Digital Policy Orientation And Cross-district M&A

As an important way to promote the flow and allocation of stock capital,cross-district mergers and acquisitions(M&A)in China are of great significance under the background of economic transformation.Cross-district mergers and acquisitions can revitalize capital between regions and promote cross-regional capital flows.However,a large number of Chinese companies are currently facing problems such as insufficient cash flow and lack of funds,coupled with the existence of information asymmetry and regional protectionism among companies in different places,which has caused serious obstacles to cross-district M&A.In order to promote the "bringing in" of high-quality enterprises and the "going out" of local enterprises,local governments are also actively conducting policy guidance to create a good regional environment.Especially with the development of the digital economy,countries and regions around the world are advocating digital transformation,which gives new meaning to cross-district M&A.Under such a background,whether the digital policy orientation of local governments can improve the information asymmetry and insufficient funds faced by enterprises in cross-district mergers and acquisitions in order to promote the interregional capital flows is a proposition worth considering.Based on this,this thesis used the 2011-2019 A-share listed company mergers and acquisitions as a research sample,and used text analysis and sentiment analysis to construct local government digital policy-oriented variables to explore its impact on cross-district M&A.The empirical test finds that:(1)The local government’s digital policy orientation can significantly promote cross-district M&A,showing an obvious“promoting effect”,but only the “depth”(emotional tendency of information release)of the local government’s digital policy orientation has this effect.The “breadth”(the amount of information released)of the digital policy orientation cannot significantly promote cross-district M&A;(2)The heterogeneity test shows that only in regions with a high degree of marketization,manufacturing and non-state-owned enterprises,the local government’s digital policy orientation can significantly promote the cross-district M&A,because regions with a high degree of marketization and non-state-owned enterprises are subject to relatively low levels of government intervention,while manufacturing is more sensitive to digitalization;(3)The mechanism test finds that the local government’s digital policy orientation can promote cross-district M&A by optimizing the local digital finance level and improving the enterprises digital level;(4)From the perspective of economic consequences,the local government’s digital policy orientation can significantly improve the performance of cross-district M&A,indicating that the impact of the local government’s digital policy orientation on cross-district M&A has a value effect;(5)From the perspective of the target party,the digital policy orientation of the target company’s location has an obvious inhibitory effect on the company’s cross-district M&A,which may be the result of government intervention.However,only the local government’s digital advocacy level(depth)has this effect,while the local government’s digital policy-oriented attention(breadth)has no significant impact on corporate M&A.Possible innovations in this thesis:(1)From the perspective of policy orientation,through the informal policy information released by the government’s official Weibo,this thesis examines the continuous guiding role of policies,and expand the research on the economic consequences of the informal system of digital policy orientation.Different from the exogenous impact of previous policy promulgation,this thesis starts from the perspective of the continuous impact of digital policies,and explores how the government’s continuous digital policy orientation affects corporate behavior.(2)From the perspective of resource flow,this thesis explores the effect and channel mechanism of digital policy orientation on cross-district M&A,and enriches the research on the macro-influencing factors of corporate cross-district M&A.Based on the background of the digital age,this thesis explores the impact of the government’s digital policy orientation on corporate cross-district M&A.Based on the idea of "macro policy affects micro behavior",it explains the impact of policy guidance on the cross-regional flow of resources and enriches the influence factors of corporate cross-district M&A.