关键词: 融券卖空, 探索式创新, 利用式创新, 股票基本面

Abstract: Based on a quasi-natural experiment of margin financing and securities lending, this paper uses a sample of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2007 to 2022, and empirically examines the impact of short selling via securities lending on firms’ ambidextrous innovation and its underlying mechanisms by applying a multi-period difference-in-differences approach. The findings reveal that short selling significantly promotes ambidextrous innovation. From a firm lifecycle perspective, short selling positively influences ambidextrous innovation in firms at the growth and maturity stages, but shows no significant effect on firms in the decline stage. Moreover, stock liquidity and stock volatility negatively moderate the innovation incentives induced by short selling. Mechanism tests indicate that short selling enhances market pricing efficiency through the information siphoning effect in capital markets. Further analysis finds that market pricing efficiency and analyst attention constitute the primary pathways through which short selling fosters exploratory innovation, while analyst attention serves as the key channel for promoting exploitative innovation.

Key words: short selling, exploratory innovation, exploitative innovation, stock fundamentals