以影子银行活动为代表的替代性融资对实体经济的影响一直备受关注和争议， 这一问题在中国尤其突出。正确认识和对待以影子银行为代表的各类替代性融资 在金融体系和实体经济互动中扮演的角色，对于发挥金融服务实体经济的积极作 用、更好地实现高质量发展具有重要的意义。本文旨在为中国影子银行对实体经济的真实影响提供微观实证证据。根据 中国影子银行资金流向的特点，本文首先主要将中国的影子银行资金划分为直 接流入实体经济的资金和流入房地产部门并间接影响实体经济的资金两类，并 进一步将前者根据主要的融资工具划分为委托贷款、理财产品和信托贷款。之 后，针对每一类细分的影子银行资金流向，本文选取一个最符合该类别影子银 行活动特点的实体经济环节作为测度实体经济活动的代理变量进行实证检验。本文的主要发现及其理论贡献(创新点)涵盖三部分:第一，本文发现委托贷款可以有效促进借方企业的企业创新。并且这一正 面效果并不以贷方在创新和经营绩效上的下降为代价。从而委托贷款作为中国 影子银行的代表性融资模式很可能是一种有效的资本再配置工具。这一发现一 方面为长期以来同时存在的银行体系信贷错配与私有部门高速发展这一“中国 谜题”的解释首次提供了基于因果推断的微观证据。第二，本文发现以理财产品和信托贷款作为主要资金输入和流向的影子银 行融资支持了企业投资，并且这一支持作用并不会诱发委托代理问题导致企业 的代理成本增加。这一研究利用 Bartik 工具变量的方法有效克服了数据的限制， 并更有助于从多个角度理解中国影子银行融资的实际影响。第三，本文发现由影子银行资金所支持的中国房地产的持续繁荣通过增加 房地产投机的预期收益从而挤出了居民创业，且这一机制能够一般化地扩展到 世界范围内。这一发现不仅建立了既有文献中没有涉及到的影响创业的房地产 投机机制，也有助于更好地解释传统的房地产抵押品渠道在不同数据集中呈现 不稳定的统计特征和经济影响力的问题。同时，这一发现也揭示了中国影子银 行在支持了实体经济高质量发展的同时所可能产生的负面效果。除了上述理论贡献之外，本文还对未来中国替代性融资的监管模式具有一 定的政策参考意义。
The real effects of shadow banking and alternative finance have long been a heatedly controversial topic, which is more prominent in China. This type of financing, if plausibly treated, can play an important role in benefiting the high-quality economic growth.This paper aims to empirically test the real effects of shadow banking in China with micro evidence. Based on the features of shadow banking in China, the conceptual framework of this paper begins with dividing China‘s shadow banking capital flow into two types: funds that directly flow into the real economy and funds that go to the real estate sector (and thereby indirectly affect the real economy). The former type of shadow banking finance is then further divided into two types based on different products: entrusted loans, and others (including wealth management products and trust loans).The main findings and contributions of this paper are tri-fold. First, this paper finds that entrusted loans can enhance borrowers’ corporate innovation, and this positive effect is not at the expense of any decline in lenders‘ innovation outputs and operating performance. Therefore, entrusted loans are likely to be an efficient capital reallocation tool. This finding provides the first micro evidence to reconcile the long-standing “China Puzzle”, i.e., the coexistence of credit misallocation and rapid private sector development.Second, this paper finds that shadow banking funds enhance corporate investment. And this supporting role does not induce the principal-agent problem that increases the agency cost. This piece of research contributes to the literature by using a Bartik IV approach to effectively overcome data limitation, and thus helping us to better understand the real effects of China‘s shadow banking finance from various perspectives.Third, this paper finds that the long-lasting house boom in China‘s real estate market gives rise to the expected return of housing speculation and thereby crowds out entrepreneurship. And this finding can be generalized to other economies in the world. This piece of research contributes to the literature not only by documenting the housing speculation channel that is missing in the entrepreneurship literature, but also by helping to better explain the problem of the unstableness of the widely-accepted housing collateral channel in the existing literature. Additionally, this finding also suggests the possible dark side of shadow banking in China.Beyond contributions to the academic literature, this paper also has some policy implications for the future regulation on alternative finance in China.
