講座信息：最低工資與企業負債：中國私有企業實證研究                

演講人：耿恒                               

主持人：劉轶 系主任                  

時間：2017年6月13日（周二）上午10點開始                                   

地點：紅樓225                            

演講人簡介：耿恒，畢業于香港大學經濟與工商管理學院，獲金融學博士學位，現任新西蘭維多利亞惠靈頓大學金融系助理教授，主要研究領域為實證公司金融。

演講摘要：

We study how local minimum wage affects financial leverage using a comprehensive panel of privately-owned Chinese manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2008. Minimum wage policy varies across more than 2,800 counties in China. We exploit such policy discontinuity at the county border for identification. We find firm leverage rises as a result of minimum wage hike, especially for those large and labor intensive firms. The positive relation between labor costs and financial leverage is explained by the capital-labor substitution effect: firms increase capital expenditure to offset growing labor costs. Our finding is robust to different measures of leverage and econometric specifications. We provide novel evidence to support the model that operating leverage could crowd in financial leverage.