Investor sentiment, property nature and corporate investment efficiency : Based on the mediation mechanism in credit financing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to expand the investor sentiment’s effect on investment efficiency to the layer of “credit financing,” studying whether investor sentiment can affect credit financing level and the inner mechanism of the effect. Design/methodology/approach – The authors obtain firm-level data from the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets and using panel estimation techniques examine whether investor sentiment can affect credit financing level and the inner mechanism of the effect. Findings – This paper finds that credit financing plays the role of partial media in the process of investor sentiment affecting investment efficiency. Based on the funds increasing effect, with the high-investor sentiment and increasing credit financing, corporations alleviate the financing constraints, but also provide a convenient for the abuse of corporate funds. So, investor sentiment positively associates with enterprises’ overinvestment, while investor sentiment negatively associates with enterprises’ underinvestment. Relying on the particular system background and property right environment in China, this paper finds that investor sentiment has an effect on the overinvestment of state-owned enterprises and the underinvestment of private enterprises through credit financing channel, while it does not function in the overinvestment of private enterprises. The reason of the difference is that under the soft budget constraint in the country, the credit preference of state-owned enterprises and the creditor’s rights management of banks are partially absent. Research limitations/implications – By fusing the special financial environment and institutional background, this thesis further includes in the analysis frame the difference in governance effect by credit financing between state-owned and privately owned listed companies, and further analyzes the difference in impact on investment efficiency in enterprises of different natures after investor sentiment has affected enterprise credit financing. Practical implications – This paper has verified the constraint assumption and deepened the research work on bank credit supply and answered practical questions such as whether the banks in the country exercise supervision function over the listed companies and on which kind of listed companies the supervision function plays a more effective role. Social implications – As an unofficial substitution mechanism, bank-enterprise relationship can elevate the investment efficiency by private owned enterprises. Based on the timely research results on credit financing, reference is provided for private listed companies to utilize investor sentiment to improve its investment efficiency. Originality/value – This paper has proved the specific path which creates the dual effects on resources allocation by investor sentiment, that is, the intermediary transmission in credit financing, clarifying the mechanism of action by which investor sentiment affects the efficiency of enterprise investment and making incremental contribution to the research of how investor sentiment affects the efficiency of enterprise investment.