Summary:
In August 2019, the People's Bank of China refined the formation mechanism of the Loan Prime Rate (LPR), integrated the two interest rate tracks into one, and opened up the transmission channel of monetary policy, which subsequently guided a decline in loan interest rates. To counteract the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 epidemic at the end of 2019, China drove down the LPR. With the decrease in loan interest rates and the narrowing of commercial banks' interest spreads, it has also driven down deposit interest rates, and China has gradually entered the era of low interest rates. Can the persistent decline in interest rates, driven by the reform of LPR in this low interest environment, impact the maturity structure of banks' assets and liabilities, affect the “short-term debt for long-term use” behavior of enterprises,thereby alleviating enterprises' debt maturity mismatches？ Investigating these issues is crucial for understanding how market-oriented interest rate reforms influence the allocation of micro enterprise credit resources and contribute to fostering the high-quality development of real enterprises within a low interest rate environment. This paper first determines whether there is a phenomenon of short-term debt for long-term use among Chinese listed companies spanning from 2009 to 2018, and selects the annual financial data of companies exhibiting this phenomenon from 2016 to 2023 as the research sample, sourced from the CSMAR and Wind databases. On this basis, this paper constructs a DID model using the LPR reform as an exogenous shock to analyze the impact and mechanism of eliminating dual-track loan interest rates on short-term debt for long-term use by enterprises. Furthermore, the paper delves into the potential factors contributing to the heterogeneity observed in the research findings, and extends its analysis to examine the economic consequences of eliminating dual-track loan interest rates on enterprises' business activities. The main findings of this paper are as follows: Firstly, the elimination of dual-track loan interest rates significantly reduces the use of short-term debt for long-term purposes. The policy effect is more evident in non-state-owned enterprises, those with weak long-term financing capabilities, and enterprises lacking strong loan bargaining power. Secondly, after the LPR reform, as loan interest rates declined further, banks prefer to offer more long-term loans. Consequently, enterprises prioritize securing long-term loans to align with their long-term investments, thereby mitigating their operational liquidity risks and addressing the issue of debt maturity mismatches. Thirdly, the reform of LPR not only alleviates mismatched debt maturity within enterprises but also serves to further diminish the volatility of enterprise income, and enhance the level of enterprise performance. This paper advances the following policy recommendations: Firstly, regulatory authorities should cooperate closely with the implementation of the policy,lead the loan interest rates to decline, so that enterprises can yeild more reasonable credit pricing. They should also continue to optimize the selection scope of LPR quoting banks, incorporate a broader array of representative banks. Secondly, financial regulatory authorities may encourage financial institutions to develop financial products that match the duration of projects, improve risk pricing mechanisms, and reduce information asymmetry between long-term investors and financiers through information disclosure and credit infrastructure enhancement, thereby providing targeted financial support for eligible long-term investment projects. Lastly, encourage banks to develop intermediary and specialty businesses and expand their customer base. Additionally, banks should optimize their customer structure, enhance service quality, and offer personalized financial products and services to engage in differentiated competition, thereby achieving transformation and development in a low interest rate environment. The marginal contributions of this study are delineated as follows: Firstly, this paper empirically examines the impact of abolishing dual-track loan interest rates on micro enterprises, which offers significant theoretical insights and practical implications for assessing the efficacy of China's financial policy reforms. Secondly, this study elucidates the mechanism through which the decline in interest rates resulting from the LPR reform, ultimately influences the transmission of corporate debt maturity structure by extending the maturity structures of bank liabilities and assets, providing empirical evidence to address the corporate debt maturity structure issue. In the future, we can continue to take the LPR reform that guides the continuous decline in loan interest rates as the starting point, and explore the impact of low interest rates on financial markets and institutions, as well as policy responses and regulatory reform measures in a low interest rate environment.
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