Abstract:
Based on China's economic policy uncertainty index, this paper studies how economic policy uncertainty influences the company's trade credit supply decisions by using the quarterly data of listed companies from 2003 to 2015. The results show that economic policy uncertainty significantly reduces the trade credit provided by the companies. And its impact channel is through the deterioration of the company's external financing environment and operating uncertainty. Further research shows that the level of social trust, regional financial development degree and the company's market position can effectively alleviate the negative effects. Economic policy uncertainty also has a significant impact on the company's trade credit supply term. Our findings provide new evidence for the trade-off between cost and benefit when the firms provide trade credit under uncertain macroeconomic policy conditions, and contribute to the literature on economic policy and real economy, and are helpful to understand economic effect of economic policy uncertainty on corporate financial decision-makings.
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