The Impact Of Equity Pledge On Enterprise Innovation Efficiency

Since the policy opened the floor equity pledge in 2013,equity pledge has won the favor of the market with its advantages of convenience,flexibility and low cost.It has become one of the financing means widely used by listed companies,but there are significant risks behind its vigorous development.Therefore,the economic consequences of equity pledge have always been a research hotspot in academic circles.At present,the literature on equity pledge of major shareholders and enterprise innovation ability mostly studies the impact of equity pledge on R&D investment or patent output.However,innovation is a long cycle process,and it takes a certain time for enterprise R&D expenditure to be transformed into authorized patents,It is not reasonable to use the above indicators to measure enterprise innovation.Therefore,this paper adopts the comprehensive index of enterprise innovation efficiency to explore the impact of equity pledge on innovation ability.On this basis,further explore the intermediary role of the degree of financing constraints.Through the analysis of relevant theories,we can get two paths that equity pledge affects enterprise innovation efficiency.First,the equity pledge will aggravate the second kind of agency problems faced by listed companies,enhance the motivation of controlling shareholders to encroach on the interests of the company and small and medium-sized investors,seek invisible benefits by virtue of their actual control over listed companies,and excessively occupy the economic resources used by enterprises for innovation activities.Second,the equity pledge will send the signal of lack of capital liquidity in the market,and the obstruction of enterprises in the process of R&D will also send the signal of poor management.In order to avoid the risk of stock price fluctuation and control transfer,the controlling shareholders will take short-sighted actions and reduce the capital investment of high-risk innovation projects,so as to inhibit the innovation efficiency of enterprises.In order to verify the hypothesis proposed in this paper,this paper selects the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2018 as a sample to study the internal mechanism of the equity pledge behavior of major shareholders affecting the innovation efficiency of enterprises,investigate the intermediary role of financing constraints,and further analyze the internal and external differences of the impact of equity pledge on the innovation efficiency of state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises.The conclusions of empirical analysis are as follows:(1)the equity pledge of controlling shareholders will significantly reduce the innovation efficiency of enterprises,and there is a significant negative correlation between the pledge proportion and the innovation efficiency of enterprises.(2)Major shareholder equity pledge reduces innovation efficiency by increasing the degree of financing constraints of listed companies,that is,the degree of financing constraints plays a partial intermediary role between major shareholder equity pledge and enterprise innovation efficiency.(3)Compared with state-owned enterprises,the equity pledge of controlling shareholders of non-state-owned enterprises has a greater negative impact on the innovation efficiency of enterprises.There are two main innovations in this paper.First,take the comprehensive index of enterprise innovation efficiency to explore the impact of equity pledge on innovation ability.Second,the existing literature focuses on exploring the direct relationship between equity pledge,financing constraints and enterprise innovation.This paper combines the three to explore their intermediary role in the main research problems from the perspective of financing constraints.In addition,this paper classifies listed state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises,and further analyzes the heterogeneity of the impact of equity pledge on their innovation efficiency.