scholarly journals Green Credit, Debt Maturity, and Corporate Investment—Evidence from China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enxian Wang ◽  
Xinghe Liu ◽  
Jiapeng Wu ◽  
Danting Cai

Against the backdrop of working hard to build a beautiful country, this paper uses the promulgation of the “Green Credit Guidelines” policy in China as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on a difference-in-differences (DID) model, the results show that, since the promulgation of the Green Credit Guidelines policy, financial institutions have significantly reduced the proportion of long-term debt to heavily polluting enterprises for reasons such as risk aversion and total credit constraints. Due to capital constraints and the restrictive terms of credit approval, the Green Credit Guidelines policy reduces the investment scale and overinvestment of heavily polluting enterprises. The dependency relationship of the debt maturity structure of heavily polluting enterprises with the investment scale and investment efficiency has been reduced. Furthermore, the negative net effect of the Green Credit Guidelines policy on long-term debt is more pronounced in heavily polluting enterprises that lack political connections. However, the promulgation of this policy inhibits the investment scale and the investment efficiency of heavily polluting enterprises (with or without political connections). To a certain extent, these results confirm the “supportive hand” perspective towards political connections. The results of this research could help relevant government departments to understand the microeconomic consequences of the Green Credit Guidelines policy and could help improve and perfect China’s green credit policy.

Author(s):  
Zhifeng Zhang ◽  
Hongyan Duan ◽  
Shuangshuang Shan ◽  
Qingzhi Liu ◽  
Wenhui Geng

This article uses the “Green Credit Guidelines” promulgated in 2012 as an example to construct a quasi-natural experiment and uses the double difference method to test the impact of the implementation of the “Green Credit Guidelines” on the green innovation activities of heavy-polluting enterprises. The study found that, in comparison to non-heavy polluting enterprises, the implementation of green credit policies inhibited the green innovation of all heavy-polluting enterprises. In the analysis of heterogeneity, this restraint effect did not differ significantly due to the nature of property rights and the company’s size. The mechanism test showed that green credit policy limits the efficiency of business investment and increases the cost of financing business debt. Eliminating corporate credit financing, particularly long-term borrowing, negatively impacts the green innovation behavior of listed companies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9331
Author(s):  
Kexian Zhang ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Zimei Huang

How to promote renewable energy investment is central to energy transformation and green development. To take China’s “green credit guidelines” policy as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate the impacts of green credit policy on renewable energy investment. Using the samples of 1021 Chinese listed enterprises during 2007–2017, we find that: Firstly, the introduction of the green credit guidelines has promoted renewable energy investment. Secondly, short-term debts play a mediating role in the impacts of green credit guidelines on renewable energy investment, while long-term debts play a masking role, and financing constraints do not play a significant role. Thirdly, the heterogeneous impacts on renewable energy investment are reflected in different ownerships and enterprise scales, with significant impacts on the state-owned enterprises and small ones.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zulfiqar Ali Memon ◽  
Yan Chen ◽  
Muhammad Zubair Tauni ◽  
Hashmat Ali

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of cash flow volatility on firm’s leverage levels. It also analyzes how cash flow volatility influences the debt maturity structure for the Chinese listed firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors construct the measure for cash flow variability as five-year rolling standard deviation of the cash flow from operations. The authors use generalized linear model approach to determine the effect of volatility on leverage. In addition, the authors design a categorical debt maturity variable and assign categories depending upon firm’s usage of debt at various maturity levels. The authors apply Ordered Probit regression to analyze how volatility affects firm’s debt maturity structure. The authors lag volatility and other independent variables in the estimation models so as to eliminate any possible endogeneity problems. Finally, the authors execute various techniques for verifying the robustness of the main findings. Findings The authors provide evidence that higher volatility of cash flows results in lower leverage levels, while the sub-sampling analysis reveals that there is no such inverse association in the case of Chinese state-owned enterprises. The authors also provide novel findings that irrespective of the ownership structure, firms facing high volatility choose debt of relatively shorter maturities and vice versa. Overall, a rise of one standard deviation in volatility causes 8.89 percent reduction in long-term market leverage ratio and 26.62 percent reduction in the likelihood of issuing debentures or long-term notes. Research limitations/implications This study advocates that cash flow volatility is an essential factor for determining both the debt levels and firm’s term-to-maturity structure. The findings of this study can be helpful for the financial managers in maintaining optimal leverage and debt maturity structure, for lenders in reducing their risk of non-performing loans and for investors in their decision-making process. Originality/value Existing empirical literature regarding the influence of variability of cash flows on leverage and debt maturity structure is inconclusive. Moreover, prior research studies mainly focus only on the developed countries. No previous comprehensive study exists so far for Chinese firms in this regard. This paper endeavors to fulfill this research gap by furnishing novel findings in the context of atypical and distinctive institutional setup of Chinese firms.


