关键词: 放松利率管制, 集中负债, 债务分布, 盈余分布

Abstract: It is of academic value and practical significance to explore the effect of deregulation of loan interest rate on the debt financing of group companies for revealing the law of debt distribution between parent and subsidiary companies and its mechanism. The quasi-natural experiment based on the gradual liberalization of the upper and lower limits of loan interest rates by the People’s Bank of China, and the empirical study based on the double-difference model constructed depending on the nature of property rights indicate that the liberalization of the loan interest rate ceiling significantly eases the financing constraints of non-state-owned enterprises, thereby reducing the concentration level of debt, while the lower limit of the loan interest rate significantly increases the financing constraints of non-state-owned enterprises, thereby significantly increasing the concentration level of debt, showing an asymmetry effect. Besides, the restraining effect of concentrated liabilities is more significant in the sample group where the profitability of the parent company is worse. The intensifying effect of concentrated liabilities is more pronounced in the sample group with a better profitability of the parent company. The conclusions above are still valid after the series robustness test. From the perspective of debt distribution between the parent and subsidiary companies, this paper examines the effects of interest rate liberalization on the form of debt of the corporate groups and its mechanism, which not only helps to reveal the specific motivation of the debt concentration of the enterprise from the perspective of China’s unique financial regulation and environment, but also has important implications for further promoting the deleveraging of corporate groups.

Key words: interest rate liberalization, concentrated debt, debt distribution, earnings distribution