Research On Effects Of Mixed Ownership Reform On Maturity Mismatch Of Investment And Financing Of State-Owned Enterprises

Investment and financing maturity mismatch as a high-risk funding arrangement behaviour prevails among Chinese enterprises.Although it can reduce the financing cost of enterprises,this unreasonable investment and financing pattern exposes enterprises to financial risks and debt default risks,and has serious impact on their business performance.Although state-owned enterprises(SOEs)do not have more serious financing constraints due to policy burdens and soft budget constraints,and even have an advantage over private enterprises in terms of access to credit,the existence of one share of state-owned shares and internal controllers in SOEs makes their principal-agent problems more serious.The managers of SOEs,as the actual owners of the enterprises,will adopt excessive investment behaviour in order to achieve their goals such as promotion and remuneration packages,thus creating a maturity mismatch of investment and financing in SOE.Since the reform and opening up,China has been continuously promoting the reform of SOEs to enhance their competitiveness and influence.The reform arrangements made at the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th Central Committee have led to a new stage of reform of SOEs in China with mixed ownership,and encouraged non-state capital to take a stake in SOEs and actively bring into play the governance effects of non-state shareholders.In the process of implementing mixed ownership reform in SOEs,the participation of non-state capital can lead to a more balanced and reasonable shareholding structure in SOEs.At the same time,non-state shareholders can optimise the organisational structure and staffing of SOEs by appointing directors,supervisors and senior management,and strengthen the behavioural constraints and supervision of corporate managers,thereby exerting an important influence on corporate investment and financing decisions.There is currently little academic literature examining whether mixed ownership reforms have an impact on the maturity mismatch of SOEs’ investment and financing from the aspect of SOEs’ internal principal-agent problems,for which this paper conducts an in-depth study of this issue.This paper investigates the impact of mixed ownership reform on the maturity mismatch of SOEs’ investment and financing based on a sample of state-owned listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2008 to 2019.Firstly,we manually collected data on the appointment of directors,supervisors and executives by non-state-owned shareholders,which measure the indicators of mixed ownership reform,and reasonably designed the econometric regression model;secondly,this paper carries out the benchmark regression test and the intermediary mechanism test,and conducts robustness tests on the regression results by replacing the indicator measures,adopting multiple fixed-effects models and sample screening;then we conducted heterogeneity analyses in terms of growth,leverage,marketability and environmental uncertainty.Finally,we examine the economic consequences of the inhibitory effect of mixed ownership reform on SOEs’ investment and financing maturity mismatch on SOEs,mainly including financial risk and operating performance.The findings show that.Firstly,the mixed ownership reform of SOEs helps non-state shareholders to actively exert corporate governance effects and influence the investment and financing decisions made by the management of SOEs,which in turn effectively curbs the investment and financing maturity mismatch behaviour of firms;secondly,the results of the mechanism test indicate that the monitoring and internal governance effects exerted by non-state shareholders’ participation in SOEs during the promotion of mixed ownership reform can reduce SOE agency costs of SOEs in the process of mixed ownership reform,thus curbing the maturity mismatch of investment and financing.Thirdly,the heterogeneity results suggest that the governance effect of mixed ownership reform on SOEs’ investment and financing maturity mismatch is more significant for firms with higher growth and lower leverage,as well as for external circumstances with high marketisation levels and high environmental uncertainty.In the other four groups of regressions,mixed ownership reforms are less effective in curbing SOEs’ investment and financing maturity mismatch behaviour.Fourth,the results of economic consequences suggest that mixed ownership reform can significantly reduce corporate financial risk and improve corporate operating performance by curbing the degree of maturity mismatch in SOEs’ investment and financing.This study has some policy implications for promoting SOE mixed ownership reform and mitigating the degree of maturity mismatch in investment and financing.