关键词: 银行监管处罚, 僵尸企业, 银行信贷, 风险管理, 盈利能力

Abstract: Reducing zombie credit and accelerating the elimination of zombie firms are crucial for improving the efficiency of credit resource allocation and achieving high-quality economic development. Based on the bank-firm credit relationship, we match bank administrative penalty information released by the National Financial Regulatory Administration from 2015 to 2022 with data from the listed firms to empirically examine the impact of bank regulatory penalties on zombie lending. We find that bank regulatory penalties significantly reduce zombie credit. Mechanism analysis indicates that bank regulatory penalties can encourage banks to improve their risk management systems and affect their profitability, thereby reducing lending to zombie firms. Furthermore, regulatory penalties mainly affect the banks lending decisions towards zombie firms and those with deteriorating business conditions, but they have no impact on the availability of credit for healthy firms. Regulatory penalties primarily affect zombie credit with low collateral requirements, such as short-term loans and credit loans, so the inhibitory effect on zombie credit is more significant when penalties related to credit violations and moderate-to-severe penalties are concerned. Zombie credit in the manufacturing and real estate sectors is more susceptible to the impact of bank regulation. In addition, penalties can also reduce the overall scale of zombie credit and the number of zombie firms in a region. The findings provide empirical evidence and policy implications for optimizing credit resource allocation, accelerating the elimination of zombie firms, and preventing systemic financial risks.

Key words: Bank Regulatory Penalties, Zombie Firms, Bank Credit, Risk Management, Profitability