| Ownership structure is not only an important factor affecting corporate governance and corporate decision-making in practical practice,but also has been the focus of academic discussion for a long time at the theoretical level.However,most of the existing literature focuses on the discussion of the economic consequences of ownership structure,and pays little attention to its formation mechanism.Moreover,in the only studies on its influencing factors,more analysis is made on the causes of the economic level,less attention is paid to the formal system level,and the discussion on informal institutions such as social trust is almost blank.On the one hand,with the continuous improvement and deepening of the market economic system,the social trust as the core of the informal system has increasingly become a useful supplement to the formal system,and the role of promoting economic development has become more and more prominent;On the other hand,exploring the formation mechanism of Chinese enterprise ownership structure from the informal system level is helpful to optimize the corporate ownership structure,solve the problem of corporate governance generated by the unreasonable ownership concentration structure,and boost the healthy,stable and sustainable development of Chinese economy.However,different from developed countries,in East Asian countries represented by China,people trust in-group members who have traditional emotional connection with them more than strangers who are out-group members.However,domestic research on this is still in its infancy.The general Secretary has repeatedly stressed the need to comprehensively tell China’s story well.Therefore,in order to further explore the economic impact of China’s completely different social trust pattern on enterprise ownership structure compared with western developed countries,this paper deeply distinguishes and studies the direct and heterogeneous impact of intra-group social trust and out-group social trust on enterprise ownership structure.On this basis,further through theoretical analysis and empirical test,the functional mechanism of regional social trust on corporate ownership structure is discussed from two aspects of information asymmetry and opportunistic behavior.At the same time,the regulatory effect of formal system is studied,and its influence path and internal functional mechanism are deeply analyzed.In addition,a series of robustness tests such as variable change,database adjustment and instrumental variable estimation were conducted to ensure the reliability of the research conclusions.Finally,heterogeneity analysis was carried out to consider the specific impact of regional social trust on the ownership structure of enterprises under different circumstances,so as to enrich and expand the empirical research on the influencing factors of the ownership structure to a certain extent,providing important enlightenment for enterprises to optimize the ownership structure.Through empirical analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)Regional trust level has a significant impact on the ownership structure of enterprises.Specifically,intra-group trust has a significant positive impact on the ownership concentration of enterprises,while out-group trust has a significant negative impact on the ownership concentration of enterprises.At the same time,by further investigating the mechanism between trust level and corporate ownership structure,it is found that social trust can adjust corporate ownership structure by reducing the degree of information asymmetry and opportunism.In this way,the formal system plays a weakening moderating effect,that is,the more developed the formal system is in a region,the weaker the influence of the trust level in the region on the ownership structure of enterprises.(2)Contrary to the theory,in reality,independent directors and the Board of supervisors do not play their due roles,thus failing to produce due validity to the optimization and adjustment of corporate ownership structure;(3)The influence of regional social trust on the ownership structure of enterprises is different at the level of ownership nature.The regression coefficient of out-group social trust of state-owned enterprises is significantly negative at the significance level of 5%,but the estimated coefficient of in-group social trust is not significant.The regression coefficients of in-group trust and out-group trust in non-state-owned enterprises are significant at the significance level of 1%.Therefore,focusing on the regional social trust of non-state-owned enterprises is indeed helpful to adjust the ownership structure of enterprises.Based on the above conclusions,this paper puts forward the following suggestions:(1)At the enterprise level,the ownership structure of enterprises should be optimized,and the performance environment of independent directors and supervisors should be improved.Meanwhile,non-state-owned enterprises should pay more attention to trust construction;(2)At the government level,the regional social trust environment should be improved and the regional formal system environment should be optimized. |
