Abstract: Trade frictions with the U.S. in recent years have exacerbated uncertainty about China’s trade policy, and China’s trade policy uncertainty index soared from 10.7 (monthly average) in 2007 to 687.6 (monthly average) in 2019. The rising uncertainty of China’s trade policy not only has a negative impact on China’s macroeconomic indicators such as economic growth, but also inhibits the investment and financing activities of microeconomic entities such as financial institutions and enterprises. With the continuation of Sino-US trade frictions, the economic impact of trade policy uncertainty has become an important frontier topic.
   With a rise in trade policy uncertainty, it is difficult for enterprises to form stable expectations for the future trade environment, and investment returns are faced with uncertainty, which prompts enterprises to change their investment behavior and affects their financing costs. So, as Sino-US trade frictions continue, what is the impact of trade policy uncertainty on the financing cost of Chinese enterprises? What is the influencing mechanism?
   For these purposes, this paper takes the financial data of A-share listed enterprises in Shanghai Stock Exchange from 1999 to 2020 as samples, constructs the panel time series model, and adopts the two-step optimal generalized estimation of Moments (GMM2S) and other methods on the basis of Wald heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation tests. This paper empirically examines the effect and mechanism of China’s trade policy uncertainty on corporate financing costs.
   The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: 1)Trade policy uncertainty has a significantly positive impact on the financing cost of firms, indicating that when firms are faced with high trade policy uncertainty, the financing cost of firms will increase, and the financing cost of firms in sensitive industries will be more sensitive to the change in trade policy uncertainty.2)Trade policy uncertainty affects the credit supply of financial institutions, exacerbates the “loan reluctance” and “loan caution” behaviors of financial institutions, which is reflected in the decline of the ratio of domestic and foreign currency credit balance of financial institutions to GDP, and ultimately affects the credit supply in the financial market and pushes up the financing cost of enterprises. 3)Trade policy uncertainty affects firms’ uncertain investment constraints, which leads to the dilemma of increasing financing costs when firms increase capital expenditure.
   This paper covers the impact of capital supply and demand factors on corporate financing costs, tests the intermediary variable of trade policy uncertainty on corporate financing costs, and opens the “black box” where trade policy uncertainty affects corporate financing costs. The conclusion of this paper confirms that the financing cost of firms is significantly affected by trade policy uncertainty, which enriches the research on how trade policy uncertainty affects micro firms. Since Sino-US trade frictions focus on different industries in China, this paper adds a dummy variable that reflects the sensitivity of industrial trade policy to verify the impact of different industries’ sensitivity to trade policy uncertainty on corporate financing costs.

Key words: trade policy uncertainty, financing cost, investment constraints, credit constraints

摘要： 融资成本是影响企业融资行为的重要因素,贸易政策不确定性通过金融不确定性信贷约束和企业不确定性投资约束抑制企业融资。随着中美贸易摩擦延续,贸易政策不确定性对企业融资成本的影响成为了学者关注的重要研究内容。基于此,本文以1999年至2020年沪市A股上市企业的财务数据为样本,检验了中国贸易政策不确定性对企业融资成本的影响。实证结果显示,中国贸易政策不确定性上升会显著增加企业的融资成本,金融不确定性信贷约束和企业不确定性投资约束是贸易政策不确定性作用于企业融资成本的中介变量,且不同行业对贸易政策不确定性的敏感性存在差异。在中美贸易摩擦延续背景下,本文为审视贸易政策不确定性对企业融资成本的影响提供了新的视角和证据,丰富了贸易政策不确定性和企业行为相关文献的研究成果。

关键词: 贸易政策不确定性, 融资成本, 投资约束, 信贷约束