How Property Rights Matter to Firm Resource Investment: Evidence from China’s Property Law Enactment
利用中国《物权法》颁布，研究发现加强产权保护使民营企业比国有企业更多投资于无形和有形资产，且外部股权和债务融资起中介作用；无形资产投资中股权中介效应更强，有形资产投资中债务中介效应更强。
Although property-rights theory has long been used to explain firms’ ownership of resources, research on the channels through which property rights affect heterogeneous firms’ investment in building resources remains scarce. Leveraging a property-law enactment in China, we find that strengthening property-rights protection leads private firms to make greater intangible and tangible asset investment compared with state-owned firms and that these effects are mediated by external equity and debt financing. Further, we unpack resource heterogeneity by explicating key differences between intangible and tangible assets, and we document an alignment between asset intangibility and financing approaches such that for intangible asset investment, equity plays a larger mediation role, whereas for tangible asset investment, debt’s mediating effect is greater. We contribute to the strategy literature by using property-rights theory to link together asset intangibility and financing approaches and by showing that the strength of property-rights protection affects firms’ resource investment and shapes firm heterogeneity.