Controlling shareholder share pledging and the cost of equity capital: Evidence from China

Wei Liu and Gary Gang Tian

The British Accounting Review, 2022, vol. 54, issue 6

Abstract: We propose and test the incentive view—that the margin call pressure and ownership-control discrepancy associated with insider share pledging increase investors’ perceived risk, and thus also the cost of equity capital, in an emerging market. Using a controlling shareholder share pledging sample for Chinese listed firms, we find that firms with share pledging have a cost of equity capital that is 23.7 basis points higher than firms without share pledging. Further, share pledging increases the cost of equity capital through the information risks and agency conflicts channels. Cross-sectional analyses show that share pledging has a stronger effect on the cost of equity capital in non-state-owned enterprises, firms without monitoring of multiple large shareholders, firms with controlling shareholders assuming the position of chairperson, and firms with a weak institutional environment. In addition, using the global financial crisis and the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) as quasi-natural experiments, we disentangle the potential confounding effect of firm fundamentals and show that share pledging is positively associated with the cost of equity capital. Overall, the results are consistent with our incentive view that share pledging increases the cost of equity capital in an emerging market.

Keywords: Controlling shareholder share pledging; The cost of equity capital; Information risks; Agency conflicts; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G14 G30 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bracre:v:54:y:2022:i:6:s0890838921000834

DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2021.101057

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