企业数字化与权益资本成本

企业数字化与权益资本成本

Corporate Digitalization and the Cost of Equity Capital

《财经研究》2023年49卷第9期 页码：79 - 93,123 online：2023年9月3日

作者

中：金献坤1 , 徐莉萍2 , 辛宇2

英：Jin Xiankun1, Xu Liping2, Xin Yu2

作者单位：1. 浙江工商大学 会计学院，浙江 杭州 310018; 2. 中山大学 管理学院，广东 广州 510275

摘要及关键词

摘要：技术变革对资本市场的影响深远。企业将数字技术融入商业实践的数字化进程如何影响其在资本市场上的权益融资？文章研究发现，企业数字化降低了权益资本成本。作用机制检验表明，企业数字化是通过降低投资者所面临的信息风险和治理风险而非经营风险，起到降低权益资本成本的作用。这表现为在企业数字化后，资本市场的信息环境得到改善，企业的公司治理水平得到提升，从而代理成本下降。这些都导致投资者所承担的风险减少，相应地他们所要求企业付出的权益资本成本随之向下调整。进一步研究发现，在不同类型的企业数字化中，较为基础的“底层技术运用”在商业实践中已较为普遍，其在降低权益资本成本上发挥了更加显著的积极影响；而较为复杂、实施难度较高的“技术实践应用”仍在探索中，其对权益资本成本的影响则不显著。此外，随着企业数字化经验的不断积累，其降低权益资本成本的作用更加明显。文章的研究为完善数字经济发展的体制与机制建设，尤其是改善数字化企业的融资环境提供了有益启示。

关键词：企业数字化；权益资本成本；信息环境；经营风险；代理成本

Summary: Digital technological change has a profound and lasting impact on capital markets. In the early days, investors’ “crazy” for digital technology led to new economy enterprises, which take Internet applications as the main business, being blindly pursued by the capital market. However, due to the inability of most new economy enterprises to achieve profitability, the funds invested in these enterprises quickly “burned out”, leading to a stock price crash and gradually returning investors’ understanding of digital technology to rationality. At present, with the rapid development of the digital economy and the integration of digital technology into business practices, the advantages demonstrated by enterprises are becoming increasingly evident. Can enterprises use these advantages to obtain low-cost equity funds through the capital market? Drawing on existing literature and using text analysis methods, this paper constructs the variables of corporate digitalization and empirically tests their impact on the cost of equity capital. The results show that, corporate digitalization reduces the cost of equity capital mainly through its role in reducing the infor- mation risk and governance risk faced by investors, rather than operating risk. This is reflected in the improvement of the information environment in the capital market and the improvement of corporate governance level after corporate digitalization, resulting in a decrease in agency costs, both of which could reduce the risks borne by investors, and the cost of equity capital they require enterprises to pay will be adjusted downward accordingly. Further research finds that: (1) Among different types of corporate digitalization, the relatively basic “bottom technology application” has become more common in business practice, and it plays a more significant positive role in reducing the cost of equity capital; while the “practical technology application”, which is more complex and difficult to implement, is still being explored, and its impact on the cost of equity capital is not significant. (2) With the accumulation of experience in corporate digitalization, its effect on reducing the cost of equity capital will become more obvious. The contributions are as follows: First, unlike previous literature focusing on how the application of digital technology affects the liquidity, stability, and information content of corporate stocks, this paper examines the impact of corporate digitalization on its capital market financing more directly from the perspective of financing costs. Second, this paper enriches the literature on the cost of equity capital and provides new ideas for reducing capital costs in the real economy. In the digital age, taking more use of digital technology in business practice, so as to improve the information environment of the capital market and optimize corporate governance, is an effective way for entity enterprises to obtain low-cost equity funds.

Key words: corporate digitalization; cost of equity capital; information environment; operating risk; agency costs

其他信息

DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20230418.103

收稿日期：2022-12-21

基金项目：广东省社科规划2022年度重大基础理论研究专项（GD22ZDZGL02）

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