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Government policies and corporate financing decisions in China: Theory and evidence

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Abstract

This paper examines the effect of government policies on the financing decisions of firms in China. A real options model is developed to understand how fiscal and monetary policies affect corporate leverage. The model predictions will be tested with a comprehensive panel data set spanning from 2002 to 2011. This work documents robust evidence that show the positive association of both tax and risk-free rate with firm leverage: increase in tax rate and risk free rate by one standard deviation results in the increase in corporate leverages by 0.61 to 1.06 percent and 2.54 to 3.68 percent, respectively. In addition, the productions of the firms are not affected by the tax rate in the short run, and the firms are operating in their optimal market leverage. The implied tax rate and risk free rate are solved by assuming that the firms achieve their optimal leverages. The implied tax rate declines with the size, whereas the opposite goes for implied risk-free rate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Kunyuan Qiao

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  1. Kunyuan Qiao
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Correspondence to Kunyuan Qiao.

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Kunyuan Qiao is a graduate student in Economics at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China. His major is industrial economics, and his research interests include corporate finance, financial econometrics, econometrics, and applied econometrics. He is currently a teaching assistant at Peking University and member of the Society for the Study of Emerging Markets. He serves in the editorial board for the European Journal of Science and Engineering, European Journal of Mathematics and Statistics, and so on, and has refereed papers for China Economic Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Finance (Journal of Chinese Finance Annual Meeting) and Review of Investment Studies. He has published papers in international journals such as Frontiers of Economics in China, as well as journals in Chinese such as Economic Science, Journal of Finance & Economics. He is the winner of the Innovation Scholarships in Peking University for two consecutive years.

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Qiao, K. Government policies and corporate financing decisions in China: Theory and evidence. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 22, 93–111 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-013-5207-8

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