降低间接融资占比有助于去杠杆吗——金融结构与杠杆率关系的检验

中国以间接融资为主的金融结构通常被认为是杠杆率高企的主要原因。由此,降低间接融资占比被视为去杠杆的有效手段。然而,本文运用新古典增长模型系统分析了间接融资占比与杠杆率之间关系,并利用跨国数据进行实证检验之后,认为这一论断有待商榷。(1)间接融资占比与杠杆率之间呈现U型关系,而非已有多数研究认为的正相关关系,间接融资占比并非越低越好。(2)间接融资占比与杠杆率之间U型曲线的拐点值会受到信贷资金配置效率的影响。信贷资金配置效率越高,U型曲线的拐点值越高。反之,U型曲线的拐点值越低,间接融资占比上升更容易推动杠杆率上升。具体到中国的实际情况,高杠杆问题不能简单地归因于间接融资占比偏高,信贷资金配置效率偏低才是更为重要的原因。通过深化利率市场化改革等相关举措来提高信贷资金配置效率,更有助于推动中国杠杆率的下降。

Does Reducing the Proportion of Indirect Financing Help to Deleverage?——An Analysis of the Relationship Between Financial Structure and Leverage Ratio

China s financial structure dominated by indirect financing is often considered to be the main reason for the high leverage ratio,so reducing the proportion of indirect financing is seen as an effective means of deleveraging.However,this paper uses the neoclassical growth model to demonstrate the relationship between the proportion of indirect financing and leverage ratio,and after empirical tests of cross-country data,we find this argument open to question.(1)The proportion of indirect financing to leverage ratio is in a U-shaped nonlinear relationship,not a positive correlation suggested by most studies.(2)The inflection point value of the U-shaped curve will be affected by factors such as the efficiency of credit allocation:the higher the efficiency,the higher the inflection point of the U-shaped curve,and the higher proportion of indirect financing will not lead to excessive leverage.Based on this,this paper believes that China s high leverage problem cannot be simply attributed to the high proportion of indirect financing;the low efficiency of credit allocation is a bigger reason.It will be more helpful to lower China s leverage ratio by deepening the market-oriented reform of the interest rate and other related measures to improve the efficiency of credit allocation.