IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v86y2025ipds1544612325018872.html

Industry-finance collaboration and corporate financialization: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Shumin
  • Wang, Shihao
  • Guo, Juanjuan
  • Li, Zhen

Abstract

We regard China’s industry-finance collaboration pilot policy (IFC) as an exogenous shock and employ a difference-in-differences (DID) design to investigate the impact of IFC policy on corporate financialization. Our findings show that the IFC significantly reduces firms’ explicit financial asset investments, accounting for 3.66% of the sample mean and 5.94% of the standard deviation—with no significant effects on shadow banking-related implicit financial assets. Heterogeneity analysis reveals stronger negative effects for private firms and firms with close bank-firm relationships. Mechanism tests indicate the IFC curbs precautionary motives by alleviating financing constraints and reduces profit-seeking incentives through improved corporate governance and core business performance. Overall, we identify and investigate the differential impacts of IFC policy on explicit or implicit financial assets and provide new evidences into the micro-level consequences of IFC and financialization governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Shumin & Wang, Shihao & Guo, Juanjuan & Li, Zhen, 2025. "Industry-finance collaboration and corporate financialization: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PD).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:86:y:2025:i:pd:s1544612325018872
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.108633
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325018872
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.108633?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. Yang, Jiahui & Wang, Si & Xu, Lei, 2025. "Green finance innovation and corporate resilience: Evidence from China's reform zones," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Xiao, De & Xu, Xiaotian, 2025. "Financial agglomeration, financing costs, and corporate ESG performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Ahmed Mohamed Habib, 2024. "Financial Development and Corporate Governance Efficiency: An Overview of MENA," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Khaled Hussainey & Tamanna Dalwai (ed.), Handbook of Banking and Finance in the MENA Region, chapter 6, pages 147-169, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    5. Xu, Aiting & Dai, Yujie & Hu, Zhiyuan, 2025. "Green finance innovation and corporate resilience: Evidence from China's reform pilot zones," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(4).
    6. Demir, FIrat, 2009. "Financial liberalization, private investment and portfolio choice: Financialization of real sectors in emerging markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 314-324, March.
    7. Raj Chetty & Adam Looney & Kory Kroft, 2009. "Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1145-1177, September.
    8. Hahn, Katrin, 2019. "Innovation in times of financialization: Do future-oriented innovation strategies suffer? Examples from German industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 923-935.
    9. Chung-Hua Shen & Meng-Wen Wu & Ting-Hsuan Chen & Jiahua Wang, 2020. "How Does Shadow Bank Affect Bank Ranking in China?," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(3), pages 641-658, February.
    10. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 2008. "Theory of the firm: managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 48(2), April.
    11. Jiang, Guohua & Lee, Charles M.C. & Yue, Heng, 2010. "Tunneling through intercorporate loans: The China experience," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 1-20, October.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1777-1804 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. James S. Ang & Rebel A. Cole & James Wuh Lin, 2000. "Agency Costs and Ownership Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 81-106, February.
    14. Ding, Sai & Guariglia, Alessandra & Knight, John, 2013. "Investment and financing constraints in China: Does working capital management make a difference?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1490-1507.
    15. Riccardo Pariboni & Walter Paternesi Meloni & Pasquale Tridico, 2020. "When Melius Abundare Is No Longer True: Excessive Financialization and Inequality as Drivers of Stagnation," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 216-242, April.
    16. Liu, Xing & Liu, Fengzhong, 2022. "Environmental regulation and corporate financial asset allocation: A natural experiment from the new environmental protection law in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    17. Le Yan & Wei Li & Shizheng Tan & Xiaoguang Liu, 2025. "The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Green Innovation Resilience: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-24, December.
    18. Hyunseob Kim & Howard Kung, 2017. "The Asset Redeployability Channel: How Uncertainty Affects Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 245-280.
    19. Xiaofang Tan & Yunshan Dong & Tongyu Fang, 2022. "Bank Competition, Combination of Industry and Finance, and Enterprise Innovation: Evidence from China," Complexity, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2022(1).
    20. Ricardo Barradas, 2017. "Financialisation and Real Investment in the European Union: Beneficial or Prejudicial Effects?," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 376-413, July.
    21. Zhu, Keda & Guo, Lihong, 2024. "Financial technology, inclusive finance and bank performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    22. Leila Davis, 2018. "Financialization, Shareholder Orientation and the Cash Holdings of US Corporations," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 1-27, January.
    23. Wang, Hongjian & Luo, Tianpei & Tian, Gary Gang & Yan, Huanmin, 2020. "How does bank ownership affect firm investment? Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    24. Xiaofang Tan & Yunshan Dong & Tongyu Fang & Mariya Gubareva, 2022. "Bank Competition, Combination of Industry and Finance, and Enterprise Innovation: Evidence from China," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2022, pages 1-18, April.
    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. Xu, Yanan & Feng, Zhuzhu & Troise, Ciro, 2026. "Industry-finance cooperation and digital innovation: evidence from China’s pilot city policy," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).

