The Impact Of Excess Goodwill On R&D Investment

In recent years,the goodwill "thunder" phenomenon of listed companies occurs frequently.It has become one of the major financial risks in the market to deduct a large amount of goodwill impairment due to the overestimation of goodwill.According to the excess return view,goodwill can improve the future profitability of enterprises and bring excess returns,but excess goodwill means high expectations and high impairment risks,which can not help enterprises achieve profits,but consume a lot of merger and acquisition costs,aggravate financing constraints,become the operating burden of enterprises and affect their investment activities.As an important investment to improve the core competitiveness of enterprises,R&D investment is very important for the development of enterprises.Therefore,this paper investigates the economic consequences of excess goodwill from the perspective of enterprise R&D activities.This paper mainly studies the relationship between excess goodwill,R&D investment and debt financing cost.First of all,this paper sorts out the current domestic and foreign related literature,and makes a summary and comment on this basis.Secondly,on the basis of predecessors,it defines the concepts of excess goodwill,R&D investment and debt financing cost,and analyzes these factors on the basis of principal-agent theory,information asymmetry theory,signaling theory,and free cash flow theory,explores the development status of excess goodwill and R&D investment,puts forward the hypothesis of this paper,and builds a model.Finally,select the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as a sample for empirical analysis.This paper uses descriptive analysis,correlation analysis,regression analysis,and mediation effect test on the sample data to verify the research hypothesis of this paper.On this basis,robustness test and heterogeneity analysis are carried out.The research results show that:(1)Excess goodwill can inhibit the R&D investment of enterprises.(2)The higher the excess goodwill,the higher the debt financing cost of the enterprise.(3)Debt financing costs play a partial intermediary role between excess goodwill and R&D investment,and excess goodwill can restrain R&D investment by increasing debt financing costs.(4)There is a lag in excess goodwill,which will inhibit the company’s R&D investment in the next two periods by increasing the cost of debt financing.(5)Compared with state-owned enterprises,the excess goodwill of non-state-owned enterprises has a more obvious inhibitory effect on R&D investment.Combined with the research conclusions,this paper considers from three perspectives,that is,proposes suggestions from the regulator level,the enterprise level and the investor level,in order to reduce the phenomenon of premium mergers and acquisitions and promote the harmonious development of the market.At the same time,this paper also points out the limitations in the research process and future research prospects.