Research On The Influence Of Technological Innovation On Enterprise Leverage Ratio

After the 2008 financial crisis,China launched the "four trillion plan" to promote steady economic growth,and Chinese enterprises generally experienced the process of increasing leverage.By the end of 2020,the leverage ratio of China’s non-financial enterprise sector was 162.3%.During the 13 th Five-Year Plan period,the country has put forward deleveraging requirements to prevent and defuse risks while ensuring high-quality economic development."Promoting innovation" is another major theme at the present stage in China.Innovation-driven improvement of market competitiveness enables enterprises to get rid of debt financing.What is the impact of technological innovation on leverage ratio? This paper attempts to study the relationship between technological innovation and corporate leverage ratio by combining theoretical and empirical methods.Firstly,this paper reviews relevant literature and makes a theoretical analysis on the relationship between technological innovation and corporate leverage ratio.Technological innovation can be divided into three levels: innovation input,innovation output and innovation risk.The first two reduce corporate leverage by improving profitability and reducing inventory pressure.The emergence of innovation risk will reduce corporate profitability,increase inventory,and then increase corporate leverage ratio.The influence of technological innovation on leverage ratio is different in property rights and industry technology characteristics.Secondly,combined with the actual situation,taking a-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from2010 to 2020 as the research sample,it is found that the average annual growth rate of enterprise innovation input reaches 19.63%,innovation output slightly declines in the later period,and the number of enterprises with innovation risk significantly decreases.During this period,corporate leverage ratio showed an "inverted U" trend.Finally,according to the empirical analysis,innovation input and innovation output can promote enterprises to reduce leverage ratio,and innovation risk will increase leverage ratio.From the perspective of debt maturity,the impact of technological innovation on the current leverage ratio is consistent with the overall leverage ratio,innovation input and innovation output promote the increase of non-current leverage ratio,innovation risk has no significant impact on the non-current leverage ratio.From the perspective of property rights,technological innovation activities of state-owned enterprises have a more effective effect on the reduction of leverage ratio than those of non-state-owned enterprises.Innovation risks increase the leverage ratio of state-owned enterprises and reduce the leverage ratio of non-state-owned enterprises.From the technical characteristics of the industry,the technological innovation activities of traditional enterprises have a more effective effect on the reduction of leverage ratio,while the innovation input has no significant effect on the reduction of leverage ratio due to the low overall leverage ratio of high-tech enterprises.Innovation risk will lead to higher leverage of traditional enterprises.The mechanism test shows that innovation input and innovation output can promote the improvement of profitability,reduce the inventory pressure,and then reduce the leverage ratio of enterprises.Innovation risk will lead to reduced profitability and increased inventory pressure,which in turn will increase corporate leverage ratio.Finally,according to the conclusion,this paper puts forward policy suggestions,including optimizing the capital structure of enterprises through technological innovation,increasing innovation investment according to their own situation,and improving the innovation ability and quality of enterprises.