主讲人简介：

杨豪，四川大学商学院副研究员（专职科研）。主要研究非市场环境与企业行为、发展经济学。主持教育部人文社会科学研究青年基金项目。研究成果发表于《中国工业经济》、《统计研究》、《经济学报》、China Economic Review等国内外学术期刊。

讲座简介：

Abstract

Formal business norms and laws have long been ambiguous and burdensome in China, resulting in considerable policy uncertainty. Despite the lack of formal institutions and policy uncertainty, China has sustained high investment-driven growth for a long time. We argue that the widespread use of economic growth target management can offset the detrimental effect of policy uncertainty. Using industrial firm data and prefecture-level city economic growth targets from 2004 to 2013, we find that a greater growth target is associated with more corporate investment when facing severe policy uncertainty. This finding is robust to a variety of alternative specifications. Further, the mediating effect of growth target is more pronounced in cities where fiscal pressure is lower and local officials hold positions in banks. Besides, firm-level evidence also reveals that a large growth target increases the likelihood of receiving fiscal subsidies and lowers financing costs in an uncertain climate. These findings indicate that the potential mechanisms are target-directed policy tools, such as financial subsidies and credit allocation. Finally, the economic implication analysis shows the mediating effect of growth target might generate investment misallocation and efficiency loss.

摘要

在中国，正式的商业规范和法律长期以来都是模棱两可和繁琐的，导致了相当大的政策不确定性。尽管缺乏正规机构和政策不确定性，但中国长期以来一直保持着投资驱动的高增长。我们认为，广泛使用经济增长目标管理可以抵消政策不确定性的不利影响。使用2004年至2013年的工业企业数据和地级市经济增长目标，我们发现，当面临严重的政策不确定性时，更大的增长目标与更多的企业投资相关。这一发现对各种替代规范都是可靠的。此外，在财政压力较低、地方官员在银行任职的城市，增长目标的中介作用更为明显。此外，企业层面的证据还表明，在不确定的环境下，大的增长目标会增加获得财政补贴的可能性，并降低融资成本。这些发现表明，潜在的机制是以目标为导向的政策工具，如财政补贴和信贷分配。最后，经济含义分析表明，增长目标的中介效应可能导致投资错配和效率损失。