| As the COVID-19,the Russia-Ukraine conflict and other black swan events have affected global economic growth,many governments have successively introduced a series of rescue policies,which has increased the uncertainty of global economic policies to a certain extent.The complex and volatile international environment poses a huge threat to the stability of China’s economic policies,and also poses a serious challenge to building a healthy and stable capital market system in China.As an important means of direct financing,bonds play a pivotal role in China’s financial market,providing great financing convenience for the development of listed companies and small and medium-sized enterprises.To ensure the smooth operation of the bond market is not only in line with the interests of enterprises and investors,but also in line with the theme of promoting Chinese path to modernization,overall development and security in China.However,with the turbulent domestic and foreign policy environment,the downward pressure on the domestic economy has increased,leading to the differentiation of bond issuers,and the increasingly prominent risk in the bond market.In this context,this article brings macroeconomic policies and micro enterprise behavior into the same research framework for specific analysis and exploration,attempting to explore the impact of increased economic policy uncertainty on the default of bonds issued by enterprises.This research has important practical significance.Generally speaking,enterprises mainly repay their debts through two ways:internal profits and external financing.In terms of internal profitability,when the uncertainty of economic policies increases,the external business environment of the enterprise deteriorates,making it difficult for management to judge and grasp the future macroeconomic situation and industry development.Enterprises are facing greater difficulties in attempting to repay their outstanding debts through internal profitability.In terms of external financing,when the uncertainty of economic policies increases,the external financing environment of enterprises deteriorates.Based on their own risk aversion considerations,banks and other lending institutions have made it difficult for enterprises to seek to obtain working capital and supplement their cash flow through external financing channels such as banks by shrinking the credit scale and increasing financing costs.However,no matter which method is used to repay debts,the essence still lies in whether an enterprise can accurately grasp the development direction of the enterprise and accept higher cost financing methods when the uncertainty of economic policy increases and the external operating and financing environment deteriorates,which comprehensively tests the enterprise’s risk bearing ability.Based on this,the article takes economic policy uncertainty as the starting point to study and explore the default situation of bonds issued by enterprises.This article uses various quarterly data of A-share listed companies in China from 2014 to 2021 as a research sample,focusing on the relationship between the increase in economic policy uncertainty and whether bonds default,and exploring the transmission mechanism between this relationship.Finally,this article explores the regulatory effects of the nature of property rights and shareholder creditor agency conflicts on the relationship between the two.Through empirical analysis,it is found that(1)the increased uncertainty of economic policy has a significant impact on whether bonds default.That is,the higher the uncertainty of economic policy,the greater the default risk of bonds issued by enterprises.(2)In the process of the impact of economic policy uncertainty on whether a bond defaults,the risk bearing capacity of the enterprise itself plays an important intermediary role.That is,when faced with increased economic policy uncertainty,the enterprise’s own risk bearing will increase,further leading to a more likely default of the bonds issued by the enterprise.(3)The nature of enterprise property rights has a moderating effect on the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bond default risk.Compared to state-owned enterprises,the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bond default risk of non-state owned enterprises is more significant.(4)Agency conflicts between corporate shareholders and creditors have a moderating effect on the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bond default risk,which means that enterprises with larger agency conflicts will have a more severe impact on bond default due to economic policy uncertainty than enterprises with smaller agency conflicts.In order to ensure the stability of the empirical results and avoid occasional empirical results,this article also conducted relevant robustness tests by changing the economic policy uncertainty measurement index,replacing explanatory variables,and introducing instrumental variables.The results indicate that the research conclusions of this article are still valid.Finally,based on the research results,relevant suggestions are proposed for various relevant participants in the bond market.This article extends the impact of macroeconomic policy uncertainty to the field of bond defaults by micro enterprises,expanding the scope of possible impact caused by increased economic policy uncertainty,providing evidence for a more comprehensive understanding of economic policy uncertainty,both theoretically and practically.At the same time,using empirical testing methods,this article focuses on exploring the mechanism of intermediary effects in the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bond default,as well as how the nature of corporate property rights and agency conflicts adjust the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bond default,supplementing the factors that affect the risk of corporate debt default. |
