دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی مالکیت دولتی و ساختار سرمایه شرکت ها - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Emerging economies provide interesting scenarios for examining how institutional context influences the financing behavior of firms. In this study, we examine the capital structure of Chinese listed firms following the SplitShare Structure Reform of 2005. This reform allowed a reduction of government ownership by making government shares tradable. We find that the impact of government ownership on leverage is dependent on whether the government is the largest shareholder in a firm and whether the government ownership is through a parent state-owned enterprise. In addition, we document that the largest non-government shareholder positively influences leverage. Overall, our results reveal that the largest controlling shareholder, either government or non-government, has a significant impact on the capital structure of Chinese firms.

6. Conclusions

We examine the impact of government ownership on the new institutional context in the period after the implementation of China’s Split-Share Structure Reform of 2005. The Reform has reshaped the government’s position in the ownership structure of Chinese listed firms. Analyzing a large sample of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges in the 2007–2012 period, we find that government ownership has a variable impact on the capital structure of two groups of firms. For firms in which the government is the largest shareholder, government ownership is non-linearly associated with borrowing. Yet caution should be exercised in identifying the underlying mechanism. In contrast, ownership by parent SOEs negatively influences leverage, and the negative effect occurs when the parent SOEs own a high proportion of shares, revealing the role played by parent SOEs in firms’ choice of equity financing. When the government is not the largest shareholder, government ownership has no impact on a firm’s capital structure. Instead, we observe that non-government ownership concentration increases the use of leverage. This finding demonstrates that large shareholders use debt to discipline managers and retain control. Our study shows a positive result of China’s privatization process. In the post-Reform period, government ownership declines and has little impact on firms’ leverage decisions, although the government continues to hold an average of 7% of outstanding shares. This is an appealing outcome for the Chinese regulators who are trying to cede government control and let the firms operate according to capital market principles.