讲座信息：最低工资与企业负债：中国私有企业实证研究                

演讲人：耿恒                               

主持人：刘轶 系主任                  

时间：2017年6月13日（周二）上午10点开始                                   

地点：红楼225                            

演讲人简介：耿恒，毕业于香港大学经济与工商管理学院，获金融学博士学位，现任新西兰维多利亚惠灵顿大学金融系助理教授，主要研究领域为实证公司金融。

演讲摘要：

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.