppliers through trade credit,while paying less attention to the spillover effects of the quick pay of trade credit.This paper expands the relevant research on trade credit from the perspective of the spillover effect of the quick pay of trade credit under government regulation.Thirdly,research on the use of trade credit and price in competition is relatively separate.This paper provides evidence of the substitution effect of credit and price in the process of competition.In terms of policy,firstly,the government should expand the scope of enterprises under the supervision of relevant laws and regulations on account arrears from government organs,state‑owned enterprises and large enterprises to medium‑sized enterprises,in order to further optimize the markets orderings of China’s trade credit and enhance the trust of market subjects.Secondly,they can improve the policy enforcement of laws and regulations related to account arrears by establishing arrears supervision institutions,increasing the information disclosure of arrears and repayment,bringing large arrears into the discussion of shareholders’meetings,and requiring external audit opinions on arrears.Thirdly,the government can further relax industry access regulation,promote the synergy effect of policies,and strengthen the implementation effect of relevant laws and regulations on account arrears.