IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v68y2024ics1544612324009103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Debt trap or innovation motivation? the impact of public debt on corporate substantive innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed companies

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Huijuan
  • Zhao, Yinfei
  • Wang, Yong

Abstract

This study examines the impact of local government public debt on substantive enterprise innovation. We found that expanding public debt significantly reduces corporate substantive innovation by strengthening financing constraints and decreasing fiscal subsidies. This correlation was more significant in regions with lower levels of financial development and less significant in regions with higher levels of financial development. Moreover, the correlation was more significant in small firms with lower research and development (R&D) input but not significant in large firms with higher R&D input.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Huijuan & Zhao, Yinfei & Wang, Yong, 2024. "Debt trap or innovation motivation? the impact of public debt on corporate substantive innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:68:y:2024:i:c:s1544612324009103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2024.105880
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612324009103
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2024.105880?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Croce, M.M. & Nguyen, Thien T. & Raymond, S. & Schmid, L., 2019. "Government debt and the returns to innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(3), pages 205-225.
    2. Bellucci, Andrea & Pennacchio, Luca & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2023. "Debt financing of SMEs: The certification role of R&D Subsidies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    3. Bronzini, Raffaello & Piselli, Paolo, 2016. "The impact of R&D subsidies on firm innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 442-457.
    4. Demirci, Irem & Huang, Jennifer & Sialm, Clemens, 2019. "Government debt and corporate leverage: International evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 337-356.
    5. Fan, Jianyong & Liu, Yu & Zhang, Qi & Zhao, Peng, 2022. "Does government debt impede firm innovation? Evidence from the rise of LGFVs in China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Nora Traum & Shu‐Chun S. Yang, 2015. "When Does Government Debt Crowd Out Investment?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 24-45, January.
    7. Xiong, Jiacai & Huang, Ling & Yang, Zelin & Wang, Xin, 2024. "The impact of local government debt on entrepreneurship: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of local debt governance reform," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 501-519.
    8. He, Chao & Li, Yanxi & Zhu, Jiawei, 2022. "The effect of firm-level perception of uncertainty on innovation: Evidence from China’s listed firms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    9. Cornaggia, Jess & Mao, Yifei & Tian, Xuan & Wolfe, Brian, 2015. "Does banking competition affect innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 189-209.
    10. Aamir Nazir & Muhammad Azam & Muhammed Usman Khalid, 2021. "Debt financing and firm performance: empirical evidence from the Pakistan Stock Exchange," Asian Journal of Accounting Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(3), pages 324-334, March.
    11. Tang, Kai, 2024. "Agricultural adaptation to the environmental and social consequences of climate change in mixed farming systems: Evidence from North Xinjiang, China," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    12. Bao, Fengnai & Chen, Binger & Chen, Di, 2024. "The impact of local government financing vehicles debt on corporate risk-taking: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    13. Yina Li & Yang Tong & Fei Ye & Jiajia Song, 2020. "The choice of the government green subsidy scheme: innovation subsidy vs. product subsidy," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(16), pages 4932-4946, July.
    14. Xu, Zhaoxia, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty, cost of capital, and corporate innovation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    15. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fan, Jianyong & Liu, Yu & Zhang, Qi & Zhao, Peng, 2022. "Does government debt impede firm innovation? Evidence from the rise of LGFVs in China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    2. Chen, Suyun & Li, Zongze & Xie, Feixue & Xu, Xiaofang, 2024. "The signaling effect of local government debt: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    3. Chen, Wen, 2024. "How does local government debt affect bank loan pricing? Evidence from loan-level data," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(3).
    4. Shi, Yukun & Zhu, Kairan, 2024. "Unraveling the impact of bank loan spread on corporate innovation: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    5. Chen, Wen & Zhu, Yufeng & He, Zehui & Yang, Yang, 2022. "The effect of local government debt on green innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    6. Shen, Zhihan & Zhang, Ruipeng & Li, Peigong, 2024. "Local government debt and corporate tax avoidance: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 985-1000.
    7. Tian, Jing & Li, Haiwei & You, Pin, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty, bank loan, and corporate innovation," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Amin, Md Ruhul & Wang, Xinyu & Aktas, Elvan, 2023. "Does oil price uncertainty affect corporate innovation?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    9. Xiong, Jiacai & Huang, Ling & Yang, Zelin & Wang, Xin, 2024. "The impact of local government debt on entrepreneurship: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of local debt governance reform," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 501-519.
    10. Wang, Weilong & Xiao, Deheng & Wang, Jianlong & Wu, Haitao, 2024. "The cost of pollution in the digital era: Impediments of air pollution on enterprise digital transformation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    11. Giau Bui, Dien & Chen, Yehning & Lin, Chih-Yung & Lin, Tse-Chun, 2021. "Risk-taking of bank CEOs and corporate innovation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    12. Lian, Yili, 2024. "Financial distress, bank branching deregulation, and customer-supplier relationships," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    13. Hasan, Iftekhar & Lee, Haekwon & Qiu, Buhui & Saunders, Anthony, 2023. "Climate-related disclosure commitment of the lenders, credit rationing, and borrower environmental performance," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 7/2023, Bank of Finland.
    14. Shang, Longfei & Lin, Ji-Chai & Saffar, Walid, 2021. "Does economic policy uncertainty drive the initiation of corporate lobbying?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    15. Zhu, Jun & Xu, Haokun & Zhang, Yue, 2022. "Local government debt and firm productivity: Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Fan, Wei & Ying, Qianwei & Meng, Guo, 2023. "The signaling effect of policy loans: Do commercial banks follow up or stand by?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    17. Dang, Viet A. & De Cesari, Amedeo & Phan, Hieu V., 2021. "Employment protection and share repurchases: Evidence from wrongful discharge laws," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    18. Wang, Jiaxin & Huang, Xiang & Gu, Qiankun & Song, Zilong & Sun, Ruiyi, 2023. "How does fintech affect bank risk? A perspective based on financialized transfer of government implicit debt risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    19. Qing Wan & Xiaoke Cheng & Kam C. Chan & Shenghao Gao, 2021. "Born to innovate? The birth‐order effect of CEOs on corporate innovation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(9-10), pages 1846-1888, October.
    20. Zhang, Ping & Wang, Yiru & Gao, Jieying, 2023. "Going public and innovation: Evidence from the ChiNext stock market," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 586-613.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:68:y:2024:i:c:s1544612324009103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.