The Impact Of Social Trust On The Maturity Structure Of Corporate Debt

The reform of China’s economic system and the construction of the socialist market economy have undoubtedly played an important role in promoting the rapid development of China’s economy.However,in the process of institutional mechanisms and marketization,due to the imperfect formal legal and institutional systems,some alternative informal systems,such as social trust,have also played an equally important role in guiding the distribution of social resources and promoting the development of the real economy.The phenomenon of short-term debt maturity is one of the important characteristics of Chinese enterprises’ debt financing,and solving the problem of enterprises’ unreasonable debt maturity structure has become an important issue that both theoretical and practical departments have paid attention to.In terms of theory,there are few literatures concerned about whether social trust will affect the debt maturity structure of enterprises.In view of this,this paper takes the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2007 to 2020 as a sample,and theoretically analyzes and empirically studies the impact of social trust on corporate debt maturity structure and its impact mechanism.This paper finds that the level of social trust can significantly affect the debt maturity structure of enterprises.The higher the level of social trust is,the easier it is for enterprises to obtain long-term debt financing.Mechanism analysis shows that,on the one hand,the impact of social trust on the debt maturity structure of enterprises stems from the fact that social trust alleviates the agency conflict between the controlling shareholders of listed companies and other stakeholders,weakens the tunneling behavior of large shareholders,thus enhancing the confidence of external investors and loan institutions,making it easier for enterprises to obtain medium and long-term loans,and improving the debt maturity structure of enterprises.On the other hand,the impact of social trust on the debt maturity structure of enterprises stems from regions with higher social trust,which can effectively build an internal control system and improve the quality of internal control,thus protecting the interests of external stakeholders,enhancing the willingness of external investment,and increasing the debt maturity structure.The further analysis of this paper also finds that the impact of social trust on the debt maturity structure of enterprises is more significant in higher information asymmetry,worse equity checks and balances,weaker equity incentives,higher external audit quality and state-owned enterprises.This study reveals the impact of social trust on the debt maturity structure of enterprises and its impact mechanism,expands the research vision of the economic effects of social trust and the analysis vision of the factors affecting the debt maturity structure,and enriches the relevant research literature.At the same time,the conclusions of this study are instructive and instructive for promoting social governance,fostering and enhancing social trust at the national and regional levels,and for financial institutions and other market entities to make investment and financing decisions based on social trust.