High Speed Rail Opening And Corporate Risk

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period,the national railway operating mileage increased to 146,300 kilometers,an increase of 20.9%.Among them,the HSR(high-speed rail)way operating mileage reached 37,900 kilometers,which nearly doubled.The "four vertical and four horizontal" HSR network was completed ahead of schedule.The "eight vertical and eight horizontal" HSR network is right on the way.Now Chinese HSR network has been far ahead of other countries in the world,becoming the most modern and developed HSR country in the world.The opening of the HSR has not only changed the way people travel,but also has an impact on economic activities.Studies have found that the opening of HSR not only affects regional economic development,industrial layout,and economic structure at the macro level,but also affects corporate governance behaviors such as corporate investment and financing,corporate capital allocation,and corporate innovation.The influencing factors of corporate risk have always been an important research topic in the field of corporate financial management.Risk management has an important impact on the survival and development of an enterprise.Identifying the factors influencing enterprise risk and restraining the enterprise from over-taking risks are important goals of enterprise risk management.So far,many researchers in academia have discussed the influencing factors of enterprise risk level.On the one hand,internal factors such as the effectiveness of internal control,management’s overconfidence,and the nature of ownership can affect corporate risks.On the other hand,including the protection of the property rights system,economic policy uncertainty,and institutional investors’ shareholding are all factors that influence the external governance mechanism of corporate risks.Maintaining a reasonable level of risk for listed companies is conducive to reducing financing costs,accumulating more wealth,maintaining competitive advantages,and enhancing the value of listed companies.Whether the improvement of the economic environment by the opening of the HSR will affect corporate risks is a question worthy of discussion.After the opening of the HSR,the velocity of capital and information circulation has increased,which increased the information transparency.On the one hand,the opening of the HSR makes it easier for companies to obtain external information and improve the efficiency of investment decision-making;On the other hand,the cost of external supervision is reduced after the opening of the HSR.To restrict earnings manipulation and management self-interest,to a certain extent alleviate agency conflicts and reduce corporate risks.Combining the theory of new economic geography and taking corporate risks as the starting point,this article attempts to explore in detail whether the policy event of the opening of HSR can effectively improve the efficiency of corporate governance.The article selects China’s A-share listed companies from the first year of HSR opening(2007)to 2018 as the sample companies,using empirical testing methods to prove the impact of HSR opening on corporate risks.This paper finds through inspection that the risk level of the company’s location is significantly reduced after the opening of the HSR;the intermediary effect test found that the impact of the opening of the HSR on corporate risk can be explained by part of the investment path,information path and accounting path.The article analyzes the impact mechanism of the changes of objective geographic factors at the macro level on the corporate governance at the micro level from the perspective of investment,accounting and information paths.The research enriches the research results of corporate risk influencing factors and provides empirical evidence for the impact of infrastructure construction on corporate governance;At the same time,in terms of practical significance,the article has reference significance for capital market participants to identify corporate risks and maximize benefits,and it also has reference value for policy makers to optimize market resource allocation.