Can Network Platform Interaction Curb Corporate Financialization? Empirical Evidence from the Q&A of the Exchange Interactive Platform

Gao Jingzhong; Yang Zhao

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.jsufe.2021.05.004

Summary

Under the guidance of “promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities”, China’s capital market regulatory agencies have been gradually transforming the regulatory approach from administration-oriented to market-oriented. Taking advantage of the development opportunities of the Internet and information technology, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange have respectively established network interactive platforms named “Easy Interaction Platform” and “SSE E-Interaction Platform”, which create conditions for the smooth interaction between investors and listed companies and further influence the behavioral decisions of listed companies. This paper uses the data of the interactive Q&A between A-share listed companies and investors on the exchange network platform from 2010 to 2018 as the sample to empirically test the impact of exchange network platform interaction on the financialization of listed companies in the non-financial industry, and then verify the governance role of listed companies and investors interacting through the exchange network platform. The empirical results show that the interaction between listed companies and investors through the exchange network platform can significantly inhibit corporate financialization. The instrumental variable method, propensity score matching method, and one-period lagging explanatory variables are used to deal with the endogenous problem. The conclusion is still valid after the robustness test of changing the regression methods, the sample interval, and the proxy variable measurement. The results of further tests on the mechanism show that the interaction of network platforms in various governance environments has different effects on corporate financialization, and the inhibition is more effective in less strict governance environments. In the sample group where the governance mechanism is less restrictive, the effect of network platform interaction on corporate financialization is more significant, indicating that such interaction can curb corporate financialization through the use of governance mechanism. The results of the grouping test that distinguishes financing constraint environments show that the interaction of the network platform has a more significant inhibitory effect on corporate financialization, when the degree of financing constraints of listed companies is lower; the results of the grouping test by the degree of marketization and the nature of property rights in different regions show that when the listed company is located in a region where the degree of marketization is higher and the nature of property rights is non-state, network platform interaction has a more significant inhibitory effect on corporate financialization. Generally, the higher the quality of network platform interaction, the lower the degree of corporate financialization. This paper enriches the research on the supervision function of the exchange network interactive platform, and investigates the path of supervising and regulating corporate financialization. At the same time, the research results of this paper provide decision support for the exchange to play the role of a network interactive platform, improve the efficiency of the capital market, and achieve regulatory transformation, and also provide empirical evidence for the market-oriented transformation of the regulatory approach of regulatory agencies.