2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 817-842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radhakrishnan Gopalan ◽  
Fenghua Song ◽  
Vijay Yerramilli

AbstractWe examine whether a firm’s debt maturity structure affects its credit quality. Consistent with theory, we find that firms with greater exposure to rollover risk (measured by the amount of long-term debt payable within a year relative to assets) have lower credit quality; long-term bonds issued by those firms trade at higher yield spreads, indicating that bond market investors are cognizant of rollover risk arising from a firm’s debt maturity structure. These effects are stronger among firms with a speculative-grade rating and declining profitability, and during recessions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 132 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Debortoli ◽  
Ricardo Nunes ◽  
Pierre Yared

Abstract This article develops a model of optimal government debt maturity in which the government cannot issue state-contingent bonds and cannot commit to fiscal policy. If the government can perfectly commit, it fully insulates the economy against government spending shocks by purchasing short-term assets and issuing long-term debt. These positions are quantitatively very large relative to GDP and do not need to be actively managed by the government. Our main result is that these conclusions are not robust to the introduction of lack of commitment. Under lack of commitment, large and tilted debt positions are very expensive to finance ex ante since they exacerbate the problem of lack of commitment ex post. In contrast, a flat maturity structure minimizes the cost of lack of commitment, though it also limits insurance and increases the volatility of fiscal policy distortions. We show that the optimal time-consistent maturity structure is nearly flat because reducing average borrowing costs is quantitatively more important for welfare than reducing fiscal policy volatility. Thus, under lack of commitment, the government actively manages its debt positions and can approximate optimal policy by confining its debt instruments to consols.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Rey ◽  
Danilo Tuccillo ◽  
Fabiana Roberto

In this work, we examine whether earnings management affects the debt maturity structure of Italian non-SMEs. We employ accruals quality as a proxy for earnings management. We measure the accrual quality as the absolute value of residual reflects the accruals that are not related to cash flow realized in the current, following or previous year. We measure the debt maturity in two ways. First, we consider it as a dummy variable that takes the value equal to 1 if some of the debt is long-term (exceeding one year), and 0 otherwise. Second, we compute the debt maturity as the ratio of long-term debt to total debt. We employ a quantitative approach, carrying out several regressions (probit, logit, and tobit) analyses to investigate the effect earnings management on debt maturity structure, using financial statement data of 1,001 Italian non-SMEs sampled over the period 2011-2017. This paper provides theoretical and practical findings that support the literature on earnings management. First, the study confirms that accrual quality can use as a proxy of earnings management by the academic community. Then the findings show that earnings management is negatively associated with the possibility to access to long-term debt, and with a proportion of long-term debt in total debt. This evidence may support the managers when they have to plan the financial structure, the lenders and the creditors in their decision-making processes, and the policymakers when they have to set programs aimed to make easier the access to external financial resources.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Oscar Domenichelli ◽  
Giulia Bettin

In this paper we investigate the relationship between generational socioemotional wealth (SEW) and debt maturity structure in private family firms of GIPSI countries for the period 2010-2018. This appears to be quite an important issue to study, given that SEW is a peculiar aspect of family firms and its impact on the debt maturity structure, still relatively unexplored, is likely to change according to the generation running the family business. We show that the importance attached to SEW decreases when moving from the firms’ founder to the subsequent generations, with a negative effect on the amount of long-term debt. The forward-looking orientation of first-generation family firms favours long-term credit by banks in order to expand a healthy business which can be inherited by future generations. These businesses are hence perceived as less risky and more value-creating by external creditors, compared to later-generation family firms. Alternatively, SEW preservation is often less of a target in later-generation family firms, because some descendants consider the firm simply as a source of extra finance and conflicts of interest often arise between multiple generations or different family branches entering the business. Short-term debt may then be employed as a signaling effect of the quality of the firm. At the same time, borrowing long-term capital may become difficult if lenders question the creditworthiness of these businesses. This issue emerged dramatically during the sovereign debt crisis, when a significant contraction of credit to firms was observed throughout the GIPSI countries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Quarato

Despite family business is the most widespread ownership structure worldwide, there is a lack of evidence on the impact of external growth strategies on their capital structure. Although most researches showed that the risk of losing control leads family firms to a lower level of debt, this article sheds new light on debt maturity structure and innovation investments when family firms embrace an acquisition path. In particular, I argue that family firms will use bank debt to a lower extent than nonfamily firms when they embrace an external growth strategy and, as a consequence, they are more likely to avoid cuts in research investments and focus more on long term debt. These hypotheses are consistent with agency theory arguments, as family principals exercise a more effective monitoring due to the larger ownership stake and the desire to pass the company on the offspring in profitable conditions. By having access to a panel data, I analyse acquisitions carried out in the period 2000-2013 by all Italian companies with turnover exceeding 50 million Euros, and the results support the long term perspective of family firms. In particular, family firms will use less bank debt to finance acquisitions, avoiding cutting research investments and relying on a more balanced debt maturity structure.


2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Harwood ◽  
Gil B. Manzon

We examine the proposition that the expected value of future interest tax shields affects firms' preferences for long-term vs. short-term debt. We extend prior work that has focused on incremental debt issuances (Newberry and Novack 1999; Guedes and Opler 1996) by examining the maturity structure reflected in the portfolio of firms' outstanding debt at year-end. Thus, our study tests a wider range of capital structure activities and includes a much larger sample of firms than examined in prior studies. Our results indicate that firms with high marginal tax rates use more long-term debt than do firms with low marginal tax rates. These findings are consistent with the existence of tax clienteles for financing with debt of different maturities.


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