Debt Covenant Restriction,Financial Misreporting,and Auditor Monitoring*

Theory suggests that financial report-based debt covenants engender incentives for the manager to relax covenant constraints through accounting choices in order to avoid costly covenant violations. Prior studies directly testing this hypothesis in the context of financial misreporting fail to find consistent evidence. Using a more refined measure of debt covenant restriction, we find that debt covenant restriction is positively associated with the probability of financial statement misstatements. This positive association is driven by performance covenants rather than capital covenants and is more consistent with the manager striving to avoid a “false-positive” violation than to delay the violation. Our results also imply that managers resort to both income-increasing and non–income-increasing misreporting to relieve covenant constraints and rely more on the latter when faced with greater earnings management constraints. Additionally, the auditor charges higher audit fees to firms with more binding covenants even outside the violation state, and audit fees increase with constraints relative to both performance and capital covenants, reflecting greater financial reporting risk and bankruptcy risk, respectively. Within capital covenants, we find some evidence of even higher audit fees for tighter intangible-inclusive versus intangible-exclusive capital covenants. Lastly, our evidence suggests that the positive association between covenant constraints and misreporting is attenuated when the auditor has more experience with debt covenants, has greater bargaining power over the client, or faces greater litigation risk.     

金融集聚能缓解中小企业融资约束吗？——基于非线性和区域异质性的视角

以2009—2017年上市中小企业面板数据为样本，应用现金现金流敏感性模型分析了金融集聚对中小企业融资约束的影响。研究发现：整体上金融集聚可以一定程度缓解中小企业融资约束，但存在地区性差异，且门槛效应明显。金融集聚对低金融集聚水平地区的中小企业融资困境有明显改善，但其影响随着金融集聚水平的增加而减少。当金融集聚水平超过高门槛值时，这一作用非常微弱，总体上呈现非线性特征。这说明当金融资源高度集中时可能产生挤出效应。     

融资约束、区域金融发展与成长期企业并购——理论分析与经验证据

成长期企业并购对金融支持的依赖性高。通过建立信息经济学模型，可较好刻画成长期企业在并购过程中因为信息不对称和抵押物不足而面临的融资约束，同时在模型中引入区域金融发展因素，可以较好缓解融资约束，促进成长期企业并购。在理论分析基础上，以2012-2018年的上市公司及其并购数据为对象开展实证分析，实证结果同样显示成长期上市公司并购过程中存在明显的融资约束现象；同时区域金融发展能够缓解融资约束，进而提升成长期上市公司并购概率。理论分析和经验证据相互印证，揭示了区域金融发展通过缓解融资约束以支持成长期企业并购的机理和路径。     

Internationalization speed and subsidiary survival of EMNCs: The moderating roles of CEO international experience and state ownership

In the process of internationalization, effective management of dispersed location-specific knowledge is the key to successful internationalization strategies for companies. Rapid internationalization often prevents multinational corporations (MNCs) from absorbing and internalizing internationalized knowledge in a timely manner and achieving ideal performance. Compared with MNCs in developed countries, emerging market multinationals (EMNCs) are more inclined to implement a rapid internationalization strategy to enhance their own competitive advantage. However, their internationalization process is limited by their lack of managerial resources. Why and how would internationalization speed impact the survival of EMNCs Subsidiary? Using the survival analysis method and taking the Chinese A-share listed companies as empirical setting, our results show that the internationalization speed negatively affects the survival of EMNCs Subsidiary; Both CEO international experience and state ownership weaken the negative impact of internationalization speed on the survival of EMNCs Subsidiary. We argue that rapid internationalization underestimates the Penrose effect in the process of internationalization, that is, underestimates the managerial resources required to learn and accumulate absorptive capacity, and effectively manage dispersed knowledge. Based on the dual context of dispersed knowledge management and managerial constraints, this paper expands the understanding of the impact mechanism of internationalization speed on corporate performance, and also has certain guiding significance for the selection of internationalization speed of EMNCs.     

Do constraints created by economic growth targets benefit sustainable development? Evidence from China

An economic growth target is a declaration by policy authorities of commitment to that target and the corresponding allocation of resources. The constraints created by economic growth target are an important economic management method in China, which has helped China's economy to achieve remarkable achievements. However, it has also brought about serious environmental problems, threatening China's sustainable development. Using the data about economic growth targets in the work reports of 30 Chinese provincial governments from 2006 to 2017, this paper constructs several spatial measurement methods, such as the spatial Durbin model, to examine the constraints created by economic growth target's impacts on air pollution. The main conclusions are as follows. First, a significant “U-shaped” relationship exists between the constraints created by economic growth targets and air pollution. Second, the spatial Durbin model analysis revealed that PM_2.5 across China's provinces display significant positive spatial spillover effects and spatial agglomeration characteristics. Third, the direct, indirect, and total effects of constraints created by economic growth targets on air pollution are all statistically significant and depict a “U shape.” Finally, the constraints created by economic growth targets have an apparent threshold effect on air pollution, and the inhibiting effects increase with human capital and industrial restructuring. However, with the increase in foreign direct investments, constraints created by economic growth targets may increase air pollution. The conclusions of this paper are of great significance for improving the management of local government economic growth targets and sustainable development.     

