Abstract: The inefficiency investment of listed companies has always been a persistent disease plaguing the capital market. Product market competition is one of the factors affecting market efficiency. The degree of product market competition affects the investment behavior of enterprises, and even determines the investment scale of enterprises to some extent. The market competitiveness of enterprises' products also continues to affect the subsequent investment ability and business performance of enterprises. Product market competition can alleviate the problem of information asymmetry, enable investors and analysts to obtain corporate information from corporate financial reports and other channels, and improve information transparency. The Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee clearly state that we should “through effective market competition, improve the efficiency of resource allocation; actively promote scientific and technological innovation, enhance core competitiveness”, which provides policy basis for improving the market competitiveness of Chinese listed companies and optimizing the efficiency of resource allocation. Risk-taking reflects a company' risk preference in investment decisions. Companies with a high level of risk-taking usually give up less risky investment projects with high uncertainty, greater returns and potential value, while companies with a low level of risk-taking tend to choose short-term investment projects with low risks. There are differences in project investment risks faced by different companies, leading to great differences in their willingness to take risks, which reflects the degree of risk avoidance and coping ability of companies. At the same time, the Sino-US trade war and Huawei' 5G ban have also posed more severe challenges to China'economic transformation and enterprise development. Therefore, under this realistic background, to explore the relationship between product market competition and corporate risk taking can not only expand the existing theoretical research results, but also has important practical value. At the same time, under the trend of the globalization of American financial crisis and the deepening of the supply-side reform, it is of great practical significance to further study the mechanism of the influence of risk assumption on the investment efficiency of companies.
This article uses the China's A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2019 as a research sample to examine the impact of product market competition on corporate investment efficiency, and introduces risk-taking as a mediating variable to explain the specific path of product market competition affecting corporate investment efficiency. The test results show that product market competition can effectively alleviate the over-investment and restrain the under-investment, thereby improving the corporate investment efficiency; product market competition can significantly increase the level of corporate risk-taking, thus supporting the “governance effect” of product market competition; the risk-taking behavior also has a significant effect on the improvement of corporate investment efficiency. Meanwhile, the risk-taking behavior can play an important mediating effect in the relationship between product market competition and corporate investment efficiency.
The conclusion of this paper not only improves the existing literature on the product market competition effect, but also provides a new research idea for the product market competition effect. In the new normal of China' economic development and the process of promoting supply-side structural reform, companies should reasonably balance the relationship between risk taking and investment efficiency, so as to smoothly realize economic transformation and upgrading and maintain long-term competitive advantages.

Key words: product market competition, risk-taking, investment efficiency, mediating effect

摘要： 产品市场竞争是影响公司投资决策行为的重要因素。基于市场竞争理论和公司治理理论,本文利用2009~2019年我国A股上市公司为研究样本,考察了产品市场竞争、风险承担和公司投资效率之间的影响关系。检验结果表明:产品市场竞争能够有效缓解过度投资和抑制投资不足,从而提升公司投资效率;产品市场竞争能够显著提高公司风险承担水平,进而支持了产品市场竞争的“治理效应”观点;风险承担对公司投资效率的提升也具有显著作用。同时,风险承担能够在产品市场竞争和公司投资效率的影响关系中起到重要的中介效应。研究结论不仅丰富了相关文献研究,而且为上市公司参与市场竞争和政府部门正确认识市场竞争的作用提供了借鉴和参考。

关键词: 产品市场竞争, 风险承担, 投资效率, 中介效应