IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v82y2025ics1544612325008190.html

Supply chain finance and soft budget constraints: A nonlinear threshold effect perspective from China's listed companies

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Rui
  • Huang, Qiqing

Abstract

This research examines how supply chain finance (SCF) affects financial distress through textual analysis, focusing on budgetary soft constraints. The study finds that listed companies engaging in SCF significantly reduce their financial distress risk. The mechanism test shows that SCF primarily eases financial distress by reducing strategic burdens and improving budgetary soft constraints rather than by addressing social burdens. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that SCF’s positive impact on budgetary soft constraints is pronounced in companies with formal contracts (state-owned enterprises), but it does not mitigate the negative effects of political connections (informal contracts). Additionally, SCF has a positive effect on firms with less efficient investment and financing activities. Findings offer empirical insights into improving corporate budgetary soft constraints, optimizing the investment and financing environment, and achieving sustainable development goals, helping enterprises make informed decisions on SCF to address financial difficulties.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Rui & Huang, Qiqing, 2025. "Supply chain finance and soft budget constraints: A nonlinear threshold effect perspective from China's listed companies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:82:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325008190
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.107560
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325008190
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.107560?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bennihi, Aymen Salah & Bouriche, Lahcene & Schneider, Friedrich, 2021. "The informal economy in Algeria: New insights using the MIMIC approach and the interaction with the formal economy," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 470-491.
    2. Li, Zhaohua & Yamada, Takeshi, 2015. "Political and economic incentives of government in partial privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 169-189.
    3. Lin, Justin Yifu, 2021. "State-owned enterprise reform in China: The new structural economics perspective," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 106-111.
    4. Hansen, Bruce E., 1999. "Threshold effects in non-dynamic panels: Estimation, testing, and inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 345-368, December.
    5. Trkman, Peter & McCormack, Kevin, 2009. "Supply chain risk in turbulent environments--A conceptual model for managing supply chain network risk," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 247-258, June.
    6. Zhang, Shangfeng & Li, Xiujie & Zhang, Chaojie & Luo, Jiayu & Cheng, Can & Ge, Wanjun, 2023. "Measurement of factor mismatch in industrial enterprises with labor skills heterogeneity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "Financial Ratios, Discriminant Analysis And The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 589-609, September.
    8. Pan, Ailing & Xu, Lei & Li, Bin & Ling, Runze, 2020. "The impact of supply chain finance on firm cash holdings: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Klapper, Leora, 2006. "The role of factoring for financing small and medium enterprises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 3111-3130, November.
    10. Victor Chen & Jing Li & Daniel Shapiro & Xiaoxiang Zhang, 2014. "Ownership structure and innovation: An emerging market perspective," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 1-24, March.
    11. Cai, Kelly & Zhu, Hui, 2020. "Customer-Supplier relationships and the cost of debt," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    12. Edward I. Altman, 1968. "The Prediction Of Corporate Bankruptcy: A Discriminant Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-194, March.
    13. David J Teece, 2008. "Capturing Value from Technological Innovation: Integration, Strategic Partnering, and Licensing Decisions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Technological Know-How, Organizational Capabilities, And Strategic Management Business Strategy and Enterprise Development in Competitive Environments, chapter 12, pages 237-252, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Li, Lixing, 2008. "Employment burden, government ownership and soft budget constraints: Evidence from a Chinese enterprise survey," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 215-229, June.
    15. Andrea F. Presbitero & Roberta Rabellotti, 2014. "Geographical Distance And Moral Hazard In Microcredit: Evidence From Colombia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 91-108, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fan, Congying & Peng, Ke, 2025. "How does supply chain finance drive corporate green transition? The role of credit resource availability," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).
    2. Chen, Zhicheng & Wang, Heng & Wu, Qichun, 2025. "From data to decision: How supply chain network restructuring resolves cost stickiness?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Béchir Ben Lahouel & Lotfi Taleb & Younes Ben Zaied & Shunsuke Managi, 2024. "Financial stability, liquidity risk and income diversification: evidence from European banks using the CAMELS–DEA approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 334(1), pages 391-422, March.
    2. Duc Hong Vo, 2023. "Market risk, financial distress and firm performance in Vietnam," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(7), pages 1-15, July.
    3. Anachit Bagntasarian & Emmanuel Mamatzakis, 2019. "Testing for the underlying dynamics of bank capital buffer and performance nexus," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 347-380, February.
    4. Wang, Jinbo & Ran, Maosheng & Huang, Qing & Li, Wanli, 2022. "Nationalization of private enterprises and default risk: Evidence from mixed-ownership reform in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 534-553.
    5. Zhang, Tiantian & Zhang, Cherry Yi & Pei, Qifan, 2019. "Misconception of providing supply chain finance: Its stabilising role," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 175-184.
    6. Jandik, Tomas & Salikhova, Tatiana, 2023. "The effect of social connections on capital structure in supplier-customer relationships," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Yao, Wenyun & Lu, Feier & Wang, Yuting & Song, Zilong, 2023. "Social insurance contributions and firms' debt concentration choice: A quasi-natural experiment based on the implementation of China's social insurance law," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Zhang, Shafu & Magnan, Michel & Qiu, Yetaotao & Zeng, Cheng Colin, 2022. "Do banks price production process failures? Evidence from product recalls," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    9. Liu, Zongming & Feng, Jingzhi, 2025. "Climate shocks and corporate default risk: Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    10. Blome, Constantin & Schoenherr, Tobias, 2011. "Supply chain risk management in financial crises--A multiple case-study approach," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 43-57, November.
    11. Mamatzakis, Emmanuel & Bagntasarian, Anna, 2019. "The nexus between underlying dynamics of bank capital buffer and performance," MPRA Paper 92961, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Obaid Ur Rehman & Xiaoxing Liu & Kai Wu & Junfeng Li, 2023. "Customer concentration, leverage adjustments, and firm value," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 2035-2079, June.
    13. Barbara Su, 2023. "Banking practices and borrowing firms’ financial reporting quality: evidence from bank cross-selling," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 201-236, March.
    14. Shaikh, Ibrahim A. & O'Brien, Jonathan Paul & Peters, Lois, 2018. "Inside directors and the underinvestment of financial slack towards R&D-intensity in high-technology firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 192-201.
    15. José-Luis Peydró [AP BACKUP – NOW EXTERNAL] & Mikel Bedayo & Raquel Vegas & Gabriel Jiménez & José-Luis Peydró, 2020. "Screening and Loan Origination Time: Lending Standards, Loan Defaults and Bank Failures," Working Papers 1215, Barcelona School of Economics.
    16. Ruey-Ching Hwang, 2013. "Forecasting credit ratings with the varying-coefficient model," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(12), pages 1947-1965, December.
    17. Antonio Davila & George Foster & Xiaobin He & Carlos Shimizu, 2015. "The rise and fall of startups: Creation and destruction of revenue and jobs by young companies," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 40(1), pages 6-35, February.
    18. Masahiro Enomoto, 2018. "Effects of Corporate Governance on the Relationship between Accounting Quality and Trade Credit: Evidence from Japan," Discussion Paper Series DP2018-12, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Dec 2023.
    19. Ye, Dezhu & Ji, Wenjun & Sun, Nan, 2025. "Corporate diversification strategies and bankruptcy risk: A re-examination based on COVID-19," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    20. Knyazeva, Anzhela & Knyazeva, Diana, 2012. "Does being your bank’s neighbor matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1194-1209.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • F65 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Finance
    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:82:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325008190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.