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| Banking Price Competition, Financial Constraints, and R&D Investment: An Empirical Study Based on a Mediating Effect Model |
| LI Bo, ZHU Taihui
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School of Economics, Beijing Technology and Business University;
National Institution for Finance & Development,JD Digits Research Institute |
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Abstract Bank credit is an important source of funds for firms to invest in R&D. Lending in the banking industry is affected by market-share competition, and thus influences firms' innovation activities. However, the reduction in the level of commercial bank concentration, as reflected by increased market-share competition, does not necessarily imply that price competition has also intensified. Banks attempt to ensure that interest rates remain stable through deposit and loan spreads, and improvements are still required in China's market-oriented interest rate formation mechanism. The price competition of commercial banks does not increase even when the entry barrier is lowered and the market-share competition intensifies. Thus, the economic outcomes of such competition should be examined from the specific perspective of banking price competition.
We construct an efficiency-adjusted Lerner index of commercial banks at the prefecture level. Then we assess the effect of price competition of commercial banks on the innovation input and output of firms using a large sample of A-share companies listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. We also identify the influencing mechanism of financial constraints with a mediating effect model. The results show that the price competition of commercial banks can alleviate fims' financial constraints, thus encouraging their R&D investment and increasing their innovation output. Further analyses show that this price competition also encourages banks to provide more direct funds to firms for corporate innovation by increasing their risk tolerance, so they issue more high-risk and high-yield loans, i.e., a “risk effect.” This also reduces the cost of credit for firms and increases the availability of banks loans, thus alleviating their financial constraints and indirectly promoting R&D investment through the “price effect” (the average return converges to marginal costs) and the “quantity effect” (the increased quantity compensates for the decreased price, and therefore increases the scale and scope of bank loans).
We also examine the heterogeneities implicit in the effect of bank price competition on corporate innovation from the perspectives of the degree of interest rate marketization and firm type. The central bank announced the liberalization of the deposit interest rate ceiling on October 24, 2015, so we take this as a quasi-natural experiment and compare the impacts of banking price competition at different stages of interest rate marketization. The results show that the deregulation of interest rates can adversely affect banks' net interest margin and reinforce their price competition, which in turn alleviates firms' financial constraints and promotes their innovation activities. The main effect of bank price competition is that it strengthens the risk preference of banks and increases the availability of credit to firms. We also find that banking price competition alleviates the financial constraints of private firms to a greater extent than those of state-owned firms, and thus can better encourage innovation in private firms.
This study makes three main contributions to the literature. First, by considering the significant differences between the market-share competition and price competition of commercial banks, we explore how bank price competition affects the R&D investment activities of firms and analyze the direct “risk effect”, which reflects the risk preference of banks, and the indirect “price effect” and “quantity effect” associated with firms' financial constraints. We thus provide new evidence for understanding the relationship between bank competition and real economic development, which can be of benefit to both academics and policy makers. Second, we use a mediating effect model to identify how financial constraints mediate the effect of bank price competition on corporate innovation. We construct an efficiency-adjusted Lerner index of banking industry based on prefecture-level data to measure the degree of price competition of commercial banks, and empirically evaluate the impact of banking competition on corporate innovation activities. Third, by treating the liberalization of the deposit interest rate on October 24, 2015 as an exogenous shock, we examine how banking price competition influences the innovation investment of firms at different stages of interest rate marketization.
The results have important policy implications in terms of the market-oriented reform and the optimization of bank credit, which can encourage innovation and help improve the quality and effectiveness of the financial sector in the real economy. Our findings could thus inform the further implementation of “innovation-driven development strategies.”
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Received: 10 June 2019
Published: 03 August 2020
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