地方政府欠款治理的社会效应——基于民营企业社会责任承担的视角

Social Effects of Local Government Debt Management:From the Perspective of Private Enterprises'Social Responsibility

地方政府拖欠民营企业款项问题由来已久,是全面构建“亲”“清”新型政商关系道路上的重大阻碍。以国务院清理政府欠款专项督导行动为一项准自然实验,运用双重差分法系统考察地方政府欠款治理如何发挥积极的社会效应、如何影响民营企业社会责任承担,以期为政府债务治理如何正向引导民营经济发展提供经验证据。实证结果表明,该专项行动显著提高了被督导地区民营企业的社会责任承担水平,其作用机制在于地方政府欠款治理提高了民营企业公众关注度,缓解了民营企业内部流动性约束,促使其社会责任承担的意愿与能力同时得到增强,最终对民营企业慈善捐赠产生了正向影响。异质性检验发现,该提升效应在社会信用水平较低的地区、市场环境较差的地区、缺乏政治关联的民营企业中更为显著。因此,为进一步促进非公有制经济健康发展、构建新型政商关系,还需推动地方政府欠款治理工作常态化、长效化,打造服务型政府的同时积极引导民营企业更多地履行社会责任、发挥自身力量。

The problem of local governments defaulting on payments to private enterprises has been a major obstacle on the road to building a new type of close and upright government-business relationship.Using the State Council's special supervisory action to clean up government arrears as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper applies the difference-in-difference method to systematically examine how the settlement of local government arrears exerts a positive social effect and influences the assumption of social responsibility by private firms,intending to provide empirical evidence on how the governance of government debt positively induces the private economy.The findings show that this special action has significantly improved the level of social responsibility of private enterprises in the supervised areas.This action has enhanced the willingness and ability of private enterprises to undertake social responsibility by increasing the public attention to them and alleviating their internal liquidity constraints,and has had a positive impact on corporate charitable donations.The heterogeneity test reveals that the above-mentioned effect is more significant in regions with lower social credit levels,poorer market environments,and in private enterprises that lack political connections.Therefore,in order to promote the healthy development of the non-public economy and build a new type of government-business relationship,the governance of local government arrears should be institutionalized and long-term.While building a service-oriented government,private enterprises should be encouraged to actively fulfll their social responsibilities and play a positive role in social development.