Bank Competition, Financing Constraints, and Enterprise Innovation Investment

Abstract

Based on the data of China’s listed companies from 2007 to 2020 and the financial license of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, this paper analyzes the influence of bank competition on enterprise innovation investment and its mechanism. It is found that bank competition can improve the enterprise innovation investment, which still holds true after endogenous treatment and robustness test. Further research demonstrates that bank competition plays a stronger role in enterprise innovation for non-state-owned enterprises and small-scale enterprises. The mechanism analysis shows that bank competition can promote enterprise innovation investment and enterprise financialization by easing financing constraints. Moreover, enterprise financialization has a crowding-out effect on enterprise innovation investment. Therefore, moderately intensifying bank competition, further improving the financial system, and deepening the financial marketization reform have profound effects on driving enterprise innovation and its high-quality development.