Voluntary Disclosure Of Intellectual Capital,Product Market Competition And Cost Of Debt

The 21st century is a knowledge-driven economic era,intellectual capital is the main driving force of enterprise value creation.Especially in,the knowledge and technology-intensive industries,intellectual capital is the core power of enterprise development and a source of value.The importance of intellectual capital makes all kinds of capital market participants,including creditors,competitors and government regulators,pay close attention to enterprise's intellectual capital information disclosured.Recent research shows that the disclosure of intellectual capital can bring many benefits such as the cost reduction of equity financing,more analyst concern and higher market valuation.However,the relationship between the cost of debt and the disclosure of intellectual capital information is very rare.The investigation of the impact of intellectual capital information disclosure on the cost of debt will enhance our understanding of the economic consequences of intellectual capital information disclosure undoubtedly.Thus,this paper attempts to study the correlation between the voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital and the cost of debt.Based on the research status of intellectual capital information disclosure from home and abroad,combining related theory of information disclosure,cost of debt and product market competition,puts forward a series of research hypotheses on the correlation between the information disclosure of intellectual capital and the cost of debt and the heterogeneity of this correlation in the different products competitive environment.The empirical study is based on the study of all high-tech industries in Shanghai and shenzhen market in 2011-2013.The voluntary information disclosure index of intellectual capital is constructed by the research group of intellectual capital information disclosure of FuZhou University.Firstly,the relationship between intellectual capital voluntary information disclosure index(human capital voluntary disclosure index,organizational capital voluntary disclosure index)and cost of debt are explored through the multiple regression model.Secondly,the product market competition is introduced,to explore the heterogeneity of the relationship between them.Regression results show:(1)The level of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital is positively correlated with the cost of debt;(2)The level of voluntary information disclosure of human capital and organizational capital is positively correlated with the cost of debt;(3)The more competitive the product market,the more obvious the positive correlation between the voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital and the cost of debt;(4)The more competitive the product market,the higher the cost of debt,and the more obvious the positive correlation between the voluntary disclosure of human capital and organizational capital and the cost of debt.To verify the robustness of regression results,re-measure the voluntary disclosure index of intellectual capital,re,measure the cost of debt,two stages of regression and quantile regression were tested for robustness in this paper.Multiple robustness test results support the conclusions of multiple regression models.Through the empirical research summary,several policy suggestions are put forward:(1)When making voluntary disclosure decisions,enterprises should distinguish different kinds of information,especially in the disclosure of intellectual capital information;(2)The enterprise should choose the suitable disclosure strategy of intellectual capital voluntary information according to its own product market competition degree.Within the limits of affordability and tolerance of cost of debt,disclose the intellectual capital information as far as possible in the market to establish the company's high quality image,highlighting its own competitive advantage;(3)the government should give enterprises some flexibility space to choose When they formulating relevant policies of disclosure of intellectual capital information to guide enterprises;(4)Creditors should view the intellectual capital information disclosure of enterprises in the right and rational way,more fully understand the intrinsic value of the enterprise,and more accurately grasp the development trend of enterprise.This can reduce the risk of creditors estimation of the future development of enterprises in a way.