Abstract:

The importance of financing activities to enterprises is self-evident, and the level of financing costs largely depends on the quality of the firm information environment. Therefore, this paper studies how financialization affects the development of real enterprises from the perspective of the information environment by taking Chinese A-share non-financial listed companies from 2007 to 2017 as samples. The research shows that enterprises' financialization worsens the firm information environment, that is, financialization increases the errors and the divergence of analysts' forecasts, and reduces the number of analysts following. The above conclusion is more significant in the samples with worse corporate governance, greater operational pressure and lower analyst's skill. Further research indicates that financialization negatively influences analysts' forecasts by increasing earnings volatility, reducing earnings sustainability and accounting conservatism. Finally, the deterioration of the information environment brought by financialization increases the financing cost and finally harms firms' operation. This paper, from the perspective of the micro corporate information environment, reveals a new path by which firm financialization inhibits the development of the real economy, and provides a reference for the government to formulate relevant measures to restrain the problem of “from the real to the virtual” in the economic field.

Key words: Financialization, Information Environment, Analyst Forecast, Finance Cost

摘要：

融资活动对企业重要性不言而喻,而融资成本的高低很大程度上取决于企业信息环境的好坏。本文以2007—2019年中国A股非金融上市公司为样本,从分析师预测的角度出发,研究实体企业金融化如何影响企业信息环境。结果表明,金融化恶化了实体企业的信息环境,即金融化增加了分析师预测误差和分析师预测分歧度,减少了分析师跟踪人数。异质性分析表明,良好的公司治理和更强的分析师能力可以缓解金融化对分析师预测的不利影响,而较大的经营压力则会加剧金融化的负面影响。传导机制分析表明,金融化主要通过增加盈余波动性、降低盈余持续性和降低会计稳健性对分析师预测产生负面影响。最后,金融化带来的信息环境恶化提高了企业融资成本,对实体企业产生不利影响。本文从微观的企业信息环境角度出发揭示了企业金融化抑制实体经济发展的新路径,为政府部门制定相关措施抑制经济“脱实向虚”提供了参考。

关键词: 金融化, 信息环境, 分析师预测, 融资成本