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744Deleveraging is a crucial goal of the supply-side reform, but leverage manipulation hampers regulatory oversight, masks the true leverage level in listed companies, and increases financial and systemic risks. Currently, the application of new-generation information technology has brought changes to enterprise production, operation, and management. Whether and how the application of new-generation information technology can effectively reduce opportunistic behaviors such as leverage manipulation is a question worth studying.
This paper takes China’s A-share listed companies from 2011-2021 as a sample, and uses text analysis to build indicators for the application of new-generation information technology. The study finds that: First, the application of new-generation information technology helps to curb corporate leverage manipulation behavior. Second, new-generation information technology improves the information environment, enhances information transparency, and reduces the degree of leverage manipulation through the information enabling effect; it reduces enterprise costs, achieves substantial deleveraging, and reduces the degree of leverage manipulation through the cost enabling effect. In addition, the impact is more significant in samples with stronger financing constraints and lower cash holdings. Third, the application of new-generation information technology reduces the degree of leverage manipulation without increasing the ability to manipulate leverage.
The contributions of this paper are that: First, it analyzes the impact and mechanism of new-generation information technology on corporate leverage manipulation behavior from the perspective of “technology enabling”, providing new ideas for effectively addressing corporate leverage manipulation issues and preventing debt risks. Second, it studies the internal governance methods of leverage manipulation behavior, enriching the research on the influencing factors of leverage manipulation. Third, it studies how the application of new-generation information technology affects corporate leverage manipulation behavior through information enabling and cost enabling effects, enriching the research on the economic consequences of new-generation information technology, especially its governance effect on corporate leverage manipulation behavior.