    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. Ke Guo & Xuemeng Guo & Jun Zhang, 2023. "Financial asset allocation duality and enterprise upgrading: empirical evidence from the Chinese A-share market," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Zhong, Tingyong & Duan, Ying & Ding, Zhiguo, 2024. "How bankruptcy system innovation affects firm investment behavior: A quasi-natural experiment based on the establishment of bankruptcy courts in China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    3. Fu, Xiaoxia & Wang, Shanshan & Jia, Jia, 2024. "Equity incentives and dynamic adjustments to corporate financialization: Evidence from Chinese A-share listed companies," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 948-966.
    4. Feng, Yumei & Pan, Yuying & Ho, Kung-Cheng & Liu, Guanchun, 2023. "Corporate governance of weak stakeholders: Minority investors and investment efficiency," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    5. Tang, Huoqing & Zhang, Chengsi, 2019. "Investment risk, return gap, and financialization of non-listed non-financial firms in China⁎," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    6. Chen, Lirong & Long, Yuxuan & Tang, Xuemei & Wang, Jiani, 2025. "Can accounts receivable factoring restrain corporate financialization? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. Lin, Ling & Xiao, Min & Yao, Rongrong & Zhang, Xiaoying, 2024. "Product market liberalization and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Liu, Xiangsheng & Lv, Lingli, 2023. "The effect of China's low carbon city pilot policy on corporate financialization," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Duong, Huu Nhan & Khalifa, Mariem & Sheikhbahaei, Ali & Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu, 2024. "Corporate noncompliance: Do corporate violations affect bank loan contracting?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    10. Cao, Ning & McGuinness, Paul B. & Xi, Chao, 2024. "Majority-of-the-minority shareholder votes and investment efficiency," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Michael Ryngaert & Shawn Thomas, 2012. "Not All Related Party Transactions (RPTs) Are the Same: Ex Ante Versus Ex Post RPTs," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 50(3), pages 845-882, June.
    12. Li, Wentao & Wang, Xiaoke & Yu, Lisheng, 2024. "Executive pay restrictions, political promotion, and firm efficiency: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    13. Qi, Minhao & Liu, Yuxin & Hu, Changlong & Yang, Zhijiu, 2024. "The unintended consequence of environmental centralization: Evidence from firm financialization," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    14. Dan Yang & Linyin Cheng & Guojun Wang & Yuetang Wang & Lu Zhang, 2020. "Investor protection and cost of debt: Evidence from dividend commitment in firm bylaws," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 294-308, September.
    15. Xu, Nianhang & Chen, Qinyuan & Xu, Yan & Chan, Kam C., 2016. "Political uncertainty and cash holdings: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 276-295.
    16. Wang, Di & Liu, Guangqiang & Xie, Linlin, 2023. "Can compulsory liability insurance reduce agency costs? Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Shao, Yanmin & Xu, Kunliang & Shan, Yuan George, 2024. "Leveraging corporate digitalization for green technology innovation: The mediating role of resource endowments," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    18. Liu, Haiming & Hu, Jikong, 2024. "The impact of bank fintech on corporate debt default," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    19. Li, Mengzhe & Lan, Fei, 2022. "Former CEO directors and cash holdings," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 320-334.
    20. Chen, Xiao & Dai, Narisa Tianjing & Liu, Ming & So, Raymond H.Y. & Tan, Zhiyuan Simon, 2025. "Can government policies tackle maturity mismatches? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:86:y:2025:i:pd:s1544612325018872. 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.