Innovative Credit Guarantee Schemes with equity-for-guarantee swaps

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) faces much more severe financial constraints compared to large mature companies and it is more vulnerable to market imperfection. To alleviate SMEs’ financial constraints, Public Credit Guarantee Schemes (CGSs) have been introduced and widely used around the world. Having provided a thorough analysis of the effectiveness of the traditional CGSs, we introduce an innovative financing contract, referred to as equity-for-guarantee swap (EGS), with the aim of reducing SMEs’ financial constraints in a more effective way. We show that EGS effectively alleviates SMEs’ severe financial constraints as it transfers the information asymmetry between lenders and SMEs to that between insurers and SMEs We investigate how asset prices vary across time under the EGS contract and analyze insurers’ risk exposure, i.e. value-at-risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES), of participating in the EGS contract. Consistent with pecking order theory, SMEs tend to use debt financing first dispite the benefit of a boosted growth rate from private equity financing in our model.     

Industry‐specific Exchange Rate Fluctuations,Japanese Exports and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Panel Vector Autoregressive Analysis

Using a panel vector autoregression approach and industry breakdown data for financial constraints obtained from the Bank of Japan's Tankan (Short‐Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan) database, this study empirically investigates whether and how Japanese firms' financial constraints (internal and external) influence the response of Japanese sectoral exports to an exchange rate shock. Furthermore, we use the industry‐specific real effective exchange rate data developed by to allow for different movements of real effective exchange rates across industries. It is found that financial constraints have a significant influence on Japanese exports in response to exchange rate shocks. Japanese exporters with either lower internal financial constraints or external financial constraints are less affected by the yen's appreciation. In addition, if firms face high external financial constraints, only reducing the internal financial constraints cannot help them mitigate the impact of the yen's appreciation on their exports. Thus, an accommodative financial environment also plays an important role in alleviating the impact that the yen's appreciation has on Japanese exports.     

银行业市场竞争对企业技术创新的影响研究

银行贷款是企业创新的重要融资来源,银行业市场的变化影响着企业技术创新的融资环境.基于2008-2014年沪深A股上市公司的实证检验发现:银行市场竞争性的提高有利于缓解企业的融资约束,促进企业技术创新.企业规模对中小企业的技术创新有正向的影响,对大型企业存在负的效应.银行业市场竞争对企业技术创新的影响也因企业规模不同而不同,中小企业受到的融资约束明显,银行业竞争度的提高更有利于促进中小企业的技术创新.     

融资约束对企业出口影响的Heckman验证-基于银行信用风险的视角

基于中国工业企业数据库1998-2014年7032家企业的平衡面板数据,从银行信用风险内部评级的视角,研究融资约束对企业出口的影响.结果表明:银行信贷融资约束与企业的出口决策及出口强度间有显著负相关关系.同时,使用Heckman二阶段模型研究发现:不同形式的商业信用对企业出口决策及出口强度的影响和作用机制会因企业所处供求端位置的不同而存在差异.其中,需求端的商业信用仅与企业出口决策显著正相关,而与出口强度的相关性并不显著;供给端的商业信用则与企业出口强度显著负相关.     

Are firms accessing venture funding more financially constrained? New evidence from capital structure adjustments

We analyze whether firms that receive venture capital (VC) at a later date face more financial constraints than a one-by-one matched sample of firms that did not receive VC funding (control group). The aim is to check whether their financial flexibility explains why they decide to seek external equity funding. In contrast with other papers, which focus on the sensitivity of investments to cash flow, we study this issue by applying a dynamic model to analyze the speed of adjustment to their target debt levels prior to receiving the first VC investment. We analyze a representative sample of 237 Spanish unlisted firms that received VC between 1995 and 2007 and its corresponding control group. We find that firms that receive VC funding show a significantly lower speed of adjustment than their matched peers before the initial VC round. It seems that the former are more concerned about funding the required investments than about adjusting the firm's debt ratio to a target level. Our results confirm the role of VC in filling the equity gap in constrained unlisted firms. From a capital structure perspective, VC may become a tool for these companies to balance their capital structure in a growth process.