摘要
地理位置及由此引致的交通成本影响经济活动在空间上的分布.本文利用全国铁路旅客列车时刻表计算2009-2016年城市间高铁交通时间,并与A股上市公司匹配,检验了交通时间成本下降对企业集团母子公司间决策权配置的影响.母子公司间的地理距离影响了企业集团的分权,高铁扩张降低了异地母子公司的交通成本,便于母公司对子公司进行实地监督,缓解了母子公司之间的信息不对称,有利于母公司决策权向子公司下放.实证结果表明,高铁开通后城市间交通时间下降显著促进了上市公司母公司向子公司的决策权分散配置.考虑了是否通航、城市间发展差异等可能的测量误差,并使用1962年的铁路作为工具变量处理内生性问题之后,本文的结果保持稳健.在机制上,本文发现母子公司所在城市间高铁开通促进公司内部交流,缓解了信息不对称.进一步的研究表明,高铁通车对于战略扩张快和业务单一的企业具有更强的分权影响.最后,本文发现高铁所引发的决策权分置显著提升了企业集团的绩效表现.本文为企业决策权配置与集团层级结构设计的优化决策提供了经验证据,同时也提供了中国交通基础设施建设整体社会效益的一条新的微观证据.
Abstract
Geographic location is the driving force behind spatial economic activities.Using the inter-city travel time shown in the Nation-al Railway Passenger Train Timetables in 2009-2016 to look into A-share listed firms,we investigate the impact of travel time reduction on the allocation of decision-making power within the corporate group and find that high-speed railway(HSR)promotes the flow of hu-man resources and facilitates parent companies'supervision of their subsidiaries'agency behavior,thus reducing the information asym-metry and increasing the power decentralization.The empirical results show that the decrease of commuting costs significantly fosters cor-porate groups'decision-making power decentralization.Controlling for the measuring errors that may result from flight availability,heter-ogeneity in cities'growth,etc.and using the rail construction in 1962 as the instrumental variable,our results remain robust.For the mechanisms,we confirm that the HSR connection alleviates the information friction within a corporate group.Further,we find that HSR has a stronger effect of power decentralization on rapidly expanding and pure-play firms.The research asseses the non-monetary social benefits of China's HSR,and provides an empirical reference for the optimal design of rights allocation and hierarchical structure.
基金项目
国家自然科学基金青年基金(71902168)
国家自然科学基金面上项目(72173102)
中央高校基本科研业务费专项(20720181036)
中央高校基本科研业务费专项(20720191032)
NETL
NSTL
万方数据