政策保障与中国债券市场高质量发展:一个统一的分析框架

Policy Support and High-quality Development of China's Bond Markets:A Unified Analysis Framework

债券是实体经济的重要外部融资渠道,债券市场高质量发展是金融强国建设的重要组成部分,与经济高质量发展息息相关。中国债券市场近年来出现了一些结构性变化:融资期限缩短、保护条款增多、高评级企业融资占比提高等。本文用抵押品均衡理论来统一分析债券市场的这些结构性变化。理论上,任何金融合约都可以看作抵押品和承诺的组合。不同于以具体资产作抵押的债务合约(如银行贷款),债券隐性地以企业未来现金流(内在价值)作抵押,对不确定性更加敏感。在制度环境未能充分吸收不确定性的情况下,为了应对不确定性,市场内生地调整合约和发行人结构:缩短期限、增加保护条款和提高利差、偏好更优质的抵押品(体现为高评级企业融资占比上升)。本文实证发现,经济政策不确定性指数可以解释中国债券市场的结构性变化。机制分析表明,平稳的政策保障可以增强企业内在价值预期的确定性,以及违约后抵押品处置的确定性,进而促进债券市场高质量发展。本文进一步发现,企业对合约结构存在偏好顺序:高信用的企业倾向于保有控制权而缩短期限,低信用的企业则让渡更多控制权。本文的研究表明,通过更精准的宏观政策等政策保障,增强基础制度建设,将有助于金融强国建设,更好实现经济高质量发展。

Bonds are crucial external financing sources for the real economy.The high-quality development of the bond markets is an important component of building China into a financial power and is closely linked to the high-quality economic development.China's bond markets have undergone significant structural changes in recent years,including shortening financing maturities,increasing covenants,and a higher proportion of financing by high-rated firms.This paper presents a unified analysis of these changes in light of the collateral equilibrium theory.Accordingly,any financial contract is a promise backed by some collateral.Unlike debt contracts collateralized by physical assets(like bank loans),bonds are implicitly collateralized by the issuer's future cash flows(intrinsic value)and therefore are more sensitive to uncertainty.When the institutional environment cannot fully absorb the uncertainty,bond markets endogenously adjust the contract and issuer structure to deal with it:by shortening maturities,increasing covenants,widening spreads,and preferring higherquality collateral(reflected in the rise of financing proportion for high-rated firms).Empirical study shows that economic policy uncertainty index(EPU)can account for the structural changes in China's bond market.Mechanism analysis indicates that stable policy support can enhance the certainty of firms expected intrinsic value and ex-post collateral,thereby promoting the high-quality development of the bond markets.The firms have a pecking order of the contractual terms:high-rated firms tend to retain control rights and issue shorter bonds,while low-rated firms cede more control rights.This study suggests that by using more fine-tuned macroeconomic policies and other policy support,as well as enhancing the institutional reforms,it will contribute to building a financial power and achieving high-quality development of China.