Empirical Study On The Influence Of Government Credit To The Debt Maturity Structure

Debt financing has always been the focus of financial research. However, most researchers attach more attention on the study of capital structure, less on the debt maturity structure. The study of debt maturity structure in China is still in its infancy, only in an adopting stage. Still less are the studies of factors influencing the debt maturity structure from the perspective of government credit brought by the state-owned enterprises.The thesis aims to study the influential factors in the debt maturity structure from the point of government credit in the listed enterprises. It is developed in two perspectives: the perspective of various government credit strength resulted from the proportion of state-owned shares and the perspective of the varying impact of different stock holders on the debt maturity structure. The influence of government credit on debt maturity structure is analyzed in the following five aspects: the enhancement of venture's credit by way of government credit of the state-owned shares; the absence of surveillance the bank has over loans of state-owned ventures; the acquired debt financing with the assistance of government; the easy accession to fixed assets for the state-owned ventures; and the larger scale of assets by state-owned ventures. Accordingly the thesis puts forward two government credit hypotheses: the government credit has positive influence on the debt maturity structure of enterprises; and state shares have wider influence on debt maturity structure than that of state-owned legal person shares. The thesis put forward another empirical study of the influential factors to test whether they are in accordance with the existing hypothesis. What the thesis emphasized is that the 'government credit hypothesis' also belongs to the study of 'system environment hypothesis'.The models are devised with reference to those proposed in some classical studies of the mfluential factors in the debt maturity structure. In the model, the explained variable and the control variable are proposed according to some former studies. The author puts forward a new model by adding a new variable, explaining variable. To testify the two hypotheses of the influential factors of government credit on debt maturity structure, the author devises two kinds of explaining variables, together with the existing explained variable and control variable, to make up two new regression models, samples are selected from the data base of all the A share ventures in China from 1998 to 2005, and the approach, "The Two-Way Random Effects", is adopted in the analysis. The empirical study is done in three respects, the statistical description of data; the trend of data index in each year; and estimation and test of variables in the models. The achievements of this empirical study are as follows: Firstly, the government credit hypotheses are supported. Government credit does have positive influence on the credit maturity structure of enterprises and do promote the growth of ratio of long term debt. State shares have wider influence on the positive development of debt maturity structure than that of state-owned legal person shares. Secondly, there is not a complete credit and law system in China to protect the interest of creditors, and accordingly, the short term debt is relatively higher. Thirdly, the thesis rejects the insufficient investment, excessive investment and assets substitution effect hypothesis of 'the agency cost hypotheses. In addition, it further verifies the enterprises scale hypothesis in 'the agency cost hypothesis', and 'the asset maturity match hypothesis'. However, it rejects 'the signal transmission hypothesis' and 'revenue hypothesis', while the 'inflation hypothesis' in 'the system environment hypothesis' is supported strongly.